Thread Sketching On Place Mats

The quilt guild that I belong to, Calico Cutters, does a lot of 

community outreach projects.  It is one of the reasons that many of the women join our guild.  Our projects range from collecting and donating school supplies for Head Start to sewing and donating hats and scarves to the needy.  Sometimes we collect items, like canned goods and sometimes we sew items.  This month, we were asked to donate place mats for the Meals On Wheels program.

As much as I enjoy supporting our charitable projects, I just couldn't envision sewing place mats from scratch.  It would just be too time consuming.  I headed to the dollar store and picked up 2 different place mats.  One was hot pink with white polka dots.  

I planned to make these place mats special with a little of my own embellishing. My friend June is on vacation in Paris, and it made me think that the Eiffel Tower would be a fun theme.  I wanted to do this in a fast and fun way.  Threadsketching came to mind as a technique.  First I made a quick pencil sketch.

I used this sketch to make an outline.  With water soluble and easily tearable  staibilizer, I transfered the design to the place mat.

After free motion stitching aound this outline, I removed the stabilizer just by teaing it.  Then I filled in the rest of the structure.  And then I added the words.

I was thrilled.  For 20 minutes of my time, I was able to create a very cute and catchy place mat.  Actually, I made 3 of them.  

The next group of place mats were blue and I thought I would ty to make something that  was a little more manly.  Starting with the woven blue mats,

patriotism was my chosen theme.  After sewing a strip of fabric on the left side, I stitched the words, "Let feedom ring".  

These certainly turned out patriotic - but not as cute as the pink ones.  But I still think they will enliven the meals delivered by the Meals On Wheels clients.

While creating these placemats, it reminded me of when I bought my first Bernina and started quilting, almost 20 years ago.  Watching the demo of free motion writing on fabric bowled me over.  I thought it was so cool and I never thought I would be able to do it.  Well look what a little bit of practice can do for you!

****** And for those of you that have been sending good thoughts for my friend Kelly, who had  tree fall on the roof of her car - SHE IS HOME!!!!!  She is not paralyzed.  She will not need surgery.  She has a removeable collar, that she can take off to shower.  She is feeling house bound and is ready for some short road trips.  You go Kelly!!!

Catching Up

After spending the day at my son's house on Saturday, we returned to a neighborhood that was flooded with light.  Hip hip hooray!  Electricity, A/C, TV, internet.  All good, except... my friend, my guest blogger from last week, Kelly, had a tree fall during the storm onto the roof of her car.

She was driving.  It landed on her head.  It broke the vertebrae between her skull and her spine.  Ligaments were torn.  Her niece, in the passenger seat was untouched!  OMG.  But no paralysis.  I went to visit her today in the hospital.  She's flat on her back with a neck brace.  She's going to be fine.  Maybe a long recuperation, but as Kelly said "I may not be able to sew, but I can shop."  Spoken like a true fabric collector!  We're all there for you Kelly.  Everything seems to pale in comparison. 

I am happy to report that I have finished the 3 torah covers.  Before I share them with my blog readers, I want to present them to the temple.  I am very pleased with how they turned out.  The most stressful step for me was attaching the "skirt" to the top.  Happily,  it went very well. 

So now, after such a long term project, it's time to first clean my studio and then have a fun sewing day.  What do you do when you finish a quilt/project?  Leave me a comment to share.

Powerless in Pennsylvania

Between 3 and 4 PM on Thursday, a powerful windstorm followed by a huge downpour came through our area.  Trees fell onto powerlines.  Power was lost to 200,000 homes.  The storm lasted no more than 20 minutes.  It predominantly affected 2 counties in our area. Many people felt it was a tornado.  The weather people say no. 

We have no power.  We have no telephone.  We have no internet.  We have no A/C and it's in the nineties.  I know it could be worse, way worse.  Noone has lost their life.  A few houses have had trees fall on them.  We are not supposed to get our power back until Sunday night.  Some say Tuesday!  That will be 3, maybe 5 days, but it seems like forever.  I have been desperate enough to go to Panera for breakfast to jump on  their internet.  Today, I am hanging out at my son and DIL's house, enjoying their internet, A/C and TV.  (Yes, I 'm a TV lover.)

Floral Inspiration

Chanticleer is one of the best kept secrets.  It was a pharmaceutical executive's estate, located in Wayne,PA.  His son donated it to the township and now it is open to the public.  It is called a pleasure garden and that is certainly understandable.  Sprinkled among all the different flower beds, are beautiful handcrafted chairs, for you to sit and take in the beauty, rest, o chat with you companions.

Serene, calm and eye candy.

 A wonderland of big beautiful hydrangeas.

Handcrafted bench in the vegetable gaden.  Check out the carrot and asparagus legs and the celery arms.

A "Fred Flintstone" seat made enitirely of stone.

Can you see the sculpted head lying in
the grass?





What a beautiful place.

