Sew: A Needle Pulling Thread

“Doing your own thing” is a generous act. Being gifted creates obligations, which means you owe the world your best effort at the work you love. You too are a natural resource. –Barbara Sher

I've you're visiting from a linky party, welcome! This is sort of a hodgepodge of things I've been up to this week. Please scroll down to the hot pads, which are my finish for this week.

20 Stitches Per Inch
I usually sit with LadyBug when she does her homework. On the days when she just wants me there for moral support and doesn't need a ton of help, I work on an embroidery project of some sort. This year, she's had to do a book report each month. The genre is assigned, but she can choose her own book within that genre. Recently, she had to read a historical fiction book and we chose the first book in the American Girl series, Meet Felicity. Felicity is a bit of a tomboy and hates to sit indoors and practice her writing or sewing. Her mother scolds her about some sewing she was doing because she had to take it out. Felicity had not done 20 stitches per inch.

A few days ago at homework time as I was pulling out some embroidery floss and a needle, LadyBug asked me if I could do 20 stitches in an inch. I replied that I didn't know, but would give it a try. The bottom row is my first attempt. Not to be beaten by a needle and thread, I tried again. And again. And again. I was stuck on 15 stitches per inch for a while, until I realized that it wasn't so much stitching as it was weaving. Getting stitches that small is a matter of catching a few threads of the fabric in your needle. I finally made it to 20 stitches, but perfection it is not . As I worked to get just a few threads of the fabric in each stitch, I realized that I was only working with one layer of fabric. I couldn't imagine taking such small stitches through two layers of fabric to make a seam. Still, it was a fun experiment and made me glad that I only sew by hand for fun.

Police Chief Swan: Revisited
One of the things I worked on this week was adding a few finishing touches to a block for my Twilight quilt. The block itself has been pieced for quite a while {read about it here}, but I wasn't quite sure about what to include in the embroidered details. Eventually, I decided on a composite of the two official badges from Forks.

I marked the blocks quite a while ago, chose a pretty gold floss and started to embroider. About 4 stitches in, I realized that my thread did not stand out enough. I put it away. I got it back out this week, determined to get the embroidery done. I pulled out the stitches and tried a different color combination, which also did not work. I pulled out the stitches again and tried five more color combinations, all of the unsuccessful. 452 colors of DMC floss {all of which I have} and none of them worked . While the thread colors I was choosing were bright, they were the same tone as the silver Fairy Frost and once I started stitching, they blended in.

After trying so many color combinations {one of them twice} and then picking the stitches back out, LadyBug finally asked why I didn't just go with a different color. I explained that I wanted it to be gold, but realized that if I hadn't already found the perfect color, I wasn't going to. Resigned to using a blue that would match the fabric in the word “Police”, I put it back away and moved on to winding the last few skeins of floss onto bobbins. And there it was. A deep gold thread, which I thought might work. I added two strands of gold blending filament to give it a bit of shimmer, and voilá. I think the embroidery is just the right finish to this block.

Poultry in Motion: Hot Pads
For Christmas last year, I made a table runner with roosters for a family gift exchange. It was one of those exchanges where you steal gifts from each other in an effort to go home with the best gift. There was a bit of a kerfuffle over the rooster table runner, which is the point of these kinds of gift exchanges. There were four rooster panels and I only used three in the runner, so I decided to make a hot pad for the person who did not get the runner. She has chickens and roosters in her kitchen and I thought it might be fun.

The hot pad turned out rather larger than I expected, so I made a panel to go across the back so that you could slide your hand in and use it more like an oven mitt. At first I was going to just do two layers of fabric for the back pocket, with a small panel from a different print in the fabric line, but then I decided to quilt it. I had the whole thing assembled and the binding part-way on when I came to the conclusion that the pocket the back was not working; it was simply too big to work as an oven mitt. I pulled it apart and designated the large rooster hot pad to be a table topper or trivet of sorts. I used the already quilted pocket piece to make another hot pad. It was awkwardly shaped and didn't really work to trim to a square, so a rectangle it was. I used Insul-Brite, which is a little bit thicker and a little bit stiffer than Warm 'n Natural. I really like how much dimension it gives the quilting.

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Giveaway Goodies
Last month, I hosted the Leap Day Giveaway Blog Hop. It was a huge success and so much fun. I was amazing to see what everyone was giving away. I offered a retro inspired apron and Nancy was the winner. She was very sweet to send me a photo of her in her apron! Thank you, Nancy!

I won a little something, too, from Richard and his wife Tanya. Their son, Jared, did me a solid and pulled my name out of the hat. I was able to pick from eight different prizes they were offering. Richard made the hot pads and the granny squares {which I will probably turn into hot pads}. I was also happy to take a gently used rotary cutter off his hands. My rotary cutter is 20 years old and I still love it, but I thought it would be fun to have an extra on-hand. Thank you, Richard and Tanya!

