July 2014 New Releases

See the latest Christmas in July of Anita Goodesign For lots of lovely machine embroidery Designs for Christmas and other December Holiday's such as Hanukah.

Organizing Machine Embroidery Designs

I have wanted to do a project for several years as I got more and more buried under paperwork. I do machine embroidery and one company, Embroidery Library, is very generous with free designs. I have always printed off the page showing the design so that I wouldn't lose track of the designs I had. Well I ended up with a huge stack of papers, but with no way to punch holes in the papers until a month ago when I got to review this three hole punch by  Swingline It was terrific for putting the holes in the papers.

Granted it is a bit expensive but if you have kids in school that needs paper holes punched in paper or your own crafts that need a 3-hole punch, this is a marvelous machine. I have even punch out a stack of misprinted paper so that I can put it in a notebook and use the unprinted side to write on.

 But then how do I sort them all and keep them divided by category as just the Christmas designs was a stack over an inch thick? Well again I got to review something that worked wonderfully well and it was these transparent tab dividers. 

 

 

Instead of writing on actual tabs and then realizing you wrote things wrong and need to start over and then you end up with a mess and not enough tabs. This system works so well because you can print the 'tab' headings on one piece of paper through your printer. You can get the file to use to set up the page at the website listed on the packaging. The packaging also tells you how to set it up yourself, but I was a bit to lazy to try that. So I printed out the tabs I needed. Since I had such a huge stack, I ended up using 2 sets, which equaled 16 tabs. I'm not sure that I have the divisions the way I want them, but it is nice to know that I can just make up new tabs as needed.

At that point, I popped everything into this 3 D-ring  Binder and I was good to go. I opened and closed the binder multiple times while sorting the papers and never had a bit of trouble and the D rings help to keep all the papers sitting in a nice stack when not being used, instead of being bent on the circle rings that most binders have.

All told with the help of three (free for me!) Amazon Vine review products, I was able to tackle a project that had been on the back burner for a long time. I was very happy with all of these products. And very happy that it is easier to now find the perfect design when looking for it.

Frogs for Project Linus

Several years ago I was given a box of juvenile quilting fabrics including yardage of frog prints in different sizes and in pink and blue color ways. As my last few, well actually most, of my Project Linus quilts have been in the red white and blue color families, I was ready for something with a change of color palette. In February 2014 The Quilter Magazine had an article on making a child's quilt called "What a Hoot". It was the perfect size for a Project Linus quilt and as it also used fabric in varying sizes of the main print, I decided this would work for my newest quilts using the frog prints. However as I started setting up the blocks and seeing how it would look, I realized that some changes were in order since the background of the prints was the identical blue or pink background and so I was having too much of a good thing. Still basing the quilt layouts on the owl quilt, I did some adjusting and swapping fabrics in places and got a pink frog and then a blue frog quilt top finished including the borders. Also when sewing the pink quilt together I mixed up the blocks and for the life of me couldn't figure out how they were supposed to go together so I did my own thing. I have also set aside a length of yardage for backing for each of the quilts.

I still have a good amount of yardage left and also some precut squares and strips in various sizes, so now I get to do what I really love, making up scrap quilts that looked planned but are basically 'happy accidents' depending on what I have to work with. I once read a letter to the editor of a quilting magazine that asked why anyone would want to make scrap quilts as she hated them. All I could think was why would anyone want to make a quilt with two fabrics and 12 identical blocks when you could use 100 fabrics and have twelve similar and coordinating blocks? The joy of quilting is we all get to do what we want to do! I'm hoping to be able to make at least three more quilt tops before I run out of the frog prints and coordinating fabrics.                                                        

Benefit for Eric Hawley

One of the great benefits for those of us that sew is being able to 'whip' up something for a charitable thing when needed. Well I don't actually 'whip' up anything anymore, but I have enjoyed making a project to benefit Eric Hawley a husband of a friend of mine who was in a very serious car accident about 2 months ago followed immediately by a stroke. So not only did he have to recuperate from the accident injuries but the stroke ones. I think he spent something on the order of a month or more in the hospital. With three young children at home, a full time job, his wife Bailey was going in all directions. At this point he is home and continuing to heal but the bills remain. His friends and family are throwing a benefit for him to help raise money to help pay off the bills and all that out of pocket stuff like parking, extra gas to go back and forth to the hospital etc. If you live in Northwestern PA, you are more than welcome to attend the benefit, here is the link from Facebook for the details https://www.facebook.com/events/1417878755141713/

