Appliqué/Embroidery Hoopless Finish

While on retreat with Central Florida MQG a couple weeks ago, I worked on and finished stitching "Dream Flower Posy", a design by Jo Avery from the February issue of Homespun magazine.

If you're looking for the pattern, I suggest checking your local library. I was surprised to find an E-publication of that magazine issue available through the Cloud Library app on my phone! So, this was a free pattern!

Anyway, since I'd enlarged the design by 20 percent, the piece ended up needing to be finished in an 11" hoop. After checking online and not finding a hoop that size, I admonished myself to "Put on your thinking cap and figure out something you can use that you already have." I'm so glad I pushed myself to do that!

Knowing I'd need something to reinforce and stiffen the embroidery, I went through my bin of fusibles and found a folded-up piece of Peltex (fusible on one side) a stiff Pellon product usually used in bag-making.

With my 11" round acrylic ruler handy (owning a set of Quilter's Rule Nested Rulers - I sure didn't pay this much! - has proven invaluable) it was easy to draw an 11" circle on the Peltex - twice. I used the 11½" side of the ruler to mark the embroidery circle and a fussy-cut circle of Anna Maria print I had on hand (from a fat quarter bundle I'd won at QuiltCon in 2023). I then ironed to fuse a Peltex circle to the back of each piece.

With my sewing machine set to basting stitch length, I sewed along the edge of each circle. Then I drew up the bobbin thread so the edges were taut against the Peltex, and tied knots. 

I clipped the two circles together, put edge stitch foot #10D on my Bernina, and picked utility stitch #19 - set at mirror image - to zig-zag with a straight edge, around the circles. 

I'm delighted with how it turned out - a hoopless finish with a pretty edge stitch.

The hanging loop is a fabric bundle tie from a long-ago MassDrop purchase. (Gosh, I miss that company.) MassDrop is printed on one side of the tape, but I folded the tape in half and edge-stitched to keep the printing on the inside.

See? Being creative.

I like the Anna Maria fabric for the back because I can't imagine I'd ever use such a print in anything else.  

I want to thank my Florida friend, Nancy, for her unique suggestion to finish this piece to hang from the ceiling! I sure didn't think of that! 

So here's my sewing room ceiling. A clear Command hook, and voilà! Linda

Retreat Time

It's been a hot minute since I've written a blog post! Well, eight days to be exact. That's not typical for me, but I've been on the go. 

Does this look familiar to anyone? Yep. It was my ready-to-take-on-quilt-retreat pile.

With 14 good friends from Central Florida MQG, I went to Luther Springs in Hawthorne, Florida for our annual retreat.

The retreat was four days and three nights, and marked 12 years of our chapter retreating (except for 2020) to Luther Springs. It's a great facility, started by the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) for campers (kids and families) that has become a favorite spot for quilters. Rooms are private or shared,  and good food is prepared by Miss Sarah who has run the place since we started going there in 2014.

Each year I coordinate our group photo-taking. We can be serious, but we sure have fun too! This year our fun picture was of each of us "pumping iron." Ha, ha.

I don't have many finishes, but I feel good about what I accomplished. 

Many triangles went with me that I spent hours sewing into half-square triangles (HSTs), pressing and trimming. These are off-cuts from several years of saving triangles from other projects, so sizes aren't consistent.

The top right six piles have more than 200 HSTs measuring 2¼" X 2¼".  I also have more than 100 2" X 2" HSTs (four piles on the top left side). A few other sizes are there too. Once I cut and sew solid triangles to the print triangles (lower right) I'll see about putting all of these into one quilt top.

I finished hand-appliquéing and then embroidering a Jo Avery design that was in the February issue of Homespun magazine. I had admired the design when Jo shared it on Instagram.

Design by Jo Avery

When I found I could access to our public library's digital issue of Homespun, I was all over printing-out appliqué pieces. Like Jo, I used some Fableism woven fabric and embroidered with 12-weight Aurifil wool using a "Jo Avery Sampler Pack" purchased at QuiltCon. I'm not sure how I'll finish this piece. Hooping would be easy, but where to hang it? 

Otherwise, I spent my time finishing Cipher, my paint chip challenge quilt. I did most of the big stitch hand quilting while on retreat, using-up almost one ball of size 8 Spagetti (Wonderfil) perle cotton. On Tuesday I was able to share my finished quilt at Big Cypress Quilters when we had our challenge reveal.

The finished 55¼" X 67" Cipher quilt looks quite a bit different than the quilt top! Slashing through the design nine times, then resewing to join seams differently, made quite a change.

