Bowl Fillers from Vintage Hankies and Old Lace

Mom has been busy with her latest creations, Bowl Fillers!  This set of five heart shaped bowl fillers is made from vintage hankies and old lace:

And then mom made this set of bright Pastel Decor Bowl Fillers:

This set of 5 Bowl Fillers is made from coordinating fabrics that include hearts, flowers and cat! 

And now, rumor has it that mom is working on some bunnies!

Crazy Quilt Classes Lesson 4

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!  Lesson 4 of my Crazy Quilt Color and Composition Class is now available:

The theme is Flight Of The Bumblebee.  The colors are yellow, white and green.  The only specialty items needed is a small black button and a piece of lace with a defined pattern.

Tutorial for the Japanese Ribbon Stitch can be found here.

Lesson 5 will be released on April 30, 2013.

Silk Ribbon Embroidery Easy Rose Tutorial

For anyone who struggles with Silk Ribbon Embroidery roses, here is a very easy version that only requires 2 stitches.  First, the Japanese Ribbon Stitch and second a French Knot.

I used 7 MM ribbon in my example.  To make a Japanese ribbon stitch, bring your ribbon up through your fabric:

Next, put your needle back down into the fabric but pierce your ribbon so you're going through the ribbon and the fabric:

Pull your ribbon to the back of the fabric but be sure to keep the ribbon loose.  That's the key to Silk Ribbon Embroidery:

You'll need to do 4 of these next to each other:

This makes the base of the rose.  Next, add a single French Knot:

And that's all there is to it!

They make pretty roses on hanging vines as you can see in my example:

And here's the block that I'm working on:

I couldn't help myself, I had to add pink to this block!  I expect to have it finished up later today or tomorrow.

Yellow Crazy Quilt Hankie Pillow

Just a quick update on my Yellow Crazy Quilt Hankie Pillow.  I have the seams embroidered and am ready to start with some beading and other embellishments:

Look closely at the seam embroidery to the right of the yellow flower.  That's a woven border that I worked with my waste canvas technique!

Crazy Quilting with Vintage Handkerchiefs

My crazy quilt block with the vintage handkerchief that I shared yesterday is complete:

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, this is a gift for a friend.  Her favorite color these days is green so I wanted lots of green.  Look closely at the bird.  It's a peacock.  A vintage brooch that I've been saving for something special.  If all goes as planned, I'll get this sewn up over the weekend.

My next project incorporates another vintage hankie:

If you look closely, you can see that I don't obsess over my curved seams.  I just top stitch them and then sew trim and lace on those seams.

I'll be starting on this block later today.  The floral in the center is from a vintage hankie that I found at a flea market.  I thought this would be pretty with blue stitching.  Yellow and blue always look nice together!