I wanted to contribute to help and since I'm not up to attending or cooking anymore, I made something for the auction they will have. It gave me a chance to do something for someone else and fine tune some new sewing skills that I have been working on, especially making and using hexagons. I made a butcher's style apron with coordinating potholders. On the potholders, I tried echo quilting for the first time and it was a bit tricky with all the angles and when appliqueing the flowers down I had deliberately set them at angle and only decided later to do the echo quilting. Bear with me as the photos are my first attempt at using the digital camera. If you like what you see here, go to the benefit and see if you can win them :)

 

My favorite apron pattern design McCall's 5174 (out of print) . Easy to make so you have time to embellish. Being modeled by Annabelle.

 

The pocket started out as a large hexagon . Sewed the two layers together, turned them inside out, folded the flap down and then appliqued it to the apron with an applique stitch (#45 on the Janome 7700)

 

Hexagon flowers and a hexagon flower bud with a rick rack stems. I didn't have the right color of rick rack, so tried to tone it down with more thread, but I'm not sure it worked very well.

 

Hexagon flower potholders with echo quilting. Flowers and binding is sewn down with an applique stitch (#45 on Janome 7700) They are about 8" square. My own design, no pattern.

 Quick and Easy Hexie Quilts is one of the books I have been using as reference in my quest to lean how to make and use hexagons.

Sew Better with Staystitching Fundamentals - Threads

Sew Better with Staystitching Fundamentals - Threads  Need a bit of a refresher course in staystitching? Here is one. I'm always tempted to skip this part but know not to. It did take me a long time to learn that for curved necklines, to only staystitch from one neckline down to the base of the curves, stop, and then go to the opposite neckline and sew down to meet the prior staystitching as doing it in one operation can cause the curve to straighten out. Look at the direction of the arrows on your instruction page for the pattern. Same thing when actually sewing the neckline or adding a collar on. I added a lace collar to a dress once and couldn't figure out why one side didn't look as good as the other--because I did it all in one seam instead of 2 parts. Taking that extra minute or two does wonders for the look and hang of your garments.

Chicken Scratch Embroidery

One of the things that I like most about Pinterest is that we are literally bookmarking items that we might want to see and study later. So last night I clicked on my Hand Embroidery board on my Pinterest page. Earlier I had pinned a Chicken Scratch embroidery picture and since it was a bit different than I had ever seen before, it was this picture that I wanted to follow and learn more about this newer concept.

I have done chicken scratch embroidery in the past, but was very happily surprised at other's genius with changing what they were doing, whether with the design itself or the colors and weights of threads or a combination of all. When clicking on the photo, it took me to PinTangle where there were lots of new and different combinations for doing chicken scratch, and also lots of links to see what others are doing. And of course, the embroiders are doing more than chicken scratch so you get lots of ideas on other types of embroidery as well. PinTangle had bunches of other links to other embroiders and by the time an hour was up, I had barely 'scratched' the surface of all the information that was there on the different pages. The great thing is, with just that one photo that I have posted for all to see and be inspired, I also have all that is needed to find more information about the latest in chicken scratch embroidery. As needle workers, we have no reason to ever be without an idea of something to make, since if we can't bring up a creative thought on our own, thousands of others that have come before have done so!

One of the nicest things about embroidery is that at the most basic, it is an inexpensive way to create something beautiful and to embellish clothing or other projects. My re-interest in chicken scratch was brought out by a tiny little booklet that I got for a dime at the thrift store that had chicken scratch as well as ways to use rick rack with embroidery floss in ways I had never seen before. On one of the links, I found several samples of rick rack in combination with chicken scratch and it was amazing how lovely the designed looked and how inexpensive it was to accomplish, assuming you live near a great thrift store that I have bought lots of rick rack from.

Checking to see what books Amazon might have on the topic, I only found a couple as well as some design booklets. This first one I put on my wish list as it looks like something I would like to study.

FREE Butterfly and Flowers Machine Embroidery Designs!

