Over the weekend I decided that I need to have a more defined working schedule for designing and some non-knitting projects to work on at night during my 'free time'. It needs to be something I can just pick up and work on for a bit before going to bed. At first I considered all the sewing projects I have waiting for me (pants, a long skirt, dresses, etc), but setting up the sewing table and ironing board takes up a lot of space and time and I would really want to have a big chunk of sewing time for going to all that trouble. So sewing clothes was nixed. I have two quilts in various stages of completeness but again the sewing table problem. I have been collecting a bag of fabric scraps from my sewing projects and decided that a crazy quilt would be fun. I can make one block at a time and work on it while sitting on the sofa.
I found basic instructions in "How to Sew A Button: And Other Nifty Things your Grandmother Knew." This is an awesome book and I would recommend it to any crafty person that likes to do things the old-fashioned way.
But back to quilting. I cut a piece of muslin into a 12" square and dug into my scrap bag. It is all bits of quilting fabric leftover from quilts and dresses. I sewed them on by hand which didn't take nearly as much time as I thought it would. After a few hours I had the whole thing all sewn up. I don't think I quite did it right; most of the edges I sewed down with a running stitch, but some edges came together at odd angles that I had to fold back and sew with a hem stitch. Hopefully the next block will turn out better. This afternoon was spent embroidering along all the seams. It has been many years since I've attempted to embroider, so my skills are very much lacking. I think it would have been best to use perle cotton, but I didn't have any. Instead I used two plys of embroidery floss. I have an old Victorian quilting book that demonstrated lots of fancy embroidery stitches. Most were too intimidating for me to try, so mostly I stuck with blanket stitch, chain stitch, herringbone and chicken feet. I had to throw in a few lazy daisies too. Not too bad for an amateur, eh?
I found basic instructions in "How to Sew A Button: And Other Nifty Things your Grandmother Knew." This is an awesome book and I would recommend it to any crafty person that likes to do things the old-fashioned way.
But back to quilting. I cut a piece of muslin into a 12" square and dug into my scrap bag. It is all bits of quilting fabric leftover from quilts and dresses. I sewed them on by hand which didn't take nearly as much time as I thought it would. After a few hours I had the whole thing all sewn up. I don't think I quite did it right; most of the edges I sewed down with a running stitch, but some edges came together at odd angles that I had to fold back and sew with a hem stitch. Hopefully the next block will turn out better. This afternoon was spent embroidering along all the seams. It has been many years since I've attempted to embroider, so my skills are very much lacking. I think it would have been best to use perle cotton, but I didn't have any. Instead I used two plys of embroidery floss. I have an old Victorian quilting book that demonstrated lots of fancy embroidery stitches. Most were too intimidating for me to try, so mostly I stuck with blanket stitch, chain stitch, herringbone and chicken feet. I had to throw in a few lazy daisies too. Not too bad for an amateur, eh?
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