little house in the woods

Here is the project I made for Allegory's hoop-la-la swap. I was going to wait until I received mine and blog about both at once, but if it's headed from overseas it could be a while yet and I'd like to post this fall-themed project before the snow hits!

My partner was Cori, who blogs over at Let's Eat Grandpa. She's an editor and a ninja and incredibly creative, go check her out (but come right back, or else!). I got started back when the leaves were just beginning to change color, which inspired me to pull this scrap piece of Fall Trees in terracotta, a Bella print by Windham Fabrics.

From there I grabbed a few scraps and some embroidery floss and posted this picture to the Flickr group for feedback. Cori said she loved my idea of a little house in the woods, which was good news because I had had my heart set on it by that point! I did raw-edge applique, attaching the pieces with a washable glue stick before stitching them down by machine.

I used fusible interfacing on all of the pieces, including the background, to lessen the transparency of the fabrics and to give it a more stable feel. There's also a layer of batting on the back. Then I added some bits of embroidery here and there just to pull it all together.

There's a liberated feel to it, what with the frayed edges and wonky stitching and all. I figured it would look fine in the end, and while there are trouble spots (think right there in the trunk between the bottom limbs on the tree to the right... ick!) I really love how it turned out.

I finished it off by hot-gluing some yellow duck cloth to the back and orange ric rac around the outside. Then I wrote on the back with one of those ink pens meant for fabric. Finding my hot glue gun was quite an ordeal, it hadn't been used in years and was in the very last place I looked (ha, isn't it always?!).

It actually hurt a little to part with this, I was very much in love with it by the time I was done! I actually entertained the thought of making another one for myself, but there isn't enough left of the tree fabric for me to do that, what a bummer. Here's hoping Cori finds a nice spot for it in her home, I'm sure she will!

I'm linking up with Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday, go have a look around!

pouch, pincushion and scrap swap - sent!

Hey there, look what I made! Kris of Duke Says Sew What and I decided to do a little pouch, pincushion and scrap swap and here's what I came up with.

For the pincushion I made another teeny tiny granny square, although this one is teenier still, those little squares measuring in at a half inch each and the overall cushion at 2.75 inches. Oh how I love tiny things! I've got one in the works for Nicole of Bold Goods (See? I haven't forgotten!) too, just as soon as I can stuff it and stitch it closed.

In my last post, I mentioned wanting to try raw-edge appliqué on my Hoop-la-la swap project. Having never done it before, I decided to Kris's pouch as a guinea pig, trying two different methods just to see what would happen.

I used geometric print quilting cottons and yellow duck cloth for both, but the one with the diagonal lines felt right to me at the time and was bigger, so I went forward with that one. Although I do plan on playing with the second version after I get my Hoop-la-la project done... which needs to happen tonight because the deadline for sendoff is tomorrow... eek!

I used cotton batting and washed and dried before construction so it would have that crinkled look. The dense, straight line quilting and frayed edges ended up creating a pretty nifty texture, I thought. You can't really get the full effect from these photos, which are a wee bit over-saturated. At any rate, I stuffed it with scraps from my bin, that black and white dot print in the first photo is what I used to line the thing, although I didn't seem to get any pictures of that before I mailed it off. Whoops!

Would it be fun if I started a Pouch, Pincushion and Scrap Swap group on Flickr? Would anyone be interested in joining in on such a thing? Maybe around ten-ish people, secret partners, rules and deadlines, etc. Small scale, nothing insanely complicated or time consuming. Could be fun I think. Let me know! EDIT: hitting the pause button on this until after the holidays, we all have way too much on our plates until then!

*I'm linking this post up with Amanda over at Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday! I finished my Hoop-la-la project today but won't be able to blog about it (crazy busy weekend ahead!) so while I would have liked to link that, I'll link this instead!*

Sent from my iPhone