Embroidery Library has given us a great Easter, Welcome Spring gift! From now through April 20, 2014 you can download 8 different designs, four of which come in different sizes. If you download all available sizes you will end up with 20 designs. Even though I doubt I will ever get an embroidery machine that can take a larger design than the Janome 300e that I have now, I believe in possibilities so I download all sizes...Just in Case! I have one set of the designs showing on this page, but if you go to Embroidery Library you can see and download the all of them. Aren't they lovely designs???

Quilting organization.

Interweave Press is having a contest and wanted to know about tips for organizing your stash. There will be a random drawing for the prize winner, so I figure there is no chance I will win, but thought I should post some of the things I do for those that might be interested.
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I have to agree that you need to use the system that works for you. Mine is storing fabric in boxes that paper came in. They fit on my shelves just great. I do not sort my fabrics by color, but I try to keep some by fabric theme such as juvenile prints so it is easier to grab what I need when making a baby or Project Linus quilt. I also keep all Christmas fabrics together in one box so that I don't have to root through boxes to find what I'm looking for. Otherwise I love going through my stash looking for just the right color and falling in love with my fabrics all over again. That is part of the joy of quilt making for me.

My best organizational tip, is whenever you are finished with a project, cut the scraps down into workable size squares and rectangles and now that I'm into making hexagons, those as well. I cut up as much as I can into 2.5 " x 2.5" squares, 4.5" x 4.5" squares, and a 2.5" x 4.5" rectangles. I call these my 2 by 4's as to me they are the same as the 2 by 4's that constructions workers use to frame out a house. I can make hundreds of styles of quilts with these three shapes. Anything smaller goes in the trash and pieces that are bigger get folded back up neatly with the rest of the fabric unless all that is left is a strip and I cut that into a 2.5", 2" or 1.5" strip. So I have been ahead of the jelly rolls, etc. for years!

Whenever I get a new quilting magazine, as I look through it, if I see a project that can be made out of my pre-cuts, I will flag it with a Post-it note and the same with easy baby quilts I will flag as well. That way when I need a new idea I don't have to look at the whole magazine, just the pages that are flagged.

I have a disabling chronic health problem so anything that I can do to make things easier truly benefits me, such as I have a Janome 7700 with an automatic thread cutter (much easier than picking up and manipulating scissors to trim off threads), an acrylic table that allows me to rest my forearms and hands on while piecing and I always do chain piecing, push 'buttons' to set my settings so no manipulating dials (I never use the jog dial on the machine).

No matter what the world is doing in their sewing spaces, do what makes you comfortable. I love the look of all those fabrics that are setting open on the shelves, but I also know what dust and sunshine can do to fabric, especially on the folds. So mine is packed away. Oh yes, fashion fabric is in boxes separate from quilting fabric.

Finished At Last!

Well actually almost finished but I now know what we owe on our taxes. The scourge of being self-employed is the bloodletting at the beginning of the year. Very hard to truly estimate how bad the blood bath will be. Well we owe so off to work we go!

The bad thing between working on taxes and the flare-ups I keep having due to our constantly changing weather, I have barely gotten near my sewing room, or my embroidery cart. Now that I don't have the pressure of spending 'free' time working on taxes, perhaps I can get some sewing done and clean up the mess in the sewing room. Perhaps I might get caught up with laundry and the dishes too?!?! Probably not to the last one.

I had been hoping to be able to post more off of my laptop when we got the WiFi, but our internet explorer wouldn't let me into blogger to write up the posts. I tried to upgrade as the little message boxes told me to, but when I did, they said this computer couldn't be upgrades. Wonder why as it isn't THAT old? Well I had to have hubby install Google chrome and I can once again post from my nest upstairs, so I hope that means more blog posts.

Tonight was a night to relax after working for hours on those taxes and one of the things I did was go to one of my favorite Pinterest boards, Hand Embroidery, and studied the samples of stitches and projects taking my time to really look at them and absorb the work. When I'm pinning things, I usually am going fast and will pin whatever catches my eye. Later taking my time, I'm glad for what I pinned. I know I pin a lot onto all my boards, but that is for me how Pinterest should be working, as file cabinets to hold all our ideas. I've seen some ladies mention that they try to not pin too many things so their followers don't get overwhelmed. I'm posting first and foremost for myself as a way to capture great ideas after years of seeing neat things and unless you owned the book or magazine that you see them in, they are lost to you forever. Now that no longer holds true.

