Embroidery Work

I enjoy embroidery work almost as much as I enjoy quilting. It's especially handy to take along for those trips to doctors waiting rooms, hospital visits, long car rides and kids piano lessons (which is where most of my hand work is done).  Every week my youngest (almost 19-not so young any more) has 45 minutes of piano lessons, giving me plenty of time to focus on some handwork. For the last month I've been working on a set of Patriotic Tea Towels and put the finishing touches on the last one this afternoon.

 

The pattern is Americana Celebration Tea Towels, from Bird Brain Designs. I like how they turned out....hoping they're as useful as they are pretty!


{{{HUGS}}}

Quick Thanksgiving Projects

In the midst of packing away the fall decorations and pulling out all the Christmas goodies, I want to share a couple of quick and easy Thanksgiving/Fall projects for next year.

First is an embroidered dish towel. I found a free download of the pattern here at Bird Brain Designs. I stitched this up on a tea towel while we were driving to Missouri (after finishing the binding on my mom's quilt) and gave it as a hostess gift to our sweet-as-pie Thanksgiving Hostess.

A quick embroidery tip I learned from a friend. When tracing the design onto the fabric use non-bleeding Pigma pens in the color you'll be using to stitch - or a color close to the thread you'll be using.

There are several advantages to using these pens; No need to continually retrace the lines, like when using a pencil, the ink blends with the thread - leaving no dark lines peeking out and unlike washable markers it doesn't disappear in the humidity. Though there is one disadvantage to be aware of and that is the need to trace carefully, but that's easily dealt with  by securing the design to the fabric, going slowly, and simply taking your time.

 The second project was inspired by this fall table runner. We absolutely fell in LOVE with the fabric, its rich colors are just gorgeous. Sadly for us the shop was completely sold out of this fabric, but thankfully they gave us the directions for it. I was hoping to find the directions online somewhere so I could share them with you but, sorry to say so far I haven't found what I'm looking for.

Mom is hiding back there behind the table runner.

After discovering this wonderful piece we headed off to our last quilt shop in the hopes of finding that same beautiful fabric. We were unsuccessful and yet successful in our search. We didn't find the fall fabric, but we did discover a collection of musical themed fabric that had the border fabric required. It was a great alternative!

Our alternative selection.

The next day while mom went to work baking pies for Thanksgiving, she put me to work making a table runner for her. After some serious contemplation of the directions, a quick trip to town to purchase a ruler I needed for the 60 degree angle on the triangles, and then cutting the triangles out upside down, it all came together nicely. Even used mom's machine to add some nice quilting stitches all over it. Mom did the final step of doing the blind hem stitch on the back to finish the binding. 

I really like how this turned out!

All my mistakes make it sound like a difficult project, but in reality it's actually a quick and easy project. Having all the right tools and carefully reading the directions before starting makes a huge difference.  I'll be putting together several more of these in the near future.

Completely by accident the piano on the back is actually centered.

 Put these easy projects in your memory file for next year and enjoy all your Christmas preparations!

The Lord's Grace & Peace to you,
Little Pink Rose
Marcia