Nice Night On The Deck!

Just a little stitchin' going on out on the deck tonight! I'm about done with the Wool Applique on these blocks and it will be time to put this baby together very soon. It will be fun to see how it will look! Working with my favorite wools and reproduction cottons layered and stitched with a blanket stitch. Yum yummy!

I'm using a stitching technique that's new for me. I'm not really sure I've seen it done before by anyone else, but I'm liking it for this type of sewing. The seam allowance is on the wide side of 1/4" and I'm doing needle turn Applique, but with a big blanket stitch. First I've drawn the shape onto the front side of the cotton fabric with a chalk pencil.

Then I'm turning the seam under with the needle as if I were going to do needleturn Applique. I'm only worried about turning that white line under as far as my next stitch for now.

And then I'm taking the next stitch right at the point I'm holding with my fingernail. Easy peasy! Gives a rustic look to the cotton Applique. The wool is sewn with the same blanket stitches but of course no seam is turned under. This is what I refer to as layered wool and cotton Applique.

We have great temps tonight before the next heatwave hits tomorrow. Hubs and I are enjoying the breeze and mild temps tonight! Some of you may have met Jeff at a show here and there. He's a good helper for me when I'm working at shows!

Have a great weekend and Take care,

Missie

PS...there's a great floss giveaway going on at Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe if you want to enter!

 

Visit my web store www.TraditionalPrimitives.com

Back Home!

The trip to Garland was wonderful! The Garland Guild has a great thing going with a full room of quilt loving women chatting, laughing and enjoying the fellowship that comes with a guild. If you are a resident of North Dallas, be sure to check out this guild. They really have a good time together. The workshops went well at the two stores I visited, Sew Let's Quilt It and Happiness Is Quilting. Such sweet ladies all around!

 

Patty at Sew Let's Quilt It gave me a demo of her computerized quilting machine. Wow! Are those nice! It was very cool to see how it works and how they get each block measured and quilted. She has some beautiful samples hanging in her store and has custom quilted them using her fancy machine. I was a bit jealous! The workshop for the Zebra Wallhanging was great. So fun to see students squeal with delight as they sew those first two blocks together and they discover the process really is worry free!

Happiness Is Quilting had me for two days and I so enjoyed watching them work and interact with customers. The store is beautiful with lots of samples and a little bit of something for everyone from modern to reproduction, Dutch florals, Punchneedle, machines And just about any notion you could want!

 

Darling pink walls with beautiful samples!

One of my hostesses for an evening showed me her lovely seeing studio! Oh, to have a place as beautiful as this room would be so wonderful...maybe some day....

First of all...it was Clean and Organized, secondly it was a perfect size, and lastly it was decorated perfectly with many of her favorite things! This is just one corner of this great space.

And here' s a nice close up of some of her lovely trinkets!

Now that I'm home, I'm doing my best to get my room organized. No space for many trinkets and pretties, but at least I do have my own space to be creative in and that I'm grateful for.

Once I got my sewing room a bit cleaned up, I had to mess it up again with a little wool. Can't stay clean for long, I must admit! Since about half way through making "George"...the Gardens Of A King, I wanted to try it in wool. Well...it worked just great! Below you can see my first block with wool appliqué on cottons...went together in an afternoon full of visiting and stitching! Very quick and easy!

I also did a little rug punching...so relaxing and rewarding because it's so quick to do! I'm in search of a new background color. This one isn't quite right....uh oh! Another reason to buy wool! Recently, I made a purchase of a new blade for my rusty old cutter. It should cut like butter the next time I need to cut strips. Should be exciting!! ( Why is it so exciting to cut wool strips? Am I crazy?!? LOL!).

Have a wonderful week!

Take care,

Missie

 

Visit my web store www.TraditionalPrimitives.com

Finished Table Runners!

 

I've been working hard to finish the new Table Runners for the workshops! This one below is called Grannie's Flowers and is for the Garland Guild's Workshop on English Paper Piecing-5 Ways and More. I will teach them all sorts of hints and tidbits about English Paper Piecing, including my favorite way of basting with Starch! The center is English Paper Pieced and the outer flowers are wool and cotton appliqué.

The runner below is the Pennies In My Garden Table Runner to go along with the larger quilt called Pennies In My Garden and it is wool and cotton Appliqué with layered pennies and florals. This class is for the workshop at Happiness Is...Quilting! And they will learn the way I like to build a layered wool quilt. These cotton penny parts have a finished seam allowance.

 

It was nice to make something smaller after making The Gardens Of A King last year. Sometimes it's good to do something simple for an easy, quick project!!

