Monday, April 13, 2009

Miniature Quilt First Borders

Today I got started working on one of my miniature flower basket quilts again. I had originally planned to put a pieced ring around the basket using two green fabrics but did some rough figuring and decided I didn't have enough fabric to do that and piece an outer border with the same kind of points. The lack of enough fabric forced me to re-plan the setting for this basket block.

Decided to simplify the oval border and and make it from the two colors of the green fabrics. I cut the oval shapes from freezer paper, pressed them to the back of the two greens. Trimmed the seam allowances of two ovals down to 1/8" then used a glue stick to glue those seam allowances over the back of the freezer paper. Glued the two ovals together then positioned them over the basket block and glued them down.

I did the stitching on this double oval with clear polyester thread on top and DMC machine embroidery thread for the bobbin. I chose a neutral color for the bobbin thread to match the background fabric.

I selected the buttonhole stitch on the machine and my settings were .5 width and 1.0 length. I stitched around the inside first then the outside of the ring. At this point I cut a slit around the entire oval on the back to be able to access the freezer paper. Using a stiletto I loosened the glue on the tiny dark green ring and pulled that paper out.

Next I stitched the two rings together using the same stitch but this time I selected a dark gray for my bobbin thread. The reason I changed bobbin thread is that once in a while a bit shows on the right side and a dark gray will blend more with the green fabric and not be as noticeable.

When the stitching was finished I loosened the paper on the larger of the two rings and removed it. Just got this last part done so that is it for tonight. Stay tuned to see what's next.

Know this explanation makes no sense without step by step photos - maybe if I have time soon I can get a proper tutorial done on how I do this kind of machine applique, sometimes called Mock Hand Applique.

This afternoon I took a break from sewing for a few hours to take some photos for my friend that is starting Chemo Therapy on Wed. (She was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy a few weeks ago.) She has really long, thick hair and was going to cut it to shoulder length later today and wanted some photos of what she looked like before the hair cut. She donated the length she had cut off to Locks of Love.

We had a great time traipsing over the farm to find different locations to take a few photos. We got to giggling a few times during the process and agreed I was not a professional photographer and she wasn't a professional model but think we did well in combination.

Happy Quilting,
Lynn

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