Stolen Quilts

A quilting teacher, Karen Combs had her teaching quilts stolen out of her car in Texas.  Please take a few moments to check out her blog to see pictures of the quilts and if you see one in your travels either on line or in person, contact her. Her contact information is on her blog here.

Retro Sewing Patterns

One of the fun things about having a sewing pattern business is all the sewing patterns! Not only do I get to see and inspect the current patterns available for sewing, but patterns from the past that are still great to be worn currently. Lately there has been a huge push into retro and vintage fahion. You can get the authentitic look by buying a sewing pattern of the style and time frame that you like, and with a few small alterations you can make your pattern even more stylish and current.

We just listed this pattern, McCall's Pattern 2977, which would make a great summer dress. With all the different neckline, yoke options, and even the option to have a front button bodice, you can make this dress multiple times and no one would know the difference since you can make significant changes with each dress you make. Changing the type of fabric that you create this dress with, you will have even more options. This pattern was first printed in 1987, which was still the era of the big padded shoulders. The only alteration I would make with this dress, is not having the shoulder pad, but continuing with the extended shoulder with a slight alteration to make it lay right without the shoulder pad. You will end up with a fun flirty, cool to wear summer dress in a variety of looks. Make it the first time to check and adjust the fit and then make it again and again to have a whole wardrobe of easy to make basic hot weather dresses.

With well over 7000 sewing patterns listed and more being listed all the time, you will be sure to find a great pattern for your next sewing project. Shop with us any time at Moonwishes Sewing and Crafts!

The Royal Wedding Prince William and Catherine Middleton

The Royal Wedding of Miss Catherine Middleton to Prince William of the United Kingdom was a glorious affair. Now you too can have a wedding fit for a princess through the power of Butterick sewing patterns. Butterick Sewing Pattern has produced patterns of replicas of the dresses worn at the wedding by the bride, her maid of honor and the flower girls. Butterick 5731 or P249 is similar to the dress Miss Middleton wore only with a much shorter cut on train, as most brides aren't going to be able to book Westminster Abbey for their event! The maid of honor dress that Philippa Middleton (Pippa) wore looks basically the same in Butterick 5710 or P250 as do the flower girl dress in Butterick 5705 or P248. The maid of honor dress can also be used for a wedding dress itself with it's short cuton train, or as a formal or in the shorter version a party dress. All sizes and styles are currently available for the Royal Wedding dress patterns in our store, Moonwishes Sewing and Crafts.

Even if a royal wedding isn't in the cards for you, we do have over 7000 uncut, unused sewing patterns in every size and style. Shop with us any time and tell your sewing friends about our store. Thanks for visiting.

Ruffling without a Ruffler foot

Here is a blog entry showing how to ruffle by machine without a ruffling foot. I haven't had time yet to try this, but you might want. Visit the blog here.

A Stitch A Half

Else found me yet another site. A Stitch A Half . Their current freebie is an embroidered clutch purse in three sizes where the panels are made with your embroidery machine and then stitched together with your sewing machine. Get over there now while this great download is still available and don't forget to get the tutorial for making the purse.

Worldwide Mchine Embroidery Designs

The hobby of machine embroidery is definitely a worldwide hobby. My on-line friend Else from the Netherlands, has been scouting new design pages for me and they are listed on our Embroidery Designs page. One is in Italian and one in Dutch.

I'm so glad for these emails from Else especially when having a bit of a rough day. Last night I went to sit down in my sewing chair and one of the 5 legs (which are supposed to increase safety) broke out from under me throwing me onto the floor. My left leg rammed into my thread, hoops and stabilizer cart and ended up knocking it on top of me with my right leg stuck under the cutting table. Thankfully I managed to get the thread stand back up without losing everything onto the floor and then the big project was getting me back up. With fake knees and sore, weak joints all over, this was a major project requiring the help of hubby and a step ladder. The good news was I had finished my sewing project and was just putting stuff away.

Gail's Sewing Projects

Finally got the picture out of the camera of the wedding quilt I made and the happy couple with me. I love these kids and I loved being able to make them something special that shows that love.

I also finished my Project Linus quilt on Saturday after a marathon 3 hours sewing session. I wanted to get it done by the main collection day as it is too easy to let things go if you miss a 'deadline'. While making these quilts I always pray for the child and the family that will receive it as these quilts are given to children in distress of some type.

Now to get going with some other projects. Started yesterday with mending. I don't particularly like mending, but I like knowing that by mending something, I'm keeping it useful for a longer time.

Project Linus Quilt 2012

Between surgeries, just not feeling good and a major wedding quilt project, I didn't get much other sewing done this past year. The other day I counted up how many quilt blocks I had made towards this year's Project Linus quilt. I had made only 10 and needed 25! Last night I finally sat down and whipped up 15 more,  machine embroidered the Janome Project Linus logo on one of the blocks, ironed them and trimmed threads. Hopefully today I will be able to get them sewn together, sandwiched with the batting and backing and quilt it so it can be turned in tomorrow which is blanket day at my local sewing shop, Super Stitch .  I try to get a blanket done every year and if I don't finish it on time I end up without the mental push of a deadline. This is going to be a big push for me so I hope I can get it finished.