Don't forget you can find me on Pinterest, Yahoo Groups, FB and Here! Pick your favorite social media and follow along and participate as I create new patterns for you!

Take care,

Missie

 

Visit my web store www.TraditionalPrimitives.com

More Pennies Please!

Yep, you are seeing right! I'm making more pennies for a new Table Runner. As mentioned in an earlier post, I will be traveling to teach for the Garland Quilt Guild in Texas. While there, I will also be teaching at a few local quilt stores. One is called Happiness Is...Quilting! And the name of the store just makes you want to go right on in to check it out doesn't it! They've requested that one of the workshops will be a Table Runner based on the larger quilt, Pennies In My Garden. This one is going much quicker due to its size. The reward of a finished quilt will come pretty quickly due to it's smaller size. The other workshop will be all about Punchneedle. I'll provide tips and show how I make my mini Punchneedle Quilts! Both will be lots of fun and very educational for the students. If you are in the Dallas area, come and see me!!
Don't forget to look for my new Mini Punchneedle Quilt in the Spring 2015 issue of Primitive Quilts and Projects! Mine has still not arrived...I can't wait!!

Something else exciting is that I have started a FaceBook group for the makers of  my quilts and The Gardens of a King.  Like my business page on FB by clicking HERE and then scroll down to find the Traditional Primitives Group and request to join, then ANSWER THE QUESTIONS IN ORDER TO BE ACCEPTED INTO THE GROUP!  Then you will be accepted, if you've purchased the pattern and can join in on the fun!  You can post pictures of your progress on my designs. I hope to see pictures of many of my designs that you've made, but mostly I hope to see lots of blocks from The Gardens Of A King. I want you to find inspiration and praise from the blocks, quilts and punchneedle you've all made! You can compare colors, get ideas, see fussy cutting, etc to inspire you! We can have conversations and keep each other motivated! I'm so excited and I hope you will join me soon!! Click the link above, request to join and we'll see you there! This reminds me, I'm also now on Instagram for those of you who enjoy that. Please search for me as traditional.primitives and start following. 

See you soon in one or all of these fun places listed above!!
Take Care,
Missie

Visit my web store www.TraditionalPrimitives.com

The Pattern is Ready! And My Quilting Machine!

Just a quick mention to let you know The Gardens Of A King pattern is ready for you!

A little bit of wool appliqué for you! Cottons and wools...mmmm...

 

A little bit of hand appliqué for you! More cottons and wools....mmm...

 

A little bit MORE than a little bit of English Paper Piecing! English Paper Piecing with starch...mmmm...

A few nights of relaxing and rewarding stitching for you while working on

The Gardens Of A King,

an interpretation of

The King George III Coverlet!

Click Traditional Primitives to see the details!

My husband and I have been spending a little time "jerry rigging" my quilting machine! I purchased a stitch regulator and we got it installed 100% on Saturday morning! This is longarm quilting on a budget for sure! I would love to have a fancy, wonderful quilting machine, but for now this is what I have to quilt my own quilts. It's a Bailey Home Quilter and is just a basic quilting machine. But that's all I need for now. The stitch regulator worked wonderfully and it was much less stressful to do a little quilting!

 

The quilt loaded on the machine is a small wall hanging sample for one of my workshops I'll be doing in February in the Garland, Texas area. This is a cut away appliqué technique making the zebra appliqué much easier to sew in place! This class will be taught at Sew Let's Quilt It. I'll be teaching The Gardens of a King at Happiness Is Quilting in McKinney, TX, and also will be doing the program and workshop at the Garland quilt Guild. Both stores will be having Holiday Open Houses in the coming days and some of my quilts will be on display. If any of you live in the north Dallas area, be sure to stop by!

Please let me know if you have any questions about the new pattern. I'll be happy to answer them!

Have a wonderful day!

Missie

 

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The Gardens Of A King, Finale'

Thanks for being so patient with my teasers about this quilt! Here it is... My interpretation of the

King George III Coverlet, with permission from the V&A Museum in London, England

The Gardens Of A King

The quilt finishes about 63" square, not too big and not too small...challenging, but not too challenging, with a touch of easy stitching also...so rewarding along each step of the way to completion...

It's been a wonderful journey for me...imagining the life of the original maker, appreciating her talent to draw the blocks I've used in the quilt, imagining her quilting circumstances and environment...

A journey of enjoying the process of stitching these glorious shapes together into wonderfully rewarding blocks, creating a quilt I will always cherish...

Thanks so much to my pattern testers Karen and Carrie, who will also be showing more of their projects on their blogs. They've been so helpful to make sure the pattern is understandable for quilters who want to make the quilt. Visit their blogs and see their blocks!