Would love to hear how you folks use Pinterest and what is your favorite board that you especially like of all of your boards. If I'm not already following you, I would love your Pinterest url so I can see what you are posting.

Definitely time for bed!

Pinterest

I have just discovered yet another reason to love Pinterest!  Prepping your taxes. We run two businesses on top of lots of other stuff and finishing the first business I declared a 15 minute vacation to go see what was new on Pinterest. I have never yet been disappointed when popping in there. Always something new to see, something new to inspire and to awe you. Most of my Pinterest boards have to do with sewing or needle crafts of some kind if you would like to visit.

Now for a little supper and to decide if I want to do more taxes tonight or put the rest off until tomorrow. I think I know which I'll give in to -- a good book!

Hand Embroidery

Sunday night I was able to finished embroidering this pillowcase which shows 2 bluebirds in a nest. The design came from some old Workbasket magazines that I had gotten at a yard sale long ago that I took all the embroidery transfers out. So a vintage embroidery design that was stitched in 2014!

My husband took the photo and did the photo manipulation so it looks a bit brighter than it really is and the one detail that I was most proud of doesn't show up very well. I had managed by manipulating the colors of embroidery floss to make the tree branch rounded looking by doing dark on the edges and building up to a lighter brown on the top and it gave the optical illusion of a round branch. I used both DMC embroidery floss and DMC pearl cotton in the design.

I enjoyed trying out some different techniques and stitches on this pillowcase. Since they will probably never be used at the same time, with the other pillowcase that I already have stamped I will be using some more different stitches and techniques. I just bought this book Embroidered Embellished which has some interesting different embroidery stitches and ways to use them so I will be using it for inspiration.

Hexa-Go-Go: English Paper Piecing 16 Quilt Projects

I don't know why I do this to myself! To relax before bed I was reading this new book I bought on making Hexagons and hexagon projects. I'm really starting to build up a collection of pieced hexagons in 4 different sizes and really need an idea on which way I should head. Well this book, Hexa-Go-Go: English Paper Piecing 16 Quilt Projects  has ideas by the dozen, not just in the book, but in the ideas that blossom in your head while reading the book. Ideas were exploding in my mind to the point that I couldn't sleep last night as I was designing projects in my head and figuring out how to make them work. I definitely have a better idea of what I want to do with all my different hexagons now. And I know this is not a book for bedtime reading.

This book has great full color photos. Most projects are made with very modern prints which I don't go for, but my stash of flowery fabrics and scraps should do very well when being substituted for the modern prints. While I thought making hexagons would be tedious and difficult, I have found them to great to work on while watching TV. I don't go out much so I don't have a portable package of hexagons to work with currently as the author suggests, but I will certainly think about putting a little kit together for extended waits at doctor's offices and waiting for prescriptions to be filled at the drug store. If you have been hesitant to try hexagons might I suggest you give them a try.

You can dip your toes into the water with a couple of quick hexagon projects in a free class at Craftsy 2012 Block of the Month class. I've done all but the last two blocks at this point. The foundation piecing had gotten the best of my dyslexic brain, but when wide awake in my sewing room, I have been trying to push myself along. You would think I would push myself a little more as I can't (my own rules) start another project until this class is finished and cleaned up. Of course making the hexies doesn't count as I do them in front of the TV instead of in front of the sewing machine. Hard to believe it is March already as I started this class last year while my sewing goal was to learn and perfect new techniques.

