sewtakeahike

trying my hand at applique

When V started her Sis Boom Pow! block gather group a month or so ago, I jumped at the chance to help make the blocks for the projects.  The only request she had was to use only the fabrics she sent (which was great with me, because I LOVE J. Paganelli fabrics!!  especially mary trellis, and the dance with me hexagons, and the claire blocks, and, and) and to hopefully do some sort of applique.

I've been wanting to try applique and had bought a few books about it 6 months or so ago, so I was excited to try it out.

I am so happy with how both blocks came out

I've documented my process here, here and here on the sis boom pow! blog if you'd like to know more!

~Penny
 
 

a little help from my friends { completed }

And here it is, quilted, bound, and currently in use by L-man.

A BIG thank-you to the women who participated in this swap with me, Sheree, Jacquie, Thimbleanna, Anna, Stacey, Lolly, Jenn, and Emily.  It warms my heart to look at this quilt and see bits of fabric from each of you!  Thank-you, each of you for being so generous with your scraps and the time it took to send scraps to the other women in the group.  You each have a special place in my heart for sure!

Ahem.

Ok, for the quilting, I free motion quilted everyone's names diagonally across the tops and bottoms of the color diamonds with little flowers in between.

and then through the middle of each block, I free motion quilted lines with little loopdy doo's every once in a while.

the back

For the binding, I used authentic by moda.  I thought it went well with the theme of quilting the names, and it looks great with the backing!

Thank-you everyone for your sweet comments and encouragement while I worked on this project, they kept me going!

~Penny

winners!

Just a quickie to announce the winners of the giveaways! The random number generator picked 20 and 82. 

The die cut pile goes to: #20 - Kern

and

the fabric pile goes to: #80 Patti Fawcett

Congratulations ladies!  Email me with your addresses and I'll get your prizes in the mail to you!

~Penny

the landing

Yep, you guessed it, the machine is fixed, the string quilt is done, and I'm one happy camper (I love that fabric by the way, LOL!)

And just for fun, would you look at my cat???  He carries his rubber duck around like a dog with a ball.  I caught him yesterday laying here (in the sink???) eyeing the duck.  He cracks me up!!

So yeah.  The shop owner was right.  It was the thread I was using!!  It was coats and clark trilobal poly embroidery thread (sorry coats, but you won't be gracing my machine again!, at least not the trilobal poly).  It was pulling super hard through the upper tension discs for some reason, causing my needle to bend and hit the stitch plate and eventually the needle would break, then my machine would get out of time when the needle hit repeatedly.  It was amazing the difference between the way Isacord pulls through the discs compared to the coats and clark.  Anyway, she found some Isacord in her shop that matched the coats perfectly, and then GAVE it to me after she had spent 2 1/2 hours looking at and tweeking my machine at no charge.  BUT THEN, she pulled a fast one on me.  She set the Bernina 830 up with the bsr foot and had me sit down for a spell.  Ahhhh, heaven!!  I texted L-man right then and there and told him my 730 was fixed.  There was just one problem.  That I NEED an 830.  He texted me back (IMMEDIATELY), this: "LOL"!!  I think that meant I was supposed to walk AWAAAAAY from the 830.  Which I did.  But man does that machine rock!!

Here's a sneeky peek of the string quilt, washed and crinkly.  I'm going to do a special post about it later though, there's so much to tell about this quilt!

Now, for those of you who stuck around and read all that, here's a bonus.  I'm having a "horay! my machine is fixed" giveaway!

just leave a comment telling me which you'd prefer:

the die cut pile:

which includes some die cuts of fabric flowers and the eiffel tower, and die cuts of some handmade paper I made a few years back besides the shown adapters and cutting pads for the sidekick and original sizzix machine

OR:

the fabric pile

which includes a fq of wee play, monkey'n around, and a few small swatches of heather ross pink dream bikes, lobsters and coke travelers

Please remember to tell me which you'd prefer in your comment and I'll leave the comments open till Wednesday evening, good luck!

~Penny
 
 p.s.  International entries are welcomed!
 
 

holding pattern

I'm almost done quilting my string quilt.  But after 6 broken needles, countless thread breakages, and some skipped stitches, I decided something was wrong.  Duh.  I'm a little dense sometimes.  Or maybe I just get in get-er-done mode and just trudge through no matter how many limbs I lose along the way. 

I took my machine in and they said it was fixed.  I brought it home and sewed 3 inches, and broke another needle.  Um, yeah.  I don't think it's fixed.  So now the shop thinks its something I'm doing.  Ok, I'm open.  Whatever it takes to get the problem fixed, right?  So I'm going in for a personal "watch over my shoulder to see what the heck "I'm doing" to break so many needles and all the other problems I'm having" with the shop owner tomorrow morning.  I'm kind of thinking though, they're gonna find it's a problem with the timing on my machine.  Just a wild and crazy guess!

So in the meantime, Houston, I have a problem.

I was happily stacking away, oblivious, until I turned around and took a second look.  Seriously, it wouldn't look this way if my machine wasn't broken.  Ok, maybe it would.

Have a great weekend!

~Penny