Seven Sisters, Fray Block, Glue Pen & Cinnamon Rolls

This is sort of a weird title for this post but it includes everything that I want to show you.  First, the Seven Sisters Civil War block is shown above. I hand appliqued it and used some 'new to me' products. I used the Ricky Tims' Stable Stuff Poly to make the templates and then I used the glue pen to turn the edges over. Because the star points were so 'pointy' after I had finished appliqueing them, I used some Fray Block on each of the points. I let it dry then I washed the block to get rid of the stiffness from the Stable Stuff. The SS did soften up a lot but it still has quite of bit of body to it. I'm not sure I would use it if I were to hand quilt, especially if I needed to do some quilting within the stars..Since the stars are small, I think it worked fine and would use it again for a project like this.  I did like using the glue pen, small and easy to handle and the glue worked just fine too! Although Elmer's Washable School Glue is very inexpensive and I think it works just as well.  The Fray Block hopefully did the trick to keep the points safe and sound when washing after the quilt is finished. Overall, I was happy with the results of all of the products.

Now, on to the Cinnamon Rolls that I made for a Mother's Day breakfast at my daughter's house. Nothing really special about them, except everyone likes them so being the bread maker in the family, I whipped them up the day before. They are 24 hour rolls, so you can make them up and stick them in the frig, get them out the next day and bake them fresh to eat.  Can you smell the aroma? My house still smelled like cinnamon and bread when I came home after breakfast. Gotta run for now, sew until next time,  have a "Stitches" kind of day...

Transfer-eze, a new product for me

Over the River and Through the Woods, to Grandmother's House We Go

I just want to "toot my horn" for a few minutes. I am embroidering on Crabapple Hills "Over the River and Through the Woods, To Grandmother's House We Go". If you are familiar with this pattern, you know that it has a lot of embroidery on it. I am using Transfer-eze for the first time and I love it. It comes on sheets and you just run it through your printer and print your pattern, then pull off the film and lay it down on your embroidery fabric and you are ready to go!!  Wow, can you imagine how much time that saves? And a backache from leaning over the light box. And when you are done, just soak it in cool water and the film is water soluble and it disappears, how easy can that be?  I have had a little problem with the film not sticking around the edges on some of the pieces and quickly just basted them down. I am willing to take the time to do the basting rather than tracing my patterns by light box. I have had my Transfer-eze for about 1 1/2 years and I am wondering if age has dried mine out a little. If anyone else, has used this product, I would love to hear about your experience with it, good or bad, just leave me a comment.                                          Another product that I use is Pellon fusible knit interfacing. I adhere it to the backs of all my embroidery to hide the stitches. It is very easy to stitch through and does a good job of giving body to the fabric and hiding the stitches. I have found between the 2 products that they give the project enough body that I don't have to use a hoop and that is a great advantage, I believe. It saves time when you don't have to hoop, unhoop, and hoop again. Can you hear the horn tooting? Try it, you'll like it. 

On this picture,  I have pulled the corner of the Transfer-eze up so you can see it.

This one just show the film on the fabric.

This is a picture of the back of my embroidery with the Pellon fusible interfacing on it.



On this one I have washed out the Transfer-eze and pressed my embroidery. I used Cosmo embroidery thread # 8042, it's a variegated brown thread and I really like the movement and depth it gave to my project. I don't know if you can see the different shades of brown or not in the pictures.  Always be sure and test your threads for colorfastness.

The sun is shining very bright here but  it is still very cold (only 5 degrees when I looked about an hour ago) shiver, shiver. The sun makes everything better, even the house is warmer but it's a good day to stay inside and get some sewing/quilting done..Until next time, I hope you are having a "Stitches" kind of day..ta da