Quilting Fabric Stashes

I have been quilting since I was in 8th grade or since 1967 however you might want to look at it. My first quilt to me was beautiful but as a quilt it was a disaster. The squares weren't the same size, the seams weren't the same size and many times I sewed the seams with a basting stitch. Big oops! When it came to the fabric for this quilt, I went the old fashioned route. I dove into my mother's leftover scraps 'bag'. I didn't know a single thing about making a quilt other than what little I may have gleaned from reading Laura Ingall's Little House on the Prairie book series. So being ignorant I used any and all fabrics that I found, trying to get enough for a decent sized quilt. This meant that some old leftover green, ugly upholstery fabric was paired up with fragile summer fabrics. 100% cottons were mixed with polyester blends. I didn't finish the quilt until 12th grade and was able to take it away with me to college. It may have been a weird quilt, but from what I had to work with, I feel like for a supposedly unartistic person, the color sense and design was there. I loved that quilt and it cheered me tremendously to see it and use it. Eventually sometime after my first son Ron was born it disintegrated. I can only date it back to Ron as I have a picture of him sitting on it, but never had one of Steve near it. I threw it away and have regretted it ever since. However, what I did do was the leftover blocks were saved in my sewing stuff which amazingly used to fit in a green plastic carrying case that enclosed my quilting, embroidery and mending tools. but I suppose I was ahead of most girls at college who didn't even have a sewing needle with them! One day I found those old blocks and picked them apart, cut them to exact squares and sewed them back together again, getting rid of the green upholstery fabric and and the super thin polyester fabric. One of the prints was leftover from the first dress I ever made myself. hose blocks are still waiting for the perfect project for them.

I missed being in the USA for most of the bicentennial year of 1976 as I went to college in Canada and got to go to Colombia during my summer break. So I missed the start of the ongoing quilting craze and the fabrics that came into being during that point in time in the USA. My second quilt was yet again made out of scrounged fabric. Then I found Eleanor Burn's Log Cabin in a Day book. I had to make one and for the first time in my life I went out and bought quilting fabric to make a quilt. Of course there were leftovers and also the quilting bug really bit at that point or was it the accumulation of quilting fabric bug? Anyhow I bought fabric. I made quilts. I bought more fabric. People found out I quilted and was into other sewing expressions as well, so I was given 'gifts' of their fabric and tools that they no longer wanted. Yard sales started having quilting fabric and sewing notions for sale and I bought as I had funds. Then our wonderful thrift store opened and I bought more fabric. I was given more fabric. Now I have enough fabric to make projects for the next several hundred years! Yet I still don't understand the immense amount of books that are geared to getting rid of your stash. Why would I want to do that???

In the last little while, I realized that the lap quilt I used in my sitting spot in the living room had bit the dust and was full of tears and stains and needed to be replaced. So I'm borrowing a lap quilt I made for Hubby while I  am getting inspired  and start to make a new lap quilt. One of the first things I did was to scrounge through all the pre-made blocks I've been making and storing for years. Maybe you know what I mean. You finish a quilt project and you have some pieces leftover that make up a nice block and so you sew it together and then set it aside as you don't have anything to go with it. As I dug deeper into into my box of UFOs I found one piece where I had sewn four blocks together and then put the project away as it didn't look right. The blocks weren't all the same sizes so it wasn't going to work in the way I had planned at first so it was put away. So tonight I sat down to do one of my most unfavorite sewing projects--unsewing. Picked out two of the blocks that I thought would go with the other pieces of the lap quilt I want to make. Unsewing gives you time to think and I started to realize how long ago I had made the blocks (20+ years) and the type of fabric I had used. All were small prints or tiny dots. While they all coordinated, they sure don't look like the kind of fabrics that I use now. I love big flowery prints with coordinating fabrics (not necessarily from the same manufacturer) and have plenty of them stashed away.

Your favorite types of quilt prints/designs is the main reason to build up your stash with the kind of fabrics you like and enjoy using. I have plenty of fabric at this point as I have mentioned. I'm not a modern art quilter. I really don't like the huge geometric prints, nor many of the colors that are current today. So I'm not inclined to feel like I have to buy ANY fabric at this point (it helps to not have the money to be buying more fabric LOL!). I have plenty of my kind of fabric so I don't HAVE to buy more fabric. It isn't like I'm going to ever run out. When I do get a chance to buy quilting fabric at our thrift store, I will generally pick it up no matter what it looks like as they sell for 25-50 cents a yard! You can't pass that up that kind of bargain and I have found that bringing some kind of new fabric into my sewing room helps with inspiring me.

Quilting, embroidery and sewing are such wonderful creative hobbies to have. Even when my arthritis has gotten me down so that I can't do much of anything physical, I can still read books and magazines about the needle arts.