Happy Father's Day

We have a wonderful vacation  house on a small lake in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.  I spent a good part of each summer with my 2 boys there while they were growing up.  Their father would come up on the weekend.  It was a true Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn kind of childhood.  We all have such nice memories.  So much so that my oldest son got married on the lake last November.  We don't get there as much as we should these days, but I do make sure that my at quilt group manages to have a getway there at the end of each summer.

The dock is integral to much of the fun -  location of many meals and home to many hours of fishing.  After many winters of the lake freezing and thawing, the posts started leaning, taking the rest of the dock with it.

It was certainly difficult to balance your dinner on you lap without worrying about ending up in the lake.  Forget about those glasses of wine.   I would take the seat closest to the edge - just in case.


                                                                              So for Father's Day, my husband asked for a work weekend from our adult  boys, to fix the dock.  He had built the original dock about 15 years ago and he wanted to rebuild it so it would last another 15 years.  It turned out  to be a wonderful idea.  Level dock, happy husband, happy quilting friends, happy boys.

Tranquility again!

One other job was doing a little trimming of the spruce trees.  After hearing a bird squawking away, my one son noticed a birds nest.

Upon closer inspection, he saw a bunch of baby birds, that we guessed were robins, packed in like sardines, barely moving, very young.  The youngest I had ever seen.

Oh, how I love the mountains.

Knitting, One Project At A Time

I finished my fickle finger scarf.  Yipppeee!

This is what it looks like rolled up.  It looks very sculptural.  I like it.

Or rolled out:

I can't wait to wear it.  Too bad it is 80 degrees outside.

Unlike with quilting, I really felt I had to finish one knitting project before I started another.  I don't think I could stand another collection of UFOs.  So now I can start my self-fringing shawl.  I bought this hand dyed yarn at the Maryland Sheep & Wool festival in May.  I think it will be a lovely accessory when I lecture to quilt guilds.  It should go pretty fast.  The directions call for casting on 140 stitches with size 17 needles. 

Guest Blogger, Kelly Meanix

I have a very good friend, Kelly Meanix, that is a wonderful quilter.  She has a special eye for color.  At one time she was a Thimbleberries girl and then one day, she gave away all of her fabric and went in a completely different direction.  Now she uses the clearest, brightest fabrics that she can find.  She is so knowledgeable about the current fabric designers and cutting edge blogs.  I have invited her to write about her favorites.  Kelly - take it away.

Hi Cheryl thank you so much for inviting me to post to your blog. I must admit I am hooked on them and look forward to reading them every day. Here are a list of some of my favorites besides yours.

www.redpepperquilts.com

www.flossieteacakes.blogspot.com

www.cluckclucksew.com/ 

www.spoolsewing.com/blog/ 

www.filminthefridge.com/   

www.lovelylittlehandmades.blogspot.com/

CL:  Who is your favorite fabric designer?

KM:  I have many, I love Kaffe Fassett, Amy Butler, Heather Ross, Heather Bailey and Michael Miller Fabrics.

CL: I love Michael Miller also.  They sent me some free fabric for one of the projects in my book.

CL:  How do you find new blogs to look at?

KM:  I go to the ones I like then I check out their links and usually find similar blogs to the one I am looking at.

CL:  What draws you back to a blog more than one time?

KM: Lots of pictures and lots of quilts. I love to see the progress of projects they are working on. I like blogs that post 3 or 4 times a week.

CL: Does reading blogs give you ideas for projects?

KM: Yes it does and it also shows me the new fabrics that are out there that are not in my local quilt stores. I try to buy locally most of the time but occasionally I buy things on line.

 CL: Do you get motivated by reading blogs

KM: Yes I do. I see things that I never would have thought to try. Usually it is because of the fabrics they use. Like hexagons, I never had an interest until I saw them used in something other than Grandmother's Flower Garden with very contemporary fabrics. Blogs expose you to different people who do very different things, I love that!

CL:  Have you discovered a new tool/technique from cruising the blogs?

KM: Yes  I have found that I really like doing more improvisational blocks and again going back to the hexagons, English paper piecing. It is something I never had an interest in before I started surfing blogs. I think it has also given me the "courage" to do some things that other people may raise their eyebrows at.  Now I know there are other people out there that like what I like!

CL:  Tell me about the postcard challenge that you participated in - was that from a blog?

KM:The postcard challenge was from a blog. You signed up and they picked about 25 people to participate. Then it was closed (no one else could join). You made a post card for each person and they made one for you. It was sent through regular mail and we had a 2 month time limit to complete. Everyone except 1 person responded. I was so excited to get a new post card every couple of days for about a month. They came from all over the world which added to the excitement. There are many challenges like this all over Yahoo. Recently I participated in a pot holder swap here    http://stitchindye.blogspot.com/

CL: Do you only follow quilting blogs

KM: No I also follow some cooking blogs and home decorating blogs. The majority of them are quilting ones, like 99%!!.

KM: Cheryl thanks so much for inviting me to blog, I may just have to start my own.