Playing With My Embroidery Machine

            Last year, my dear daughter and I were walking through Hobby Lobby and she saw a towel with "Bake me a cake as fast as you can." embroidered on it.  I told her I could make that.  

            I finally finished that embroidery for her today.  She also asked me to embroider Mark it with a B.  She likes that because her last name starts with a B.  I put these on some gray fabric for her because she wants to frame both of them.

             I had to learn how to embroider these on my Brother PE770 embroidery machine.  I had never done proper phrases on the machine before and it's not very well explained in the instruction book, but I figured it out.  I had to do each line separately and I wrote down the adjustments so I would have them handy in case the embroidery went wrong and I had to start again.  The machine jammed up while I was doing a sample as my first try at this so I made my notes on the adjustments of each line in case the machine jammed up while it was going.   The second try went very smoothly and I was ready to make the final embroideries.  I will also use the adjustments to make a set of these embroideries for myself.  

The Grandmothers Flower Garden quilt is finished

I'm finished quilting the top last night and the binding was finished today.  I'm so glad this is done because I can't make myself have more than one quilt on the go and I want to make other quilts.  I have loads of scraps for string quilts and some charm squares set aside for another quilt.   

I took this picture outside hoping it would show the quilt colors better.  I was wrong.  I didn't do a great job picking my colors because they are the same bright tones, but I loved them when I got them and thought they would be an awesome combination.  They look cool, but it's hard to distinguish the pink from the orange in my pictures.

More pictures.

My Blue Jean Purse

  So I finally sewed up the blue jeans purse that I cut out from the legs of the blue jeans I bought to make my garden apron.  I found lots of youtube video tutorials on how to make a blue jeans purse.  I needed one that I could use my leg fabric and the one I found was perfect.  I love the shape of this one.

  Here is the link to the tutorial:  blue jeans purse.  The maker does not speak English so I watched it through to see if I could follow it.  The maker placed written notes in strategic places when they were making the pattern and after that it was easy to follow the video showing the cutting of the pieces and sewing up of the bag.  It's a 13 minutes video but it's really done very well.  It took me 3 hours to make the purse from making the pattern to the last stitch.  

   Here is my purse.  Blue jeans with navy blue gingham lining.  I love it.

  Next up I have to finish quilting my Grandmother Flower Garden quilt.

  I pulled out the fabric for my next quilt (purchased over a year ago) that I want to start.  I do that to give myself incentive to finish my current project.  I an incapable of working on more than one quilt at a time.  I will work on smaller projects while working on a quilt but I won't have more than one quilt on the go at one time.  I don't have the brain capacity for lots of quilt projects.

Garden Apron - Repurposing Old Blue Jeans

About a month ago my dear daughter asked me for some advice on making a garden apron from some old jeans she had cut up.  She wanted to gift the apron and she had cut the piece with the back pockets for the apron.  I told her I would use quilting cotton to make a lining with a pocket on the inside, bind the two pieces together and make a nice long tie threaded through the belt loops and securely fastened.

We made her garden apron using the piece of the pants she had cut and raiding my quilting cotton stash.  It turned out really cute and when I left her house that day I knew I wanted to make one for me. 

I had to go to Goodwill and buy a pair of jeans for this project.  I bought a big pair of men's jeans because I wanted my apron to be a nice size.  The jeans I found had some lovely embroidered omega symbols on the pockets and I couldn't resist the colors.  The back pockets originally had buttons or rivets but they had been ripped out, so instead of replacing the buttons, I layered two buttons on the flap and glued them on so it looks like the pockets button but the pockets will be easy to get in and out of.  I lined it with some fabric I had leftover, added a colorful pocket and made my binding and tie from fabric my daughter bought me to replace the fabric she used on her garden apron.

Here is my garden apron all done.  It took me about 3 and a half hours to make.  The jeans cost me $7.00.  This was a fun project and I love the result.

I'm making a purse from the legs of the jeans.  I have it cut out and all I have to do is sew it up.  I'll show that next time.  

Still haven't done much in the way of quilting my hexie quilt.  I'll probably start working on that over the holiday weekend.

Grandmother's Flower Garden Top Is Finished

Okay, I finished the seventh row this week, added the borders and sandwiched the top for quilting.  Here is a picture of the top with the gray borders.  Not a very good picture showing the colors.   It's currently draped over my cutting table waiting patiently as I do my version of hand quilting.  Once it's finished, I will take a picture outside in good light to show the colors properly.

Row 6 is done! Quick review of small tool.

I finished row 6 on my quilt top.  I have one more row to go.  Then I will applique this top to a grey border fabric.  I bought the border fabric almost 2 years ago so it's been very patiently waiting to be used.  Here is a picture of the 6 rows.  I'll be using the grey fabric for the backing fabric as well.

My quick review is of the cute flower threaders I bought last year.  I have been using the same threader for the last two rows of the quilt and it has held up very well.  The wire is sturdy but its not too big to fit in a small needle eye.  I bought the threaders from Amazon.  The link is here:   Flower threaders for sewing needles