A couple evenings of at-home knitting and I've finished another round loom knitted Tiny Doll. I just love this aqua color that a friend gave me to use for dolls. The pillow the doll is posed on is another Jo Avery design I made.

I've continued to work on the seed stitch poncho that is a little more than half-way knitted on fairly large - size 11 (8mm) circular needles.

I've come to realize that it's good practice for me to knit one side then turn and purl the other side, as I continue to try to perfect knitting the Continental method. This How to Knit Faster: Speed Knitting for Beginners Continental Style Youtube video by Chandi of Expression Fiber Arts was very helpful! My aim is to get comfortable enough to knit a couple summer tops. 

An update on Twistee Treat, the ice cream shop I'm still waiting to see open near me. This was on Instagram, so.... soon!

Linda

Variety!

I have been inattentive to my blog.

Time has gotten away as commitments have dominated my life. This past week I had three medical appointments, work began on changing our screened-in lanai to an enclosed space, and I attended my regular activities. 

With limited bursts of time for working on one thing, I found myself project-hopping.

A lot!

I started knitting another Cupcake Skirt Doll on the 24-peg round loom. 

I did a little diamond painting. (No, I haven't yet begun trying to correct the Ocean sunrise painting. See last blog post.)

Made small progress on hand-piecing Inner City.

I crocheted more 4½" medallions, and need 15 more to begin assembling my Crochet Lacy Motif Top. 

In fits and starts I completed sewing a jumper like those being made by some of the young girls in our local 4-H Club. I'll be wearing mine to the November club meeting. 

This is McCall's 7831 in a size 12. Before sewing, I hand-embroidered a pocket design using a pattern from my digital copy of Aneela Hoey's book Stitch and Sew.

At the September 4-H Club meeting, two women came from the Junk Journaling Club to teach the kids how to make a book. After making the book, the kids were to use it to take notes and write about their experience sewing their garments.

Anyway, as I assisted the kids making their books, I was fascinated by the project.

"Squirrel!"

This week, after a medical appointment, I stopped at Michaels to buy 12" X 12" cardstock with which to make my own book. Unable to find a two-sided print design, I opted for a single color. 

It was fun to be creative! Once I'd folded and made the book cover, I used a scalloped-edge rotary cutting blade to cut fabric scraps to arrange and glue to the front and back covers. I like that the cover interior has two pockets.

At left: The interior "signature" (pages) is an assortment of what I could come up with here at home - a combination of construction paper, different sizes of graph paper, transparency paper, and printer paper for a total of 10 pages that I trimmed and folded to sew into the book. 

At right: Pages are hand-sewn with pearl cotton along the ¼"-wide spine.

Instructions to make a 12" X 12" Quick Journal are in this YouTube video. I'm already using my book to record my morning devotions, and plan to make another book soon.

As fun as these are to create, I am reminded of why I've never allowed myself to try scrapbooking or card-making. I'd be hooked!

Lastely, I completed the Filmstrip Quilt. In an upcoming blog post, I will share a complete tutorial of how I made it.

As of today, I have yet to begin making eight Posh Penelope blocks for October.  

My to-do list is definitely full of variety. Linda

Cedar Key, and Making

It's not like me to go a week in between blog posts, but we were away from home for a few days, on a mid-week get-away. It's especially good to go on these during the off-season - no extra winter tourists or snowbirds. So, we pick a place and head that direction without even making overnight (or two) reservations.

This week we went to Cedar Key, an island on the Gulf side of Florida that was hit by Hurricane Idalia last August. Even ten months after the storm, not everything has been restored. A few restaurants and shops haven't yet reopened. A few rental houses, townhomes and motels sit unrestored,

A couple docks haven't yet been (or maybe will never be?) rebuilt. 

Cedar Key is small and quaint with most of the main street buildings (back and up from the waterfront) built in the 1880s. The best modes of transportation are by foot, bicycle, or electric golf cart which usually comes with a rental.

a wind-surfer

We stayed on the second floor of a two-story townhome on stilts (about 40-feet above sea level), right on the Gulf front - Daughtry Bay - with a wonderful 200-degree view of the ocean and outlying islands. My phone captured this panoramic view, though the picture is an illusion. It seems like the view bowed away,  outward from us. In fact we were "outward" and our panoramic view went over our left and right shoulders.

We watched fishing boats come and go; leaping bottlenose dolphins, and mullets; and enjoyed some great seafood - clam chowder (the area is known for clamming), and the best fish (haddock) and chips I've ever eaten. Not being much of a seafood-lover, that's saying a lot!

Even on a cloudy day, the sunset was lovely. 

Before our get-away, some of the sewing I accomplished was to begin making blocks for Amy Friend's (duringquiettime) Bibliography quilt, a pattern of 12" blocks made with selvedges surrounded by a foundation paper-pieced frame. 

