Thursday, July 15, 2010

Quilting Class Take 1

To further my understanding of all things sewing I've signed up for a quilting class at Sew Unique in Raleigh, NC.  Its a 3 week class, 2 hours a week.  The first week we focused on cutting strips of fabric and sewing them into blocks.  I've been sewing for awhile now so this came pretty easy but the tips our instructor provides are worth the class tuition in itself!

Tip #1 - When prewashing fabric cut the corners of the selvage off in a triangle.  This prevents the fabric from raveling.  Not sure why it works but it does!

Tip #2 - Glue small pieces of sandpaper to the back of your clear ruler prior to rotary cutting.  This will help hold the ruler in place on your fabric allowing a cleaner, straighter cut.

Tip #3 - Only backstitch when you absolutely have to.  Backstitching can cause unnecessary bulk in your project.  If you have to stop and then start again, come in at an angle from the edge and back to the stitch line, only stitching over 2-3 stitches.  This will allow the seam to lay much flatter than 3 stitch rows on top of one another.


This is the piece prior to cutting our squares.  

My first quilting squares!

I'll be posting more as we progress.  Stay tuned!

- Christina

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

FIRST YOU TAKE A…..THEN YOU CROCHET A ……..

I love this tutorial!  In addition to sewing and making jewelry I LOVE CROCHET!  This has been added to the list of To Dos. This tank is made from a simple tshirt and you make your own yarn from an alternate color.  So simple and so cute! There are a ton of old Tshirts in the boyfriends closet...I'll just be sneaky :)

This tutorial is from Dolin O'Shea who has some wonderful ideas that I can't wait to try myself.  
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/05/refashioned_crochet_embellishe.html

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Ft Mill, SC Celebration

We had a such a great time helping Ft Mill's number one coffee cafe, BacInTyme, celebrate its second year anniversary. BIT's founder, Georgia Ehrenberg, took a lovely, old homestead and transformed it into a coffee cafe/art gallery. The weather was absolutely beautiful and the vibe of all in attendance was happy and positive! Here are a couple of pix of our set up. Thanks Georgia for letting us be part of your celebration. Here's hoping for many, many more years of BacInTyme calling Ft Mill home. Visit her at www.bacintyme and tell her FrenziedArtists sent you.....

Sunday, July 11, 2010

More cute aprons!




Just finished these cute half aprons. I really like the way they came together so this time I decided to make a matching potholder for one of them. My first attempt at one, but because I had to literally machine quilt the matching material it took longer than I expected to complete. So, with that in mind, next time I'll probably purchase matching plain and pre-quilted fabrics and save my machine quilting effort for something else like a bag, purse, etc. I do plan on making more of these sets as Christmas presents for friends that like to cook so, let me know what you think..........