Tutorial - Pincushion Threadcatcher

A few years ago I learned to make these pincushion threadcatchers from a friend. We didn't have a pattern, so later when I wanted to make more, I had to re-create the instructions. I posted the instructions several years ago on a previous blog, but thought they were worth sharing again.

More later. 

Pin-cushion threadcatcher

Materials:

Two or three coordinating fabrics, plus muslin

Sand, rice or ground walnut shells to fill pincushion

Plastic (package strapping), tubing (from plumbing section at hardware store) or thick interfacing (peltex)

Cut as follows: (A)

Pincushion, one of coord fabric and one muslin -- 6.5 by 8.5

Straps, one of coord fabric, 6.5 by 3.5

Bag, one each of two coord fabric, 10 by 17.5

Straps:

Fold fabric along length, right sides together. Pin and stitch along length, leaving ends open. Turn, press and cut in half.

Pincushion:

Layer coord fabric on top of muslin, right side up. Place straps on one short end, with raw ends even with edge and stretching toward center of fabric. Fold in half across width, enclosing straps. Coord fabric will be right sides together, with muslin on outside. Pin. (B) Stitch from fold one inch on one side, leave gap for turning, then stitch remaining open sides, backstitching when crossing straps, for reinforcement. Turn right side out. (C)

Threadcatcher bag:

Separately, fold each coord piece in half across width. With fold on left, pin right side and bottom. On lining, stitch one inch at top of side, leave gap for turning, then stitch remainder of side and bottom. On exterior of bag, stitch entire side and bottom. (D)

With seams still on outside, flatten bottom to side and pin about 2 inches from corner, forming “ear” at each end of bottom seam. Pin both corners of both lining and bag. Stitch across pinned ears, creating flattened bottom. Cut off “ears.” (E)

Turn so side seam becomes back. Pin straps with raw edges even with raw edge of bag, one strap to either side of back seam. (F)

Turn exterior of bag with seams out. Turn lining to seams on inside. Match seam and pin around top. Raw edges of seams should be visible on both bag and lining. Pincushion and straps will be hidden between bag and lining.(G)

Stitch all the way around top, backstitching when crossing straps.

Using gap in lining, turn right side out, then arrange lining inside bag. (H, I, J)

Using gap in lining, thread in plastic/tubing or .5 width of Peltex to hold bag open. (K) Run stiffener all the way around the top, pinning to hold against seam. Stitch around bag top below stiffener. (L)

Pull lining out, pin together edges of gap and stitch closed.

Fill pincushion with sand, etc., then stitch closed.

Photo Friday and 100th post

This is my 100th post on this blog! Not bad considering I had only posted two or three times until August last year when I decided to get serious about blogging.

Most of my photos this week have been of the cats or my projects, but my sweetie stacked some firewood on the deck the other day and I loved the look of the wood rings. So here they are.

More later.

Three finishes!

Boy do I have a bad case of winter! Symptoms are a desire to sleep unreasonably late and an uncontrollable urge to eat chocolate. Unfortunately, the only cure is spring and that seems a very long time away.

But I did get three journal quilts finished over the weekend. Dogwood was the first, and needed beading for the center of the flowers, and binding. I'm pleased with the way it turned out.

The other two are painted quilts, which I'd worked on over the weekend and just needed binding.

Iris was the first quilt in my DIY challenge. The words I drew were Metallic, Sunrise and Tech. I really couldn't think of anything high tech for a subject, at least that went with sunrise, so I decided on a high tech look for the flower vase. For this one I pieced the "table" and "sky" together, then thread-sketched the irises and vase. I started by thread painting the irises yellow with a purple center, but they got lost when I painted the sky with sunrise colors. I quilted the outlines of the vase and the sun's rays, and then painted them in with the Lumiere paints.

I liked the sunrise effect, and I do a lot of quilts based on lighthouses, so I decided on a painted lighthouse as the next piece. For this one I started with a single piece of fabric for background, layered (and basted the edges), then thread sketched in the lighthouse, area of water, area of land and sky. Then I used appropriate colors to quilt in the details in each area. I used the Lumiere paints to paint inside the quilted lines. The white and black are Opaque colors in the Lumiere line and looked too flat against the others, so I highlighted the black with a blue metallic and the white with silver.

After I finished up all the bindings, I used my new Sidewinder to wind a bunch of bobbins. It doesn't wind as well as winding on my machine, it stops too soon and isn't quite as even, but it is nice not to have to unthread the machine I'm sewing on to wind bobbins.

And I finally caught up with the exercises from the Art of Silliness. I'm enjoying the exercises, but since I'd been behind I haven't kept up with the class. I'm going to try to keep up for the rest of the class.