I usually make most of my Project Linus quilts in bright primary colors. This is where cutting blocks out of leftover material at the end of sewing project really pays off. I cut all my leftover cotton quilting fabric into 4 1/2" and 2 1/2" squares and 4 1/2 x 2 1/2" rectangles. I always seem to have plenty of pieces to make a scrap quilts for this yearly project. I'm also glad that I didn't have to cut these pieces all at the last minute as the tendonitis in my elbow wouldn't have allowed it. It is amazing just how many different kinds of quilt blocks can be made with just these three size of quilt pieces. The picture shows this year's block design.

The Project Linus logo can be downloaded for free at the Janome website along with a lot of other free machine embroidery designs.

The Free Motion Quilting Project

If you want to learn how to free motion quilt on a domestic or home sewing machine, this is the place to go! Visit The Free Motion Quilting Project where Leah Day will help you through written and video tutorials to learn all sorts of designs and ways to quilt your quilting projects. Her site is a fantastic learning opportunity that you should want to take advantage of.

Valentine's Day & Project Linus

Just realized last night that Project Linus blanket day is this coming Saturday the 18th. Although they take quilts throughout the year, I try to have one ready by the blanket day as a prompt and deadline for me. At this point I only have 10 blocks made and need 25 total, plus finishing the quilt. I'll see how it goes. I haven't missed turning in a blanket for years, but this past year was rough with two surgeries and the new year hasn't started out so well either with almost non-stop pain from not only the RA but tendonitis. You would think that if you are already in chronic pain for one thing, you wouldn't have to get another source of pain too wouldn't you? It has sure slowed down my sewing plans. I'm going to give it a try to get the Project Linus quilt finished though, as it is simple quick blocks.

Also a reminder that lately several of the embroidery sites that I signed up for have been giving away free embroidery designs for Valentine's Day. So if you get newsletters in the mail, be sure to open them to see if you got a goodie! I think in the last couple days I got 5-6 free designs. Valentine's Day is now rather special for me as it is also my wedding anniversary. This year will be our tenth one and I'm so glad I have a hubby that not only loves me but works hard to help ease my physical pain and has stuck by me all these years of chronic illness! He is a wonderful guy.

The Free Motion Quilting Project

I've been hearing a long time about Leah Day and finally last night since I couldn't sleep I had time to visit her blog, The Free Motion Quilting Project. Definitely a place to visit if you are trying to learn FMQ and want to be able to both read and see how to do things. She has lots of videos showing how to do things. I barely got through the surface of what she has in her blog and know that will need to spend so quality time there.

Winter Machine Embroidery Freebies

Just in case you may have missed it, Embroidery Library is offering some great winter freebies up through January 22, 2012. Two of the designs available need bigger hoops as one has a measurement of over 8" on one side and the other has one over 9" on one side and is designed for an endless hoop, but for those with smaller sew out ability they have split the design for you. Embroidery Library, if you have told them your preferred format and maximum size of your hoops, will remind you if designs are too big for your machine when they are placed in your shopping cart. I download all the sizes anyhow, as maybe someday, some nice person will give me a machine that can use those large designs. LOL! Downloading all the smaller sizes helps you from having to decrease or increase the sizes of your designs as much to get them to fit a certain area and that keeps your stitch count and sew out looking better. I just love the generosity of this company! And what terrific designs besides.

Gifts!

Last year (2011) was a rough one physically for me with a lot of pain and periods of discouragement. Then I found a devotional book at our local library book sale on seeing the gifts that God gives or brings our way. I read through that book twice during the year before passing it on to someone else that might find use for it. Over the month of December, which was a financial strain for us, I thought again about that book and my need to acknowledge the gifts that come my way. I wanted to focus on the good and not the bad that was happening in my life. Suddenly life just didn't feel as full of strain and problems when thinking about the good that was happening.

When Ron and Savannah came for Christmas he brought me 3 Sew Beautiful magazines that someone had given him to pass on to me. I hadn't seen them before as I don't have a subscription to this magazine as so many of the projects are for little girls that I don't have much opportunity to sew too much for. I was very excited to get these magazines and reading them helped to take my mind off the pain I'm in. Best of all I saw some neat ideas that I can hardly wait to try on the Little Dresses for Africa dresses that I make.  In one of the issues they even had a 'pillowcase' dress.

My next sewing 'gift' came in the mail today. A friend from one of my sewing digests wrote me and offered to send me 6 memory cards and a hoop to go with my second hand Janome 9000 or she was going to throw them out! I was so grateful for her generosity and she even refused to let me pay for the shipping!

Several weeks ago I had an author write me and ask me to read and review her book which I of course said yes to. Although I've been having a hard time reading this past week, this has been a fun and interesting book to read and I will be doing a review of it soon. And then today I received my second book gift. Michael Palmer sent me an Advanced Reading Copy of his book Oath of Office to read and review. Since he is one of my favorite authors, this will be a treat indeed!

I challenge you to keep track of the gifts that come your way so that on discouraging days you can think of the many blessings that have come your way. God indeed is good!

