You Go Girl!

About that Blanket Stitch

About that blanket stitch...

Thanks so much for all your comments and suggestions regarding the blanket stitch on the Posh Pillowcase. I tried almost all your suggestions. Here's my take:

Skip Stitch Blade: Ummm. No thanks. Some people love this blade. My insane battle with perfection would not allow me to embrace this blade. I did not like the holes it left in the pillowcase. In fact, I have a pillowcase that will never leave the house. It will probably be repurposed into wallets or some such thing.

Sharp Hook: See Skip Blade above. 

Single Length of Yarn (photo above): This was a viable option. The yarn did not tangle and was easy to pull through the fabric even when it was a long length. A single length of yarn also seems to provide an adequate foundation. I personally do not like the look of the single length as well as the doubled yarn.

So what is my new solution? Sew the blanket stitch with a shorter-length doubled yarn in two separate pieces. Start your stitch as you normally would in the "pocket" by the seam. Sew around to the other seam ending in the "pocket". Remove your needle. Thread the second piece of yarn. Join your second length of doubled yarn to the first. Continue around the pillow case and join to your original yarn. You end up with two knots instead of one. I'm okay with that. This is probably only make sense to those of you that have tried the tutorial. So sorry if you are reading and wondering.

Now if your head is hurting from reading my drivel and you've decided to NEVER EVER EVER try to make a Posh Pillowcase, I have good news. I just listed ten new pillowcase in the shop. Woo Hoo!

Happy day,

Cassie

 

Revelations of Quilt Girl

Tah Dah...

I finished the little purple quilt. It was not my first quilt, but it was the first quilt I've quilted on my sewing machine. In the process of creating this little slice of cuddly goodness, I had some revelations:

1. Picking the right combination of fabrics for a quilt is not as easy as it seems. Wow! My head was spinning.
2. The final quilt is a metamorphosis of the original vision. The fabric that was my inspiration piece didn't make it in to the final quilt. Weird.
3. Piecing a quilt together is the bomb. Love it.
4. Machine quilting is not for wimps. There is a reason people send their quilts out to be quilted on a long-arm machine. Quilting on my little Bernina made me want to throw my scissors, say naughty words, and poke needles in my eyes. I didn't do any of those things, just so you know.
5. Perfection is a cruel mistress. I thought I was out from under her hand. Turns out, I'm not. My quilting stitches are not consistent in length. Two of my quilting lines have a whoopie in them. There is one pucker on the back. Nobody else will notice. But I do. Drives me crazy. Makes me feel insecure. I don't want to be under the spell of perfectionism. I will continue to battle her. Tah-wan-da!!

There you have it. My profound revelations. I will definitely quilt again. Next time, though, I think I will send it out to be quilted. Or maybe I will have a go at hand quilting. Ooooh, I like that idea.

Happy day~

Cassie

PS--This would be my fourth post in November...just in case you were counting. :-)

Flirting

I am flirting a little bit with this whole quilting process. Not sure I am in love. Definitely not ready to go steady or get married. More later...

xoxo~

Cassie

A Happy Crappy Post

This is a happy crappy post.

First up... The Happy...

I made FIFTY of these little flowers in all sorts of happy colors. Forty seven went on gift bags for my church-y girl friends who went with me on the New Hope weekend retreat. Three little flowers were sent to the recycle bin for one reason or another. It was fun to see these little flowers adorning shirts, hats, bags, and scarfs during the weekend. Happy. Very, very, happy.

Now it's time for... The Crappy...

Once upon a time I had a nasty tooth. Nasty tooth got a root canal. After the root canal, said tooth had a steel post surgically implanted into it. After the surgery healed, a shiny new porcelain crown was cemented over all. Nasty tooth had been redeemed. The nasty reconstructed tooth was shiny, new, and lovely (and more than a little $$$$$). Glorious.

Fast forward a few years...

Root canal failed.

Infection set in.

Shiny tooth looks happy, but feels crappy.

No options but to remove shiny, lovely, procelain-crowned tooth.

Tooth came out yesterday. NOT fun.

NOT HAPPY. 

Crappy, in fact. Very, very crappy.

There you have it...The Happy and The Crappy.

I think I will now go ice my jaw and take a painkiller or two three.

Wallets of Different Kind

I had a custom order for a wallet to match this purse. Out came my fabric friends. I dove in, mixing and matching patterns galore. Oh, bliss and heaven. Piles and piles of fabric dancing around me. When I finally crawled out from under the mountain of fabric, I couldn't make just one wallet. No. I made three. I made one to match the purse and two others just because I was in love with the fabric combos. 

Here's the matching wallet, inside and out.

And here are the two that I couldn't resist stitching up. Introducing...

Who Gives a Hoot:

And, Little Miss Red:

I like to open these two wallets and find the little peek-a-boo friends inside. It tickles my fancy. 

