Embroidery Machine Fun

   I almost forgot to tell about the machine embroidery adventure I had last weekend.  I have a Brother PE770 Embroidery Machine that my daughter gave me as a birthday present in 2014.  It was supposed to be a machine we both would use but it lives at my house so I use it more.  I set it up and use it about 3 or 4 times a year for making hanging dishtowels, embroideries to add to tote bags or to frame, and monogrammed linen napkins, I would love to play with a multi-needle machine someday.
   Back in January I had an idea for dear daughter to make her Father some embroidered toilet paper for Father's Day.  Dear daughter picked the design and I purchased it.  We got together last Saturday to embroider toilet paper.

    I did a sample stitch out of the design on Friday night on a plain piece of white cotton fabric with stabilizer.  It worked great and took me about 40 minutes from set up to final stitch.

     On Saturday we had a few problems and the project took a lot longer than anticipated.  I don't think my machine is built to embroider toilet paper because when we tried to embroider on the toilet paper the machine jammed up and it would eat the toilet paper and the stabilizer.  

     We ended up with three designs stitched out on regular white muslin which dear daughter will wrap around toilet paper rolls.  The three designs took us almost 5 hours including an hour of that time taken to go to Walmart to get the fabric.

       It was a fun project and a real learning experience.  Dear daughter got a chance to really work with the machine up close for the first time since we have had it.

    Here is a picture of the design we stitched out.

Replacement Irish Chain

    I had to make a replacement Irish Chain for myself.  I invited a friend to come over and shop my quilts last month.  She fell in love with my favorite Irish Chain that I made with Tanya Whelan rose fabrics.

     This is the front of the original Irish Chain that I made for myself a few years ago.

This is the back.

  The original quilt was a little small but I loved the fabrics I used in it.  My friend took it home with my love and I tried to forget the quilt, but I knew I wouldn't be happy until I made a replacement.  Not a carbon copy but an Irish Chain using fabrics I love.  I used a green and pink floral for my nine patch blocks and the backing/binding fabric is a lovely light green with tiny bees all over it.  The fabrics are great and I even made the quilt a little larger than the original.  So my replacement Irish Chain is finished.

        I don't have any more quilts that I want to make, so I'm going to continue making string quilt blocks for more string quilts.  I have two big boxes with lots of scrap strips from my stash.   I make my tops with 49 blocks which I think make a good size top.  I make an additional 7 blocks to piece the backing.  So each quilts needs 56 string blocks.  I've been using full size paper towels which measure 10.4" x 11" which I cut down to 10" after I sew my strips on.  Using 10" blocks is so much fun for me.  I love the 7 block rows x 7 rows and this layout makes it easy to line up my backing fabric with the row of blocks in the center.  I line that row up with the fourth row of the top and that centers my back with my top really nicely.   The paper towel rolls have 96 sheets in them so I can  make almost two tops with one roll of paper towels.  While I'm making my string quilts, I'll be on the hunt for a great quilt pattern with some great fabric.

One more thing,

   I did some more paper piecing and made up this pretty block to decorate my front door in between specific holidays.  I used a fat quarter set that I won from Barbara at Cat Patches blog.  It was eight fat quarters of Junebug Fat Quarter Bundle by Dear Stella Fabrics. I used the free paper piecing pattern from Carol Doak.  If you go to Carol Doak's site and click on Free patterns and scroll down to this one which is the 11th picture, it's called "Introduction to Paper Piecing" and it's pretty simple, but I think it super pretty.  It looks great no matter what fabric you use.  I would love to make an entire quilt with these blocks.

The Return

     I've been too busy to blog the last five months but I have been crafting and trying new things so I'll try to do a little catch up here.

     I finished my Carpenter Star quilt with simple quilting and an equally simple backing.  This quilt is made up of 100 squares, I made the half square triangles with 8" squares.  I love it.