Making Hexagons for Quilting and Crafting Part 2

After posting my last entry earlier today, on making hexagons using the Fiskars hexagon punch, I decided to see how much bigger paper template you would need to be able to combine them with hexagons cut from 2 1/2" strip templates (mine is from Fons & Porter). Well, what a surprise at how close they are! The photo above is actually green batik cut from a 2 1/2" strip and then I ironed a freezer paper template punched out with the X-Large hexagon punch on to it. It is a tad smaller than it could be by 1/16 - 1/8". As long as you don't flip back and forth between punched templates and traced templates, you should end up with the same size basted hexagons and they would work up together with no problems. On a really huge project, you might lose an inch or two, but with smaller projects the slight difference in size won't make me go back to tracing or cutting paper templates out individually.

Making Hexagons for Quilting and Crafting

Since taking the Craftsy 2012 BOM class, I have been fascinated with hexagons and have spent plenty of evenings basting them with the thoughts of someday making something special with them. One difficult thing for me however, is cutting out all the paper templates so my fabric wraps around it and sews up accurately. One night hubby was surfing the internet and found these and told me to go ahead and try them. They are Fiskars Hexagon Punch tool. Currently they come in three sizes; Medium 159070-1001  0.50" on each side, Large 159080-1001  0.75" on each side and Extra Large 159090-1001 1" on each side. Maybe if enough quilters like them we could encourage Fiskars to make them in some even larger sizes as well. Currently Fiskars  promotes them as crafting/scrapbook notions.

When I make hexagons I use freezer paper to make the paper template, iron it waxy side down to the wrong side of the fabric and then cut them out leaving a 1/4" seam allowance on each side. You can trace your own sizes on the freezer paper out of the roll that is sold at the grocery store or from freezer paper that is made to go through the printer so that the template will be printed out for you and then all you have to do is cut them out and then iron them onto fabric etc. It is the tracing of the template and cutting them out that becomes difficult for everyone I am sure, and especially difficult for those of us with arthritis in our hands.

When I got the Large and X-Large punches in the mail the other day, I set out to see how they worked and if they would make nice and exact templates. I ended up with a minimal amount of 'hanging chads' on two of the sides, but each side was precisely cut (or bent--those sides with the chads) and the 'chads' could be worked around. Then hubby got involved and discovered that if you put freezer paper doubled over with the two waxy sides together, you would get a nice clean punch out with no 'chads' and to top it off you would get two punches for the work of one! I also tried to see if the punch would cut through fabric, but it didn't and it had not been advertised saying it would be. While the punch itself  felt somewhat heavy and sturdy in my hands, it was easy to squeeze the punch and have the templates pop out.

These punches will really move along my hexagon making as it cuts out so much wasted time. If, like me, you use freezer paper as a stabilizer for other projects, leftover bits can be punched to make templates from the odd sizes, thus eliminating waste. I had a spare minute last night and a leftover piece of freezer paper just begging to be put to good use and in that minute, I had about 12 templates punched out! It would have taken a lot more time than that to cut them out manually.

The only problem with these punches is they don't go up to large enough sizes. While there are several different acrylic templates for cutting 2 1/2" strips into hexagon fabric pieces, you still have to cut out a paper template, so a punch that handles that size of template would be fantastic. If you like these punches write to Fiskars and encourage them to make larger sizes. How will companies know what we want unless we tell them? I bought my punches on line and they can easily be found. Do price comparisons to see if you can get a bargain (as they are all made by Fiskars). I found mine for almost half off.

An Embroidery Pattern Book

The joys of Pinterest and the internet. Last night while seeing some of the newest pins coming my way, I saw a pin for an old book called, An Embroidery Pattern Book  Today I checked it's source out to find it is part of the Open Library and I could have a copy of the book sent for FREE to my Kindle. I saw some of the pictures before downloading it and I think that anyone who does hand embroidery and those who digitize their own designs might see and receive some interesting ideas for their work.

You can find the book Here.  Enjoy!

Life is {Sew} Daily: {Sewing Basics}

Life is {Sew} Daily: {Sewing Basics}: Sewing Kit Essentials How to Thread a Sewing Machine How to Make a Sash How to Make Cording/Piping How to Install a Zipper - ...  Check out this blog where you can learn all sorts of sewing techniques and other aspects of running a home by a Home Economics teacher.

