Seth's zoo animal quilt.

Seth is my great nephew, he was born on July 1, 2012 in Yellowknife, North West Territories, Canada.  I made a quilt for his big sister Gillian in 2010.

The flannel quilt backing is stretched and clamped.  You cannot see the clamps because they are hidden under the batting. Then the batting and quilt top are added.

Once part of the quilt is pin basted the clamps are on all three layers.

Time to start free motion quilting.  The centre is quilted with jesters' hats using 100% polyester blue variegated thread and a schmetz 90/14 embroidery needle.

Stitch length was set to zero with the feed dogs dropped. 

This thread blends in so well with the zoo animals it is hard to see the quilting on the front side.

The backing was pieced with lime green in the middle, red and yellow borders to fit the top.  There is so much fabric in the stash, I cannot justify buying more until some of this is used up.

This is the third quilt I made using zoo animals fabric.  Each one is different.  I have included the links for Nathan's and Cutter's quilt to show how much my quilting has improved.

When I first started free motion quilting all I did was stipling.

The heart shaped leaves were quilted with Marathon 100% polyester thread that looks like cotton quilting thread.  It is much heavier than ordinary polyester and very nice to quilt with.

The outside black border was quilted with zig zags and then echoed once around using the Marathon polyester looks like cotton thread.

 The binding is 100% polyester rip stop nylon. 

This is a quilt that will be washed numerous times so I did not hand stitch the binding in place.

Instead, I used the variegated blue thread with a three stitch zig zag.  This gives the binding a very nice texture.

  My initials and the year.

  Practice piece of Seth's name.  

 The finishing touch!

The quilt measures 62.5 inches by 55 inches, large enough for a toddler bed.

Yippee! ~dancing around the room with glee~  Another UFO completed.

Fixing my sewing machine cabinet.

I have been busy practicing free motion quilting each month to get my challenge pieces completed.  There is a now a stack of quilted sandwiches without binding.  So I thought I would try satin stitch finishing like Janet McElroy's.  What an excellent way to practice satin stitching, scalloped edges and learn to round the corners smoothly.

The variegated thread was sewn on a Pfaff Creative 2.  The plain purple was with my Bernina 930 record.

Unfortunately, only one sample piece was completed when the Bernina ran out of bobbin thread.

That's when the small board ledge that holds the table top insert unglued itself and fell onto the shelf where the sewing machine sits.

It was easy to fix.  First I cleaned the old glue off the ledge piece, then applied a generous layer of new wood glue.  Put the ledge in place and clamped it for 24 hours.

 Yeah my cabinet is fixed!

 

My husband used to say I had the mechanical capabilities of a fruit fly!  Hmmmm.. not true anymore.  I take pride in being able to use a cordless drill, screwdrivers, pliers, clamps and a hammer.  The clamps are also very handy for stretching the backing of a quilt on a table top for pin basting.

Dear readers, if you have a fix it yourself story, would you please share it?

Flannel pj pants

I pressed and laid out four layers of fabric to cut two pairs at once.  After cutting I mark the back pieces with a safety pin well below the sewing lines.

The sewing instructions have been lost for many years, this is what I do.  Serge the leg bottoms and the top waist band before sewing.  Sew the front and back side seams together, then serge the seam.  Next sew the the inseams and serge. 

Turn one leg right side out and insert into the other leg to sew and serge the centre seam front to back.  Next turn over one and one quarter inches on the waistband to make the casing.  Insert a tag of grosgrain ribbon to permanently mark the back.  Sew around bottom edge of the casing leaving a two inch opening.  After threading the elastic and sewing the ends together,  sew the casing closed.  Move the flannel around the waist band to make the gathers even.  Then while holding the fabric with the elastic stretched to completely smooth out the waist band,  top stitch from the top edge and in the middle to keep the elastic in place.

This is a very simple, quick item to sew.

Exactly three hours and thirty-nine minutes from start to finish for two pairs.
Now for the big question, what should I make for a Halloween costume party on October 26th?