    I finished my colorful pinwheel quilt and did simple quilting with a pretty lavender back and binding.

   I also made a a third string quilt which I offered for sale to my two older brothers.  The oldest brother bought it and loves it.  I make 10" string blocks using full size paper towels which finish at 9.5" and I make the quilt 7 blocks by 7 rows.  They make great size lap quilts.

  I found a Youtube video on how to knit fingerless mitts and I made a pair for myself and for my daughter out of acrylic yarn.  Love these.

   I bought myself some pom pom makers and I had to crochet a hat to try them out.

    I used my embroidery machine and made some embroidered hanging dishtowels for my brothers for St. Patrick's Day.  I wanted to remind them of our Mom who was 100% Irish and she loved St. Patrick's Day.

    I just recently finished this basket weave quilt.  I took the pattern from this website.  I counted how many squares the blogger used of each color and I cut 6" squares of three different colors of fabric and put mine together.  Love this quilt.

   I made a country floral quilt that I absolutely love.  I bought 49 - 10" floral squares from an eBay seller, put them together and had a quilt top in no time.  I backed it with some simple floral fabric and did my usual grid and diagonal quilting.

    I made another scrappy top using 3" squares of fabric and I backed it with a fun zebra print.  Love this quilt as well.

    I've been wanting a spool pin doily for all of my sewing machines and I couldn't find any for sale so I made up my own pattern.  It took me three tries to find something really nice to make them with.  I tried yarn and number 10 crochet thread, but the yarn was too thick and the crochet thread was too thin.  I settled on embroidery thread.  I had a ton of of it and this was a good way to use it up.  I ended up crocheting a lot of these little doilies, it turned into a little obsession.  I did give some away but I still have a bunch that I want to use for a pillow cover.   Here is how I make my doilies. 

I used six strands of embroidery floss with a size 1 (2.35 mm) steel crochet hook.

Round 1: Chain 4, join with a slip stitch to the first chain to make a ring.

Round 2: Chain 3 (counts as a double crochet) and make 11 double crochets in the ring for a total of 12 stitches, join with a slip stitch to the third chain in the beginning chain 3.

Round 3: Chain 1, make a single crochet in the first stitch, chain 3 and single crochet in the same stitch(these are picot stitches), make a single crochet in the next stitch, chain 3 and single crochet in the same stitch, do this in each of the 12 stitches around, join with a slip stitch to the beginning 
chain 1.

Round 4: (Another round of picot stitches) Chain 1, make a single crochet in the first chain 3 space, chain 3 and single crochet in the chain 3 space, make a single crochet in the next chain 3 space, chain 3 and single crochet in the same chain 3 space, do this in each of the 12 chain 3 spaces around, join with a slip stitch to the beginning chain 1, cut yarn and weave in ends.

    Each doily takes about 15 minutes to make.  I also made up some two and three color versions as well that were fun to do.  

    I knitted a tea pot cozy for the tea pot I keep on my stove top.  Color stranded knitting is new to me and I had a good time trying this out.  The curly q decorations are crocheted.

   I crocheted a shawl using the free Frosted Layer Cake pattern.   Here is a link to the YouTube video on how to do it.  Youtube video on how to make frosted layer cake shawl.  It was a fun pattern and so simple.  

     I'm currently working on making a new Irish Chain quilt to replace this one that I recently gave away to a friend.  I can't make it exactly because the fabric is no longer available, but I'm making it similar.

  

Number Five. Another Finished Quilt Top.

   I have to say I love, love, love, love, love the Carpenter's Star Quilt pattern.  This quilt was so much fun to put together and I think the result is very pretty.

   I now have five quilt tops to be sandwiched, quilted, and bound.  I have the batting and I bought the backing fabric for four of them yesterday, so finishing five quilts is next on my sewing list.

 

Colorful Quilt Top

   I finished this colorful pinwheel quilt top today.  I love these colors.  This was a lot of fun to sew.