Wednesday, December 04, 2024

It's that time of the year again!

Hi and welcome! Ottawa has finally gotten some snow. Is it here to stay? Who knows, but it should last at least a few days. Just enough to get us thinking about snow tires, shovels and winter boots!⛄❄

Seasonal Stuff!

I'm not sure what's happening to my brain, but I seem to be on Squirrel alert! I think about something and oops, there I go! All that to say that I have new projects to share with you.

More embroidery on metal

After making the flower last week, I thought that it would be fun to make a little Christmas tree ornament. I made a template of a Christmas tree and embossed the pattern on two pieces of metal. I made the holes around the tree using what I had learned previously 😊.

First tree - my favourite

Second tree

Both embroidered trees, ready to be stitched together

The next step will be to add a star at the top of the first tree so that its shape will match the second one. I'll then very carefully cut about a ¼" from the embroidery. I was considering adding lace between the layers on the edges. I'm not sure if that will work. Eventually I have to stitch each treer, wrong sides together and add a little something to hang them.

Kawandi style stitching

I've been wanting to make another Kawandi style piece for a while. I got an attack of the Squirrel today and thought that I could make one for Christmas for my son and his fiancé. There is not way that I can do it all by hand before Christmas, so I've attached all of the pieces with the sewing machine. This made it so much easier. Now I'll start stitching it with various colours of perle cotton. There is nothing as relaxing as embroidering a running stitch.

A lovely Christmas Kawandi style mat ready to stitch

Back of the piece

An assortment of perle cotton for stitching

This is also my November Table Scraps Challenge. The colours were anything goes and the theme was a tree. There are some trees in there.

What I learned

I have to stop playing with squirrels! It's becoming ~~almost~~ obsessive!
I have so many projects that I want to work on. I thought that being retired would give me all this extra time, but somehow it's never enough.
I'm going to keep this short since I want lo link up to the November Table Scraps Challenge and I only have minutes to link up! It's OK, I came back to finish the post.
I did learn a few things while making the Christmas tree on metal. It turns out that fancy embroidery thread doesn't appreciate going through holes in metal! I wanted to use a red mouliné thread to decorate the tree. There was no way to get them through the holes! Instead, I used a red metallic rayon thread. I ended up putting the thread through the hole at the beginning, then going around the back stitches of the embroidered tree instead of the holes in the metal. It did let me go through the hole at the end to be secured!

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 509 of Free Motion Mavericks. Thanks so much for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Gail had two wonderful finishes this month. Here is her Jelly Roll Mystery Quilt, done with a strip set and background fabrics from Island Batik.

Gail's Jelly Roll Mystery Quilt

Gail quilted it on her domestic machine and used Silly Moon's Rocket and Beanie rulers.

Close-up of Gail's quilted Jelly Roll Mystery Quilt

Preeti, of Sew Preeti Quilts published a new pattern, Fireworks. It really is lovely!

Preeti's Fireworks pattern is now available

Close up of Preeti's Fireworks quilt

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts finished quilting her Calico Gold 3 Yd quilt. What lovely colours. Kat quilted it using free motion / ruler quilting with overlapping circles.