Purple Hat New Freebies

The Purple Hat has just posted three more freebies that is part of their animal alpha-bet series. These designs would be great as quilt blocks. Purple Hat features lots of children's designs and in the hoop designs. Visit them here and see what they are working on!

Finally Finished, well almost!

After a year of work when I was able, in between two knees surgeries and multiple arthritis flare-ups, I am happy to say that I am done with Ron and Savannah's wedding/Christmas quilt! I just have to sew on the label although they got in for the holidays last night and got to sleep under it already. I'm so happy to have it done and I think it turned out well with lots of bright colors that will go with just about any color scheme except a subdued one. There is a quilting tradition that some quilters insert a humility block into their quilts since no one but God is perfect. Well, that is not a problem I have. Lots of technical oops in this quilt, but it was made with lots of love for a lovely couple.

This quilt was made with over 1000 individually cut 2 1/2" squares and the border was supposed to have about that many and they were actually cut, but by the time I got to the border, I realized that a pieced border wouldn't work. This was a quilt as you go quilt, using ideas from Sharon Pederson's books (hope I got her name correct) although it isn't a reversible quilt. Even so, for a big queen sized quilt, that is a lot of bulk to be handling! It was made on my Janome 7700 and 9000. Now onto other projects, only I think I want to go with smaller projects for a while.

New Free Embroidery Designs

Anna Bove Embroidery has just released some beautiful FREE embroidery designs to download. Snowflakes which could be placed into any winter scene and Green trees which could be placed into any outdoor scene that needs some pine trees. They also have other neat things at their store, so stop on in!

My Quilt is Finished

After a year of working on it when I had time, in between two major knee surgeries, arthritis flare-ups and generally not feeling well this year, I'm happy to report that I have finally finished my kids wedding quilt! Pictures will follow after they see it for themselves, but I am very pleased with the way it turned out. I don't think I will ever attempt such a large quilt again as it was just too heavy to manipulate even doing a quilt as you go version. At some point the whole thing has to come together for the final border and binding! Thankful that I had a Janome 9000 and a 7700 so I could switch between them to save time on thread changes!

More Machine Embroidery Sites

Thanks to Else, we have two more great sites to add to our Machine Embroidery Sites pages. Be sure when possible to sign up for the different sites newsletters so that you will know when they have come out with new designs or freebies. Like all the other sites on the lists, these ones also have plenty of freebies for you to try before you buy!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to all my sewing friends! We look forward to this next year. With no surgeries planned, I hope to feel better and no lost time recuperating so I can be able to get more sewing projects done. We would love to see any sewing projects you do also.

We are also looking forward to sales from our store helping to support the Sewing Project in Paraguay. the Hill's are very excited and grateful that we have taken them on with the promise of a portion of all sales that will be sent to them monthly. For more about the Project, please visit http://norbertandsylvia.blogspot.com/ to see what else you personally might be able to do.

The sewing project in Limpio Paraguay

Throughout our life, we have always given a portion of our earnings back to charitable causes whether to our church or other worthwhile needs. I'm sure those of you that have been reading my blog for a while know that I love helping assist in needed causes, such as the Project Linus quilts I make and the Little Dresses for Africa. These I do personally in between my own sewing projects. I feel so grateful for what I've been given in sewing machines , fabric and notions that I want to give back in tangible ways. We have wanted to find a charity that would be a good fit for our store,  Moonwishes Sewing and Crafts, to help support. We wanted especially to find a charity that was sewing related, helping women to learn sewing and help them to earn a living to help support their families in a respectable manner. We wanted a charity that the buyers of our goods would appreciate that a portion of their purchases would be going to help other women in their sewing endeavors. After some studying and searching via the Internet, we found the perfect charity in a recent copy of The Quilter magazine.

We will now be sending a portion of the proceeds of our pattern sales monthly to "The Sewing Project in Limpio/Paraguay". This project is run in Paraguay by Albert and Sylvia Hill. Sylvia was asked to teach women how to sew and over the years this project has blossomed. The better seamstresses are now learning how to produce Fair Trade goods to sell to help support themselves. The women are growing in self esteem and now have a way to sew and make gifts for their families as well as earning much needed income. This is a worthwhile project that helps impoverished women to be able to start their own businesses. We are very excited to partner with this project. Your purchases will help provide needed funding. You can learn more about this project here: http://norbertandsylvia.blogspot.com/

You can also make your own personal donations to the Sewing project by way of fabric, notions, sewing machines, and money. Some of the women need bus fare just to get to the sewing classes and money is needed to help pay for more sewing teachers as the project grows. They also are very much in need of those who can help to sell and distribute their Fair Trade articles that the women produce. You can send monetary donations and find out more about the project at The Sewing Project in Limpio Paraguay To enquire about the project write to the following address or to send a donation make the check payable to: "The Project for the People of Paraguay - sewing project!” Send the check, enquiries or donations to: PPP P.O. Box 251 Avon, Minnesota 56310. You will get a receipt for your donation. Thank you for your help in this cause in what ever way you can. This group also would appreciate prayers if you are so inclined.