I'm posting now because I may not get around to it in the next few days, because it's only 4 days till I leave for the quilting trip to New England. Yesterday my 2 traveling /quilting companions and I had a 'planning' meeting to discuss the final few things but mainly, we just sat and chatted about what we will do each day, the final Itinerary is great! full of visits to quilting shops, places to see, Museums and of course our 4 Day quilting Retreat. Oh! did I mention visits to quilt shops? Today I ordered US currency and bought the last few bits and pieces to pack. I've been practicing packing for days several weeks and have decided to take only 1 weeks supply of clothes and launder some while there! So now I have only 10Kgs for my checked in luggage:-))) and I'm well inside the hand luggage limits too so lots of room left for purchases:-))))) that's if I find anything to buy of course. LOL.
I've nearly filled my little box with 3/4" 'hexies' (previous post) so plenty of hand sewing to keep me busy in odd moments. During the retreat there will be an 'in house' quilt shop 'who offered several projects to choose from to work on but I am going take 3 patterns, buy the fabrics for them and work on one of those while there. I bought a pattern in Canada in 2006 which I never got round to making so that's going along, then there is a need in me to make a new wall hanging for Christmas so that's going too, then last but not least I bought a pattern at Malvern Spring show for a wall frieze and book to make for Baby H's room.
I have been working on some Mug rugs and in my last post I promised to show the method I used but forgot to take pictures so I will go through the process with pics from my 2nd attempt in which I used different techniques but the same assembly methods. I started with a 61/2" square calico panel for the left side and a 41/2" x 81/2" piece for the right side.
For the panel on the left I found a Coffee mug , apple and cup cake images on Google, downloaded them onto a word document and printed it out. Then traced the mug onto Bond-a-Web, (not forgetting to reverse the design!) and ironed it to the back of my fabric and cut it out. This was then bonded onto the 61/2" calico panel. The other piece was ironed onto some freezer paper to stabilize it, then using the other images I traced them straight onto the calico with a light pencil and went over it with a Pigma pen. Next I set to colouring it in with ordinary wax crayons. Once I was happy I removed the freezer paper, placed the panel between 2 greaseproof paper sheets and ironed it with a really hot iron until it smelled hot and 'waxy'.
I added 2" strips around the square panel and stitched the 2nd panel to the right hand side, then bonded on the 'red tick' & 'cross' details, I ironed some lightweight Vilene to the back of a piece of Cotton wadding so it would not catch in the machine and satin stitched all round the mug shape to secure it, straight stitching around the other shapes to define the lines using dark Grey thread, at this point I found that the 'red' details were not bonding to the 'waxy' areas so I secured them with some red stitching, (If you click on the picture to enlarge it you can see this
more clearly!) before adding a piece of calico as backing, and quilting 'in the ditch' around the inside of the strips on the mug panel.
Last but not least I added a straight binding. I hope I have explained all that OK!
I made this as a gift for my Slimming World consultant, Jane who has guided me (and many others) through losing weight and was now leaving to live in Germany for 3 years.
Well that's all for now in case I don't talk to you again till after my Holiday, take care of you.
Lorraine
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