Day four of quilt camp

Today we learned about Free Standing Lace - FLS
My Daughter-in-laws Brother embroidery machine makes very nice stitches.  She slowed it down because we were using silver metallic thread. FLS is stitched on wash away stabilized without any fabric. 

The second eldest grandson was not interested in making a mug rug.  He wanted to etch 4 glasses to replace one he broke.  Using my Cameo Silhouette  and it's software, we created the design and vinyl template.  With his Dad's help. the etchings turned out great!





I put blue fabric in one ant the other is on a red mat.  That was the only way I could get good photos.


My DIL was knitting cardinals for the Christmas tree.  I lost count of hoe many she had completed, but these two are mine.  The left one is smaller that the right and it is smaller than the original  pattern

While all of the grandkids and daughter-in-law were doing their projects , I made her a christmas Fole and stitch wreath.   She chose Christmas colors for hers. That is one of my birds clipped to it. 

I also made the petal shaped wreath.

The Grandsons had ask if there was any way I could make hot mats for the serving bowls. 

I started out with 2 ten inch squares of fabric and insul-bright.  That just fir their soup bowls.

So I made one for each member of the family in their preferred color or novelty print. 

 Then I expanded the suqares.  I made a 12 inch, 14 inch and 2 16 inch bowl mats. 

 

12 inch using two different red fabrics

 14 inch  using two different blues

 the last two are made from 16 inch squares

(authors note: these four days were spread over two weeks and most of out projects were Embroidery instead of quilting)

I had  a very nice visit with my son and his family.   A couple of nights we played games, Farkle and LRC (left right center).  I was amazed in how fast those two weeks flew by.

Day three of quilt camp

On day three of quilt camp we involved the younger boys of the household in our sewing projects. We decided that they could make in the hoop  mug rugs on mom's Brother embroidery machine.

We showed them several patterns, some were holiday designs and some were forest animals. They both chose a Fox from the forest animals.

We started them off by having them pick out  fabrics  they wanted to use. They needed three fabrics for the background, one fabric for the Fox and one fabric for Fox accents. They went through mom's stash and picked out  fabrics that they liked.


Chris was meticulous in his measuring and cutting. If was a quarter inch short he cut another piece.  Andrew was not confident enough to use the cutter, so he held the opposite end the of the ruler to keep it lined up straight.

Then we sent Andrew off to play, while Chris started sewing on his. Again he was very confident in his own work.  He hooped the stabilizer very smoothly.  He learned how to thread the machine and bobbin.  Next the attached the hoop.  He did a better job of that than I did!   The design was the only one the card so it was not hard for him to select.  He actually figured out some of the functions that his Mom and I had not.   Great job Chris!


Then we got Andrew behind the  machine.  Their Mom had to take an older brother to work, so she had Chris coaching Andrew.

Andrew did learn how to thread the machine and load the hoop,  selecting the design and starting the  machine.  Good Job Andrew.  




 Here are the finished product.


Chris chose blues and green for his background.

Andrew chose a fall leaf pattern and a  tan.

Day 2 of sewing camp

I am having fun with my son and his family.  My Daughter-in-law posted yesterday about the coasters.  She was using her Bernina 230 and a 71 foot for the binding.  She did a great job on them. 

Today we were playing with her Brother PE770.  It is a small machine but is making beautiful stitches.  It has six alphabets and 100 plus built in designs.

We had to learn how the machine worked and that took a lot of time.  Then we played with some of the built in designs.

We learned a lot on this sampler. Note: we grabbed a piece of fabric out of her stash that she knew she would never use, hence the hideous stripes.

The first design we did was the cherry's.  The one on the left was done with a heaver cotton thread.  did not make a pretty stitch and had a lot of thread loops on the back.    The cherry's on the right is in Polyester thread and we did thread color changes.We also learned how to re-position in the hoop.

The pansy's were the next design.  There were 5 or 6 color changes.  Great practice.

Next we did lettering in the machine.The machine came um-threaded on the first attempt at then name and missed the cross bad in the A.  So she started over.  We later learned how to go back one color.

The heart was an internal design and the 'A' was just trying a different font.


Then we practiced applique in the hoop with only one fabric.  The snowmen are on an Amazing Designs design card.  Since we were still playing and practicing, the towels we used were out of the old discards that were destined for auto rags, scrubbing or rug making.

Needless to say these got a second life as hand towels.

Then she wanted something more advanced to do.  We selected an in the hoop mug rug from Kimberbell design.  This had several pieces of fabric to applique and other good lessons:  placement lines, cutting lines and adding a backing on top.

 

We were having so much fun we did not want to stop.   We are looking at free standing lace  and working with the grandsons  before the week is out!

Day One of Sewing Camp

We took the test embroidery  from the placemats Nan made for us into costers.

I've have never been able to bind anything circular..

This was our fist lesson..  the lovely embroidery is all her work..

We put contrasting backs on them, as well as contrasting binding.. so truthfully is was three lesson in one.