The pattern is not quite done, but should be done very very soon. You know the drill...let me know if you want first notice of when it's ready to be shipped and I will keep you posted! But I need your email address, so be sure to email me that ifo if you don't hear back from me.

Thanks so much for coming back to see the grand finale' post about The Gardens Of A King. A quilt using English Paper Piecing, Appliqué and Wool Appliqué techniques in Cotton and Wool.

As always, take care!

Missie

 

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The Gardens Of A King, Part 4

Ok, time for some more sneak peaks at my interpretation of the King George III Coverlet! Yesterday, I left you with a summary of the techniques used to make the quilt. To review, there is English Paper Piecing, Appliqué and Wool Appliqué involved in making this quilt, The Gardens Of A King.

This picture shows a bit more of the two Appliqué techniques. Usually, I do cotton Appliqué using the needleturn technique, but for this one, since I was used to the crisp shapes from starching the EPP pieces, I decided I would try the starch method for the cotton appliqué also. A first for me. It was very nice to just stitch them on with no needle turn since the seams were prepared before they were basted to the background. Very quick stitching for sure! Either method would work just fine, but I wanted to try something new with the curved shapes of the crescents surrounding the Wool Appliqué. I did, however, use Needleturn for the some of the sharks teeth as well as starch for some of the others. I was experimenting. I would say the starched teeth are more precise, but the needleturn version quality is fine enough for me.

Making a quilt like this must be about enjoying the process! We love quilting and stitching because it is enjoyable! We may each love different methods of reaching the end of the project, but as long as we enjoy the journey, that's what it is all about! Right?!?

For me, this is definitely an English Paper Pieced design for the pieced blocks, but recently, I've met a woman who loves these type quilts, yet she prefers traditional hand piecing where she traces the shape and sews the pieces together with a running stitch! This traditional technique of piecing will absolutely work for this quilt! It's about the process of enjoying the work of making the quilt! I find myself often thinking about the original maker, wondering which type of piecing she used. She was, after all, from England so I do suppose she could have used English Paper Piecing to piece her blocks. I have tried to find out how old the technique is, but can't seem to find any information about a quilt known as the first English Paper Pieced Quilt. If anyone does know this, I would love to learn about it from you.

 

There are also several ways to stitch Wool Appliqué. Many primitive artists use the blanket stitch with pearl cotton or 3 strands of floss. It's beautiful done that way, but I have decided I prefer my stitches to blend in with the wool. My quilt design style is a bit primitive to go along with the traditional, but a bit of a more formal primitive touch is how I see my style. With that said, I prefer to use wool thread when I do wool appliqué. I've used several stitches, but prefer a small, simple, whip stitch. You can see some of the thread shining in the flash of the picture above. But, whichever type of thread or floss you like, would work wonderfully on these appliqué blocks.

Some of the wool shapes are very narrow, so for these blocks, I used fusible Steam A Seam 2 Lite to hold them in place and seal the edges from raveling. Now that I've gotten rid of my 25 year old iron, the Steam a Seam worked great! Lots of steam IS the key, even when I thought I HAD lots of steam in the past! Most of the time, I prefer not to use fusible when I do Wool Appliqué because I prefer the softer feel. Again, it's all about enjoying the process and whichever way you prefer for the majority of these appliqués is what you should do! (I do highly recommend fusible for the stems though!)

 

Be sure to visit Karen and Carrie's blogs to see their updates about The Gardens Of A King that they've been working on. You'll see some great changes from mine to make it their own so that they enjoy the journey of making the quilt!

In the coming weeks I'll be posting some hints and reviews of how I prefer to do things. One of which will be sharp points like the few you see above! But first, I'll be posting the quilt top, The Gardens Of A King, for you tomorrow... Nice to see you here today and I hope to see you here tomorrow!

Until then,

Take care,

Missie

 

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The Gardens Of A King, Part 3!

Hello Again! In the last post I mention what might be coming next in the quilt. Well you saw a few sharks teeth in a border along with the blocks in the last picture. Here is another view of those sharks teeth.

In fact there are several rows of sharks teeth! The way I sew them is pretty easy...just a zig zag appliqué line. One of the simplest shapes to appliqué! Here's another view below...

 

If you look close in the picture above you can see a few repeats of blocks I've shown you already. These have some different values from the blocks shown before. What other elements do you notice in this picture? A bit of appliqué! With the circular shapes in the blocks, there are elements of Appliqué mixed in with the piecing. I've prepared these curved pieces with starch, just like the geometric shapes in the blocks. When you prepare them with starch it is very easy to appliqué good shapes. The work is done before you use your needle and thread and takes the hard work out of sewing on these curves!