Painter's Palette French Blue is my background fabric of choice. I'm six blocks in now, and plan to make 42 blocks. I surely have enough selvedges to accomplish that... and then some!

I also finished chicken scratch - hand-embroidery stitched on checked fabric - on the linen bodice and sleeves of the "Irina" dress I'm sewing along with Bernina. The Irina dress pattern was free during the month of May. We're on week four of the sew along (I've just sewn pockets to the skirt) and expect to finish in a total of eight weeks, by July 22.

I'm still reading the print book Ringling: The Florida Years, 1911-1936, and am about half-way through. John Ringling's character, as a circus man (Ringling Bros. Circus) and business man (oil, ranching, property development) and the mark he made on Florida (Sarasota in particular) is most interesting. Did you know he was born in McGregor, Iowa?

I also listened to two more audiobooks.

Book Recommendations

The Cutting Season by Attica Locke takes place in present day Louisiana at a plantation, Belle Vie. It's surely a made-up place, but descriptively almost matches Oak Alley Plantation where our daughter was married - right there in front of the house, on the brick path under the canopy of trees.

Even the book cover picture looks like Oak Alley.

Caren is a single mother, living at Belle Vie where generations of her family slaved and worked. Now she's managing the place and is responsible for making it a profitable venue as an educational site for school children, and a beautiful location for conferences and weddings serving delicious Southern food.

A woman's body is found along Belle Vie's fence line that abuts a sugar cane farm. Questions are asked. Where was each Belle Vie staff person at the time of the woman's death? A local detective is particularly interested in the whereabouts of each actor who performs a drama depicting Civil War era life on the plantation. When Caren's former partner shows up, ready to allay concerns about their daughter's strange response to blood found on her school uniform, he, now a lawyer, becomes embroiled in the situation. 

For several reasons, Caren suspects the killer is a young man she knows, but she's determine to think the best of him, and find out what really happened. The more she uncovers, the more she realizes that stories she's been told about her ancestors have not been truthfully revealed.  Linda's score: 4.3/5.0

Twist of Fate by D.L Mark is a story that's a little bit demonic, a little bit overzealous religion, and a little bit drug-induced hallucinations. 

Claudine is a self-made, successful communications expert living in London, removed from the odd, psychotic lifestyle of her highly intelligent brother, Jethro. Our of the blue, Jethro comes to Claudine's place of work, urgently talking and making no sense to Claudine. When Jethro is attacked by a madman, right in front of Claudine, she forces herself to return to their home in the marshes to search Jethro's effects, and try to make sense of what she witnessed. 

What she finds appalls her. Yet meeting Jethro's care-giver, Peg, somewhat assuages Claudine's guilt, and makes her feel vulnerable too. Stories arise about Jethro's activities, and how his fervent beliefs about God and the "disciples" he influenced, triggered actions that were anything but "Godly."

This book was far-fetched enough that it wasn't enjoyable. One of the characters wanted everyone to understand that belief in Jesus was intentionally induced by feeding particular hallucinogenic herbs/drugs to congregants in the early church. Sheesh. Linda's score: 3.7/5.0

One more interesting bit about our townhouse at Cedar Key... 

Seeing this on the dining table made me exclaim, "Kantha!" when I walked in the door. But then I flipped it over to realize the stitching doesn't go through the piece. So is this a manufactured table runner? Or a piece of Kantha that, after the fact, was sewn into a table runner? The hand stitching sure looked genuine. 

Linda

Other Things

Back to a few more things in my sewing room... 

I continue to pick up Glitter blocks (a pattern in Jen Kingwell's book Quilt Lovely) to hand stitch whenever I have a few moments to sit. I can be especially productive while talking on the phone! I've now pieced 108 blocks of the 152 blocks needed to make a quilt that's 67" X 73". I'm getting my hopes up about this being a possible 2024 finish. 

In June 2023, I finished embroidering this "Milky Way" Dropcloth Sampler. The unfinished sampler is not only printed with the embroidery design, but it also has a color washed background. I embroidered with Wonderfil size 8 perle cotton. It wasn't until last week, when a Big Cypress Quilters member came to our weekly meeting with a few embroidery hoops to give away, that I was motivated to finish it. 

I cut the selvage off yardage of Painter's Palette Pale Aqua, and used it to wrap the outside ring of the 6" wooden embroidery hoop. Then I hand basted around the stitchery to draw it into a ring, and trimmed the fabric edges with pinking shears. 

In the same manner, I cut a 6" circle of cardboard and a circle of fabric, hand-basted and drew-up the fabric around the cardboard. 

