Our local sewing club meets almost every month (even in summer!) and we usually work on a little project that familiarizes us with a new product--new to me anyway!--or technique.
This month, our project is mug rugs. These cute little gizmos have been around for a while and people are always trying out new ideas for this format. (It uses up stash, after all.) This month the ones we're working on are from Ms. Jacqueline Steves's blog a few years back. The project includes both piecing and applique for the top, plus quilting the little rectangle to keep it steady while in use and laundering.
I pulled a bunch of pinks, auditioned them, and settled on an assortment.
The heart shape was cut from the wonky pieced bit after the final color selections were made. A bit of interfacing/stabilizer was put in back of the piecing.
There was going to be quilting on the background fabric, so I tried out some of the more decorative stitches that came with my old Kenmore. Making a little sampler on similar fabric is always useful! Some of the cute decorative stitches just looked to hard to maneuver around the shape of the heart. The meandering bird-track at the left seemed like it was the thing for this project--at least for the quilting at the end. I went with the tried-and-true star pattern for the applique stitches.
By this time, even though it was still some weeks before our meeting, I was all pumped up and ready to go. I thought I'd try it out without the help of my sewing sisters, just to see how it went.
The heart was sewn down with a basting stitch on the background, then lavender fancy stitches were added to the edge to really secure it. The pieced rectangle on the left was sewn as a block of strips, then cut into 1.5-inch slices and the middle slice was flipped. (It probably wasn't what Ms. Steves did, but it seemed like a lot less trouble than sewing tons of 1.5-inch squares together in pairs, then joining pairs over and over. That many seams can get a little "off" on the squareness and result in a wonky block. There is enough wonky in the heart.) After the two parts of the top were joined, and of course pressed, the quilt sandwich was constructed. I quilted inside the heart in-the-ditch for stability. Then I switched to the green thread And did lines in the block "wall" and shorter lines around the heart, simulated vines on the pink.
It was fun. There is already another pair started and that one I'll wait to finish at our meeting. It's entirely possible there are tricks that my sisters know and I don't yet!
No comments:
Post a Comment