It's a gray and gloomy day, so I'm hoping the rain will clear in time for me to go to guild tonight. More later.

Dimensional applique flowers

I had a good night in the studio last night. I alternated between working on my dogwood piece and an effort for my DIY challenge. I'm not sure about the challenge piece, so I'll just tell you about the dogwood.

This one is another effort at combining different techniques. The background is pieced from a variety of black print fabrics. Then I layered and thread sketched a branch and leaves, using decorative threads and echo quilting, then quilted the rest of the background using black thread. A good idea here (which I always forget) is to baste all the way around the quilt before starting thread sketching and quilting. That should help reduce the distortion.

After quilting, I painted the branch and main leaves, using the Lumiere paints.

Then I got to the tedious part. I wanted to make the dogwood flowers with dimensional applique, my term for creating the item separately, layering and quilting it, then adding it to the background. I used this technique in my Angels of the Garden.

My original plan was for a lot of dogwood flowers, so I drew a zillion petals on freezer paper, cut them out and pressed onto the wrong side of my flower fabric. Then I cut apart in sets of four petals, laid them right sides together with a second piece of the fabric and stitched around the freezer paper templates, leaving space at the end of the petals to turn them. After cutting them out, clipping curves and removing the , I turned them right side out and used the freezer paper template to cut batting (from scraps) to fill. After tucking in the batting, I hand-sewed the petals closed.

After trying some different arrangements, I decided o just three flowers. Then it was back to my free motion machine (my Singer 15-30 treadle) to stitch down the petals, working from the center and leaving the outside edges free.

Next step is some beading, then finish the edges. What do you think?

More later.

Photo Friday - the ice storm

I can't say much that's good about ice storms, so I won't say anything. But I did get some nice pictures. Enjoy. More later.

Crape myrtles

The branches look like gold under the ice

Every berry is cased in ice

nature's lace

A zen of a quilt

I finished the zentangle quilt last night, while thinking about my DIY challenge. I wish all my quilts came to mind as easily as the zentangle. Usually I have a concept and let it bounce around in my head for a while, getting an idea here, an idea there and then I pull them all together. Sometimes it takes a while.

After finishing the zentangle quilt, I worked a while on another piece, which combines quilting, painting and dimensional applique. And I sewed together the bases for two more potential zentangles (or I might use them for something else.....)

I posted my zentangle quilt to the 3 Creative Studios challenge page. There are some beautiful works already posted, it's always inspiring to see what everyone else is doing.

 Here's the finished zentangle quilt and a couple of details. Time for me to get busy. More later.

A challenge quilt or two

Good morning from icy South Georgia. This is the kind of day that makes me glad I work from home!

one of my zentangles

One of my goals this year is to stretch myself as an artist and quilter. I want to try new techniques, ideas, and materials. One way to do this is with challenges, so I'd planned a DIY challenge for the year. I have three sets of words, including techniques, materials, shapes, colors, moods, subjects and more. When I'm ready to challenge myself, I'll draw one word from each of the three sets and use them as the basis for my work.

I was going to do this on my own, until I found the 3 Creative Studios Journal Quilt Challenge. A journal quilt is a small quilt designed to explore a subject or technique. That's exactly what I want to do, so I'm doing my challenge as a participant in the Journal Quilt Challenge. My goal is to average two pieces a month.

My first words are Metallic, Sunrise and Tech. I'm not sure where I'm going to go with them, but I'm thinking about them while I work on some other projects.


And one of those other projects will actually be my first entry in the Journal Quilt Challenge. I recently discovered Zentangles, a kind of structured doodle. Someone asked about using the zentangles to make a quilt and I just had to give it a try.

pieces cut and swapped

I started with three approximately 12 inch squares, layered them, and cut gentle curves through the entire stack. I stopped at six pieces, because I liked the looks and proportions. I swapped the stacks to get three sets with two pieces of each color, then stitched the new set together. You have to be careful to start seams on the interior of the block, because the curves don't match and you end up with extra fabric when you end the seam.

Press after each set of seams, and give it a good pressing when it's completely stitched (I used a starch type spray before I cut the fabrics, made them easier to cut and handle).  For this piece I then squared the block, layered it and started quilting. Next time I'll mark the cutting lines, layer the batting and backing and baste along the cutting lines before I square it. It's definitely worth basting the edges and stitching along all the seam lines before starting the intense quilting, to prevent distortion.


Then I quilted. I looked through my stack of zentangles to choose motifs for each section, and for this one I thread sketched to fill in the solid areas. I think for the next I'll use paint to fill in the solid areas, instead. I just need to finish the edges on this one and it's done, my first journal quilt of the year!

A quilted zentangle