The fabric-covered cardboard is glued to the back of the hoop, It dried good and flat under a heavy fabric bin. 

I already had the hoop prop which came from The Craft Table Orlando, so it wasn't long until the finished piece was set on top of my fabric bin cabinet, alongside my Lego sewing machines. I like it. 

Book Recommendations

For much too long, posting about QuiltCon instead, I put off reviewing audiobooks I've been listening to. So, here's a catch-up of the last four books I read.

The September House by Carissa Orlando is about a retired couple who finally find the Victorian home of their dreams. It's up-to-date and at an affordable price that's difficult to believe. Hal and Margaret soon begin to understand why no one lives in the house for long. It's haunted.

Margaret comes to anticipate blood flowing down the walls from the bedrooms and down the stairs. She expects the former inhabitants to not only keep house, but show up in other ways - trying to strike a match to burn down the house; to bite her; and to keep both Margaret and Hal out of the basement.

Having had enough, Hal leaves. Months later, Margaret doesn't know where he is, and their daughter, Katherine, is determined to come for a visit (for the first time), and find him. Now Margaret has to get the ghosts to behave, and not reveal the house's secrets. 

This story is entirely unbelievable. It sort of wanted to be light-hearted, yet it also wanted to spew blood and gore like a horror story. Neither effort settled well with me.

Linda's score: 3.4/5.0

After The September House, I thought I was listening to another haunted house book when I started The Housekeeper by Valerie Keogh.

This story focuses on a large vacant estate home in England that has been neglected for years. For Cassie, recently of London, it's the perfect place to invest a recent influx of money. She plans to update the home with ensuite bathrooms in each bedroom, open the kitchen by removing tiny storage rooms that block the light, tame the overgrown grounds, and end up with a lovely countryside bed and breakfast.

Yet even though the electrical system has been replaced, and Cassie has verified that everything is in working order, the lights strangely go out when she's alone in the house at night. Accidents happen - she trips on a rock and realizes she's fallen on a gravestone; a floorboard has been intentionally sawed, and Cassie falls through. And there's the sudden eerie feeling she gets when she's in the dark kitchen, and thinks about those little storage rooms in the back. 

Yet Cassie is determined that nothing will chase her from the house. She befriends an elderly woman who shares some of the house's history with her. And the man she's hired to overhaul the house is more than friendly and accommodating.  

Linda's score: 4.0/5.0

The Librarian of Burned Books by Breanna LaBuskes is a story that spans two World Wars, taking place in Germany in 1933 at the beginning of Hitler's chancellorship; in Paris in 1936; and in New York City in 1944 as WWII has begun.

Three women each have a key role in the telling: 1) Althea, an author who's invited to Germany by Goebbels. She changes her opinions about Hitler after experiencing the harshness of the Reich, discovering herself in the process; 2) Hannah, a beautiful, wealthy woman who, with her brother, follow their beliefs. She ends up in New York City, maintaining a library of banned books; and 3) Vivian who, since the death of her husband in the war, is instrumental in provide paperback books to servicemen, in spite of political intervention by her senate nemesis, Howard Taft.

No doubt, much of the history around this fictional story is true, but that's it's only redeeming quality.

Linda's score: 3.5/4.0

The Teacher by Frieda McFadden, is another of her engaging stories, this time about a married couple who are high school teachers. Nate is drop-dead handsome, a charismatic English teacher whose female students are in love with him. Eve is a plain no-nonsense math teacher with a fetish for four-inch stiletto shoes. 

This school year, 11th-grader Addie in each of their classes. She's the girl who, the previous school year, spent alone time with a well-meaning, affable teacher who was forced to leave his position because of Addie. Eve resents that this teacher, who was her friend and mentor. is gone because of Addie. Nate just wants to help Addie, and sees a special talent in the poetry she writes. 

Eve is trying to keep their marriage alive, in spite of Nate's increasing neglect. She finds solace in her shoes, and a shoe salesman. Nate is trying to help Addie who went through the death of her alcoholic dad, and is now alone and friendless.

I like Ms. McFadden's skill in weaving a story. I didn't see what was coming, and especially the "gotcha" in the last chapter. What I learned when I listened to the author's note (at the end) was that her own mother never "gets" those "gotcha" bits!

Linda's score: 4.2/5.0

I know I said in my last post that I was done sharing QuiltCon stuff, but then I came across another on-line review of QuiltCon quilts. These are quilts made with Aurifil threads.

My Feelin' Groovy maximalism quilt is included!

As is my Polka Dots and Moonbeams, in the Super Scrappy Challenge category. It's heart-warming knowing others enjoy seeing the quilts I make. 

Linda