Yesterday.
I was too tired and bored. And I had a lot to do. I didn't know what to do first. And when I was just about to fall into the low spirit, a strong curiosity pushed me to the scraps box.
I forgot everything else and I started to piece a few of them and after a couple of hours, these four little coasters were done.
No stress, no thinking, no worries, nothing. Only playing. Pure playing.
I think, instinctively, my brain chose the best therapy.
When I finished them I was so happy and fresh!
Maybe the saying "One nail drives out another" is true, after all.
I have drawn the two dolls having in mind that they will become appliques: with simple shapes, minimum details and above all, not too small pieces.
At the same time, I was thinking about what kind of stitches I will use for securing the edges in an esthetic and functional way - they will be on usable objects and will be washed many times.
But then another problem came up: to use one color of thread or many? As you may see, I chose many. I kept the same thread in the bobbin (a simple thread I used for piecing), so I changed only the upper thread and the whole thing was not so time consuming. Yes, it is not the first time I broke the "use-the-same-quality/color-thread-on-both-places-of-your-sewing-machine" rule. Usually my sewing machine approves this.
I stitched first all requiring the same color of thread and then I moved to those needing another color, and so on.
Besides doll faces elements and names, I did all the other stitches having the quilt top on the batting and backing, as I wanted the dolls components to detach from the background.
For the faces and names I digitized the drawings and gave the stitching job to my embroidery machine. But I'm sure they give no problem even for a beginner in hand embroidery.
The patchwork part shows its simplest layouts: the green frames added to the central dolls panels and a few pieced patches for the two colors-prairie points.
The quilting includes the stitches of the appliqued dolls and the straight lines stitched throughout the frame. I used both the free motion foot (for the hair, hearts and background) and the walking foot.
While writing these things I realized that it is more complicated to describe in words than do "My dear doll" mix-of-techniques-project.
I keep working on this pattern.
Maybe someday somebody loving both embroidery and quilts will like to have it and make it.
This is a quick little quilt I made for a pillow top. I called it The Race.
I used the walking foot because I had to do echo quilting.
With a washable marker, I traced one curved line on one pillow diagonal. I stitched the first quilting line following that marking. Then I continued stitching parallel lines until I reached the quilt edge. I repeated for the second diagonal, the final quilting coming out from overlapping the two echo designs.
If you look better you can see my echo stitching lines are not parallel and the distances between them are not equal. For such geometric design, I'm sure The Quilt Police requires accuracy and precision. For a quilter, the perfect stitching is a goal after all.
Well....I'm not sure I will ever become that kind of perfect-quilting-girl because my patience is not so good.
But I'm sure my quilting will look, let's say "prettier" when I will manage to transfer the design from the printed paper onto the quilt top and stitch carefully following the markings. As long I will remember I had to do this only AFTER I already spray basted the sandwich, I will have to apply the same method described above and I will get the same approximate results.
P.S.
Is there anyone interested to test my new quilt pattern Urban Folk and proofread the text? English is not my native language and I know I make mistakes. A few things about Urban Folk layout: here, here, here.
Unfortunately I can't pay you, but you will receive for free the final version of the tested pattern.
Because I had sad experiences with a few so-called testers, I look forward to keeping in touch only with those of you willing to share with me the simple things I wrote here.
I started to make two pillows for two little sisters. Using machine embroidery, applique, patchwork and quilting in a single project might be a challenging work but I hope to pass smoothly through all of them.
Just a sneak peek for now:
I loooove short names! Imagine how it would be to have to write Alexandra or Isabella...