 

There is another type of appliqué in this quilt... In fact, it's wool appliqué! Since the blocks are so detailed, I thought the simplicity of wool appliqué would be a good element to add. The original King George III Coverlet had appliqué scenes of the king inspecting his troops. I wanted to show something else about the time period.

 

This block represents the quilt's name...The Gardens Of A King. As I have been listening to the historical fiction novel while I sew, ( set in the same time period the original quilt was made) I realized how important gardens were. The castle land had fine gardens, and the towns people also had gardens. They needed the plants for all sorts of things...medicines, food of course, dyes and more. The garden was a very important part of survival in the days of yesteryear. When I gained permission from the V & A Museum to do this quilt, I was given permission to reproduce the pieced blocks only, but I knew I would want some appliqué in the quilt also. The block above represents a fanciful English Garden that you may see on castle grounds. I'm sure you are familiar with the shaped gardens, or perhaps the maze gardens. This picture shows a wool appliqué block with cotton sharks teeth. I chose a large green plaid wool, which gives the shape some nice shading.

I've done a little research on plants that grew during the 1700s and early 1800s and have put a few in this quilt. These plants would have grown in English Gardens at the time this quilt was made. Above is an appliqué block showing Plumbs. You can see this block is framed in a sharks tooth border.

And here is a twig of Peaches...

The herb Persalane...

Some apples... They ate well back then...

 

And of course, they enjoyed the beauty of flowers, but also used them for their medicinal qualities, scents, and flavors.

The Hazelnut tree was a bountiful tree. They brewed tea, ate the nuts, and stained fabrics.

 

Be sure to visit the wonderful ladies who've tested the pattern for me...Karen and Carrie's blogs. They will be posting about the quilt as well in the coming days. Both ladies have a unique view of this quilt and have done a wonderful job! Be sure and look back a ways to see all their posts about the process.

I hope you are intrigued with what's to come in the next few days. So far we have English Paper Piecing, Appliqué and Wool Appliqué....my three favorite techniques in quilting. Be sure to come back Saturday and Sunday mornings to see some more and finally the entire quilt top. I'm so excited to share it with you!

Let me know if you are interested in being put on the list for first notice of the pattern, but make sure I have access to your email. The pattern should be ready pretty soon.

Thanks so much for spending a few minutes here today...

Take care,

Missie

PS...please go back to your previous comments and check to see if I've left a reply for you to send me your email address. If you don't get an email back in reply to your comment I don't have your email to send you the information early :-)

 

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A Little More Rug Love!

I've been working on another punched rug with the Oxford Punch (available HERE) for the Hook In I will be vending at next weekend, Sept. 6th in Warsaw, MO. This one will go along with Pennies In My Garden wool and cotton quilt! The Hook In is sponsored by Saltbox Primitives and sounds like it will be a blast! I'm really excited!

 

I've had a few questions about what type of frame I use when doing rug punching. This is an antique Edmund's Rug Frame that my husband clamped some legs to, so the frame is held up off the table. It is working great! One important thing to remember when punching vs. hooking rugs is that you can not use a hooking frame for punching. The sharp needles on the hooking frame will snag the loops. When hooking, you work from the front and the needles grab ahold of the back of the rug. When punching, you work from the back, so the needles grab ahold of the loops and you don't want that! This is why I use a different frame when punching.

You can see that we also added some nails to 2 sides of the frame to hold the munks cloth in place. These old frames were made to use thumbtacks to hold the backing fabric in place. But that's too much work for me. These nails are working great to pull the backing fabric nice and tight while I punch.

This picture shows the nails much better! Plus, you can see the rug a bit better too! So far, I have not been able to hang my quilt, Pennies In My Garden ( available HERE), in my home but a few weeks. Once it finishes traveling the country to hang in stores and my vending booth, I will really enjoy hanging the quilt and displaying the matching rug together! It has been such fun creating these rugs with elements of my quilt designs!

The picture above shows my quilting hoop with fabric wrapped around the inner hoop. This is what I used for the smaller designs. Worked great!

Rug Punching is so easy and quick. I am thrilled to have finally jumped in and accomplished something that's been on my bucket list for quite a while!

I will be selling the monks cloth with the designs drawn for rug hooking and rug punching. If you are interested, please leave a reply or send an email and I will custom draw one for YOU! If any of you live near Warsaw, MO, I would love to meet you next Saturday, the 6th...come see me at the Hook In!

 

Take Care,

Missie

 

 

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