Holiday Banner

Wine of the Day: Running with Scissors - Cabernet Sauvignon

This year for Christmas I decided to make a few presents that I gave people.  My favorite of these I gave to my mom.   The idea for the holiday banner came from a few different locations but I put my own twist on it. 

The letters are cut from felt and glued on with no sew type glue.  Felt worked well because it doesn't fray, but the burlap is another story.  I cut the squares out along one thread on each side so there wouldn't be any little pieces to fall off.  This wasn't enough though.  So, I used a no fray glue around all of the edges and it worked like a charm!

Sewing on the burlap proved easy enough though.  I just used a wide zig zag stitch to ensure that each stitch held onto the burlap.  A red ribbon was sewn onto the back of each piece to string them together.  I just looped the two ends of the ribbon to create a way to hang it.  And then of course I signed it.

After I made this one for my mom I decided to make some for a few other people that said "JOY".  I then wrapped and gave them out without taking any pictures. oops!

Where were the cats when this was happening???

Oh... just hanging out in the Christmas tree!  No big deal.  We're lucky the whole thing isn't on the floor already.

I hope everyone had a lovely and peaceful Christmas this year!  See you in 2013!!!

Cheers,
k

Baby Blanket Completed

Wine of the Day: DeLoach - Cabernet Sauvignon

The baby blanket is all finished and ready to be delivered to Wes and Kristy!  They still do not know that I made them a quilt so I am nervous and excited to have them open it. 

I am so glad that I went back and redid some of the quilting.  The fabric laid perfectly (well, almost perfectly) flat for me as I sewed on the edge.  The edging I decided to use is white to blend with the border so that the zebra print will stand out. Here is the finished product:

Front

Back

I think the fabric I used for the back was a good choice.  It has flowers in it without being super girly or too baby.   The color should be perfect to go in the nursery as well.  I know one baby that already loves it!  Here is Brutus taking his last snuggle before it goes into the wash. 

 Washed, dried, pressed one last time, and finally signed; the baby blanket is complete. You may notice that I signed this one 2013 when it was actually completed in 2012.  I consulted some crafty friends and the general consensus was to date it for the baby.  She will be arriving in January 2013, so that's the date I used.  I will be delivering it to the soon-to-be new parents this Thursday night at book club (which got rescheduled to Dec. 6, 2012).

kara

Signature: Adventures in Embroidery

Wine of the Day: Flying Fox - Viognier

I have been trying to come up with some sort of signature for my quilts ever since I finished my first quilt.  I looked into everything from sewing on a tag to simply signing the back.  Instead, I decided to embroider my signature.  This way it would be more finished looking than a fabric pen and I could do it in any color to match the quilt.  So here is what I originally came up with:

It's simple enough that I could easily adjust the size to fit the quilt.  I simply wrote a k on the fabric and then did a back stitch over it.  This seemed ideal too so that it is still in my handwriting.  I then moved on to the baby blanket and decided to add a heart like this:

Since it is a gift I wanted it to be more like "Love, Kara" than just a signature.  After consulting some fellow crafters, we decided that all quilts are made with love so I decided to incorporate the heart into all quilts, not just the ones given as gifts.  We also decided that they should really be dated too.  I picked a different color for the date so it would stand off as it's own piece and let the signature be separate.  I also used thinner thread for the date so it would be easier to read since it is so small.

So here it is; the official quilt signature!