This week I got a really fun package in the mail. Clear back in October, Lori Holt announced a giveaway of her fabric line, Daisy Cottage, as well as some of her new patterns. I was one of the winners and she gave me my choice of any three of the new patterns designed for Daisy Cottage. I picked Home Sweet Home, Ring Around the Rosy and Daisychain. Lori told me that she'd send the patterns as soon as the covers came back from the printer, in about 10 days. The package never arrived and I got busy with holiday sewing. I would think of it off and on and finally while cleaning out my inbox a few weeks ago, I timidly e-mailed Lori to ask if she'd ever sent the patterns. She had, but they were lost in the mail , so she sent me a new set of patterns and some fat quarters of Daisy Cottage . I am so thrilled. And now I'm kind of wishing I'd have picked the diamond ruler that Richard and Tanya offered as one of their giveaway choices so I could start working on the Daisychain quilt .

Cat's Twilight Block of the Month: Block 2

Cat's Twilight Mystery Quilt blocks for month two (posted waaaay back on March 6) are a representation of Charlie.


This is my beginner's block, done at 3" (reduced the pattern to 60%). I'm going to put the beginner's blocks in a little wall-hanging. I'm using my most favorite sparkly and shiny fabrics for it. Here I used Yellow Fairy Frost, but the scan of this block makes it hard to see how shiny it really is.

Here is Cat's Advanced design for her Block of the Month quilt. She used the City of Forks official emblem in her design. Check it out here.

My advanced block is a variation of the block for this month, designed specifically for my own Twilight quilt. It is 4" x 6" and is designed to look like Charlie's badge. You can read more about it here.

I'm just sneaking in under the wire with these blocks. The next set of patterns are due out on the first weekend of April, which is a couple of days from now. I'm hoping that I posted pictures of them at Twilight Crafts soon enough to be included in the Round Up of this month's blocks. it was really fun to go there and see my last month's blocks in with all the other really cool blocks.

My Twilight Quilt: Police Chief Swan

Charlie is Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks. -Bella Swan, Twilight, page 5

As my quilt layout evolved, I ended up with a few odd-shaped spaces to fill. Most of my quilt blocks are 6" x 6", but the 4" wide, extra-tall tree that occupies the height of two rows, left the four other rows with 4" x 6" blocks needed to complete them. Two of those 4" x 6" spaces were attached to the 6" x 6" blocks next to them and two were left at 4" x 6". As I was trying to decide how best to fill them, I thought that a police badge for Charlie might be a good representation for him. I asked Cat, my go-to-gal for paper pieced patterns, if she could help me. I didn't give her much to go on; just that I wanted a 4" x 6" block with a Forks Police badge. As usual, she really came through. She used these two images to create one amazing Police Chief Swan quilt block.



You can see that the block most closely resembles the patch on the right. I am probably going to do a little hand embroidery and add the '19' and '45' on either side of the center emblem and then do 'City of Forks' and 'WA' on the bottom. Sometime soon, I need to take my machine in for servicing, and if I go with the shop that sold it to me, it will be out for at least three weeks, so I'm saving up all my handwork for then.


I used Fairy Frost for this block -- I just had to. Silver for the badge. The fabric is two-toned underneath the monochrome 'frost.' I cut away all of the darker areas and used the lighter, brighter background areas for the badge. I wanted it to be bright and shiny. Then I raided my 'stash' for the fabrics for the center emblem. All of the fabrics used in this block have been used (or will be in the future) in my other Twilight Quilt blocks. I like that kind of continuity throughout a quilt. The trees are all made from the same eight or nine fabrics (I can't remember exactly at the moment, but I'll go count if you want). And I framed the badge with my trusty black Civil War Reproduction fabric (used throughout the quilt and as the outer border, background and cross your fingers I have enough for the binding too).

Cat did a great job at capturing the details on the badge. This pattern went together very nicely. Cat's work is pure genius, as usual. She modified this pattern and has included it as the advanced block this month in her Twilight Mystery BOM Quilt. I've seen a preview of her layouts and am using most of her advanced blocks in my own quilt layout, so I won't be following those exactly. I am following along with the beginner blocks, though, and am going to make a little wall-hanging with them. I haven't done my beginner block for this month yet, but I'll keep you posted.

Here's the layout with Chief Swan added in. I love to watch it fill in. It keeps me motivated.

My Twilight Quilt: Charlie's House

Eventually we made it to Charlie’s. He still lived in the small, two-bedroom house that he’d bought with my mother in the early days of their marriage. –Bella Swan, Twilight, page 8

I got the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard. –Bella Swan, Twilight, page 9

Here is Charlie's house with a little bit of the forest*. I started with two different paper piecing patterns for this section of the quilt. I used a house pattern from a book called 365 Foundation Quilt Blocks by Linda Causee as a beginning place for what I wanted my house to look like. The trees are based on a pattern by Patrice Trnka Adams. I used Microsoft Paint and Microsoft Word to digitally alter the patterns to fit in the spots I needed them. When one program wouldn't do what I needed, I'd switch to the other. I re-sized and re-drew, adding in and pulling out elements until I got the right size, shape and aesthetic that I wanted. My complete pattern is available for download in PDF format here.