The two peek-a-boo wallets are in the shop just in case they tickle your fancy, too.

Happy September,

Cassie

 

Coin Purse Line Up

 

I took a little break from my hook to stitch up some zippered coin purses for a friend's wedding. This project was fun, fun, fun. Fabulous felt, flowers, and floss. Mmm. Mmm. Mmmmmm. She only needed ten but I couldn't stop. I've fallen and I can't get up. I mean, I'm stitching and I can not stop. I put the four extra coin wallets in my store, just in case you can't live without one. 

I best go. There are 10 thirteen-year-olds, yes TEN, 4 boys (gasp!) and 6 girls in my back yard. They were saying something about starting a fire. Perhaps I should be out there.

Later friends,

Cassie

Brought to You by the Color Orange, the Letter H, and the Number One

Today's post is brought to you by the color orange, the letter H, and the number one. Brings me back to the days of Sesame Street. You?

One. One little orange onesie. This delicious orange onesie was dyed in my kitchen many moons ago and stored in a drawer for such an occasion as this. I put a little H on it for my new friend Hope. Hope's mommy used to babysit my girls when she was just a girl herself. My how time flies.

One. One Ruby Bloomer. I paired the little orange onesie with another set of Ruby Bloomers. I really do love this pattern. Since Hope is just a wee one I cut the pattern down by a generous inch on all sides. By doing so I made the bloomers so they would fit 0-6 months instead of 6-12 months.

One. One orange-a-rific Daylily. I like how the Ruby Bloomer and the delicious orange onesie look together, but no one does orange better than the Creator. Look at this Daylily. It's the most glorious color of orange. In real life, the color of this lovey defies description. Yes, it's orange, but it is sooo much more than that. Deep. Stunning. Affecting. It makes me do a little gasp when I look at it.

That's all for now,

Cassie

Elastic Thread. Yeah, Baby!

I've fallen hard for Heather Ross' Ruby Bloomer found in the Weekend Sewing book. Not only are the bloomers super cute and super easy, but they use one of my new favorite tricks...elastic thread on the bobbin. Elastic thread is another bit o' sewing magic. Right up there with the gathering foot and the invisible zipper. Seriously. Here's how it works. You wind the elastic thread on to the bobbin (by hand), slip the bobbin into your machine and sew as usual. After you are done with the seam, spray it with a little water and...MAGIC. A perfectly gathered stretchy leg hole. No casing. No threading elastic with a safety pin. No hassles. Blissful, really.

The top for this set was stitched with an old pattern I have in my collection. I used it on this top, too. Very cool and summery for baby during these warm months. Or it could be worn over leggings and a long sleeve shirt when cool months come upon us again.

Look who came to visit when I was trying to take a picture. This is one of the horses that lives in the pasture behind my house. When the girls were little they used to feed the horses apples from our tree. They would put the apple on a roasting stick from the fire pit and dangle it over the fence. The horses would eat the apple off the stick. Quite amusing. There hasn't been a lot of apple dangling lately. The girls seem to have bigger fish to fry. The horses are always hopeful, though. They come over when we are out in the yard, just in case. I try to give them a treat every so often. I figure that nobody likes to get the snub all the time. Not even a horse that belongs to the neighbor.

Something Fishy...

I had request for a beach bag with tropical fish on it. Sure. I can do that. I envisioned a stripe or a polka dot paired with some fabulous fabric with fanciful fish frolicking in the surf. Apparently, though, if you want to see tropical fish you need to go to the reef. Fabric with tropical fish does not seem to be the rage. Try as I might, I could not find a piece that suited my design aesthetic. I ended up rethinking the project. I hope it pleases.

On a different note, the sun has FINALLY decided to shine in Montana. Yay! I am enjoying a weekend full of family, fun, and fireworks. Wishing you the same. Except if you are a friend from distant shores, that fireworks thing might be kinda weird. So I'll just be wishing you a lovely weekend. :-) 

Jingle All The Way...

Jingle bells. Jingle bells. Jingle all the way.

I hope that little tune didn't cause any of you to feel a wee bit o' holiday panic. I wouldn't want that. And really, I'm not singing about Christmas jingle bells. The jingle bells I'm loving are in this little jingle ball.

I tried something new when I made this ball. I cut the pieces for the ball on the bias. I don't know if I came up with this idea myself or if I read it somewhere and stored the info in the recesses of my brain. Either way, it was an Einstein moment. If you cut your pieces on the bias, the ball will be round when you stuff it, not something that approximates round but looks more like a giant kiwi. Genius!

I stitched this little jingle ball for my new friend, Austin. He entered this world facing a host of challenges that most babies never know. He is fighting hard and doing things no one thought he would. He's a scrappy little boy. It will be a treat to watch his life unfold. 

That's all for now.

Have a glorious weekend --

Cassie

One more thing...In case you are wondering, there are 239 days until Christmas. Jingle all the way!