Wonderbag Portable Slow Cooker

Once in awhile I see something that I would like to share, that doesn't fit in with this sewing blog or my reading blog so I usually skip it. Today however, I just saw something unique that readers might be interested in checking out and felt compelled to share. It is called the Wonderbag Portable Slow Cooker .  This reminds me of the things that they talked about with the Y2K scare as a way to cook without using precious fuel.

Basically  you chop your food up, bring it up to boiling and then put it in this Wonderbag, and it continues to cook for hours in an insulated bag that retains the heat from the initial bringing the contains up to boiling. Other that the stove to bring the food to the temperature for cooking, it uses no fuel, no electric plugs, nothing. Greatly economical to use.

The most interesting part of all this, I thought, is if you buy one for yourself another is donated to a family in Africa so that they can use it for cooking and thus save precious and expensive wood for cooking. When I see on PBS specials what many African women go through daily to gather fuel, water and prep food, this would be more marvelous than anything they could imagine. My heart for several years now has gone out to third world women and their need to help support their families. Ten per cent of  the profits from out store, Moonwishes Sewing and Crafts, goes to help women learn to sew and make crafts and be able to support their families other than by prostitution. I also collect embroidery supplies that I pass on to a missionary friend in the Congo that helps women in her area learn to embroider so they can sell their creations, also yet again to learn that they do have skills and talents above prostitution. This Wonderbag is yet another way for these women to support themselves and ease their financial situation.

I urge you to check this out, research it, ask questions of those who have bought one (I haven't, I only just saw it advertised a few minutes ago) and see if this is something you would like to have and use to also help support women in Africa. Crafting provides a world wide bond among women, and what better way to show your additional support for your sisters around the world than to help ease their financial burdens?

Hexies - Betcha can't make just one!

I had always looked at hexagon quilting projects as something that would be horribly difficult to do. Then I took a Craftsy class in 2013 that involved making two blocks using hexagons. I couldn't believe how easy they were. Soon my Pinterest>Quilting>Hexagons was getting fuller and fuller. First with hexagon quilts both antique and vintage, then variations on a theme with some of the hexagons being used were pieced themselves, and then seeing embroidered hexagons, and all sorts of interesting creations. I find them fascinating. I want to make a hexagon something. I want to use my silk ties from the thrift shop in a hexie quilt or wall-hanging.

One of the things that I have always done with my quilting is when I'm done with a project, the leftovers are cut into set sizes so it is easier to make quicky quilts. I sat down to clean up my latest sewing 'mess' and realized that some scraps that aren't big enough for my pre-cuts are still big enough to make a hexagon out of it. So the other night, I cut up a bunch of scraps into hexagons and sat down and started hand sewing them. I couldn't stop. Remember the old Lays potato chip jingle - betcha can't eat just one. Well that is what it feels like when I start sewing hexagons! I had made 20 in three different sizes before I forced myself to quit so I would be able to use my hands the next day (the downside to rheumatoid arthritis).

I especially love the looks of hexagons with embroidery and the ones with a binding around them looks interesting as well. I have found several websites that they tell how they are made, at least I assume so. The sites are all in French and it has been a very long time since High School French class. Anyone out there know some good books that I could use for a reference? I'm also trying to find one or two basic hexagon quilting books, Any one with a good recommendation? I'm thinking of these ones.

Hexagons in the Hoop

Since making my BOM blocks that featured hexagons, I have been fascinated with them. Up to then they always looked to be just so much hard work. Then I made my first one and couldn't stop. Just ran into something a few minutes ago, that for those of you that would like the hexagon style but not the by hand work, here is a site that sells a make a hexagon in a hoop machine embroidery designs.

 



There are 15 components to the design, and several different pack components with different prices. Currently the whole pack is on sale for $23.95 until 1-24-14. They are also reversible. Looks very simple and lovely especially if you take the time to coordinate your colors and prints. The middle portion has different decorative designs while the outer petals have different line designs.

For those that would prefer to make hexagons the old fashioned way, check out my Pinterest board for Quilting -- Hexagons for some great ideas. Or you can check out one of these books on making hexagons that are on my Amazon wish list. If you have any of these books, which would you recommend? I especially am interest in making hexagons with embroidery in the middle. If you know of a good instruction book for that, PLEASE let me know!