Although I have two rows of forest* in my quilt already, I wanted more in this block because the house is surrounded by forest*. The forest is as much a character in the book as Bella and the Cullens. It plays a big role in the setting and so my feeling is that you can't have too many trees in this quilt. There will be more in other blocks. Just wait. Here are some fun details about this block . . . I opened Bella's window so that Edward could sneak in and out. And I'm thinking about adding two golden eyes to the taller of the two trees, if I can pull it off without it being too cheesy. And of course, I used Fairy Frost fabric; Fog for the windows.


I've been looking forward to doing this block for a long time. I've been collecting patterns and fabrics for months now and looking forward to having other projects finished so I can work on this quilt. My only problem now is deciding which block to do next. I think that the roof fabric worked out well as the roof. I'd originally planned to use it as the house, but it would have been too much. I think this light tan fabric is a great compromise between the white house in the movie and the unknown something that wasn't white that I wanted to do. I plan to stick to the book with the color for the Cullen's house (white) and didn't want to have two white houses in the quilt. I think this color has enough tan to it that the houses won't look too much the same. I'm going to ask the quilter stitch in horizontal lines across the house to look like siding and kind of camouflage the (necessary) seams (for creating the steps) at the bottom of the house.

Even though I'm now calling my quilt More Than A Little Obsessed, it is still a bit of a mystery quilt because I had no idea how this block was going to turn out when I started it . But I like the final result.


*Key: 1 Paper Pieced Tree = 500 Trees in the Forks Forest
1 Raw-Edge Appliqué Tree = 150 Trees in the Forks Forest

My Twilight Quilt: Charlie's House Preview

I've been working on the Charlie's House section of the quilt. It encompasses the area of one 6"x 6" block, one 6" x 4" block and the 1" of sashing that would go in between the blocks, so it is an 11" x 6" area. I still haven't decided what fabric to use for the house, although I pulled a few and have been pondering them. Even though the block isn't finished I couldn't resist giving a sneak preview of the forest* that goes next to the house and take up 5" of the 11" across. Iris used this pattern for one of the trees in her Flight Home block in the New Moon Quilt and Jerri Lynn used this tree in her own Twilight quilt. I loved it, so Iris shared her pattern. Thanks for the inspiration and sharing, ladies! LadyBug helped me pick out the green for the trees. She did a pretty good job, I think. There'll be a third green across the bottom as 'grass' but I'm going to do that after I attach the forest* to the house so it is one strip across the bottom & I don't have to worry about matching seams.


*Key: 1 Paper Pieced Tree = 500 Trees in the Forks Forest
1 Raw-Edge Appliqué Tree = 150 Trees in the Forks Forest

My Twilight Quilt: How It All Began

I'm a closet Twilight fan. But I think I just 'outed' myself. The Twilight books are books that some people just love and some people just hate. Some might argue that they are campy and adolescent and that they don't adhere to Vampire Cannon. But I find them incredibly romantic and I'm not into vampires anyway. Personally, I love that Stephenie Meyer made her own rules and created her own universe. Who cares if the vampires don't have fangs and can come out during the day?

I started reading Twilight on September 16, 2008. My world was turned completely upside down and I had to rethink my life. I scoured the web for anything Twilight related and eventually ended up at TwilightMOMS. I joined the forums and made friends. That's where I met Heather Laddick, Zeppelin Threads Quilt shop owner. She was thinking of making a Twilight quilt and sharing the patterns 'mystery style.' I encouraged her to go ahead with her plans. In January of 2009 she started giving out instructions for her quilt and I followed along. She'd divided her quilt into six sections, revealing them one section at a time every two weeks.

So, I selected my fabrics and began work. As I got working on things, I realized that I had enough fabric for two quilts and I decided that I was going to make one for myself and one for Stephenie Meyer.

The first section, "Freshman Year" was a representation of the places Bella frequented in the books; (moving clockwise) Charlie's House, Jacob's House, The Cullen's House and Bella and Edward's Cottage. The chimneys made a Swiss Flag in the center of the block,representing Bella's 'neutral status' and declaration I am a neutral country. I am Switzerland. I refuse to be affected by territorial disputes between mythical creatures.

Section two, or "Sophomore Year" was a representation of the forest in and around Forks. Since none of us had seen the final design of the quilt, we were all wondering how these amazing tree trunks were going to be finished off.


"Junior Year" was a lot of fun. It was a representation of Edward and Jacob. The 'Edward' blocks sat on either side of 'Jacob.'


"Senior Year" was the first section that I was really not excited about. It was a progression of the moon phases from New Moon to Full Moon. It was clever, but it seemed a 'space filler' to me.

After Senior Year, there was a huge pause in the proceedings. Heather had some unforeseen personal issues arise, and so I began to dabble around with my own designs. Eventually, instructions for the last two sections of the quilt, "Prom" and "Graduation," were posted, but by then I had decided to go a different direction with my quilt.