Happy Thanksgiving - and pumpkins too

Hi everyone:

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian readers! I hope you're enjoying a wonderful day with family and friends. 

This week-end has been a work one for our family as we recently had new windows installed in our house and my husband spent two days priming and painting the trim (aluminum clad wood windows). They look great and make such a difference compared to the original house windows that were replaced. 

Dining room window all taped up and ready to be painted
I like the funky tape colours!

So, instead of quilting this week-end, I spent my time washing floors and furniture, dusting and doing laundry - okay, I was supervising the kids doing most of the heavy work, but still... You wouldn't think that the installation of a few windows would cause there to be drywall dust throughout the house, but it did, so heavy cleaning was involved after the installers left. I guess my spring cleaning was done in the fall instead!

Dining room window all painted and curtains re-installed

Now that the house in back in shape, I'm continuing to work on my Perky Pumpkin table runner. I decided to add some hand embroidery to up just to spice it up. Actually, I didn't want to have to machine finish the appliqué edges, so I decided to do some hand embroidery to keep them down. 

I like that the embroidery has a two-fold function - to fasten the appliqués to the background and to act as an embellishment. 

Pumpkin #1 completed with a long running stitch

Pumpkin #2 completed with a cross stitch

I still have to finish up the last pumpkin and then it will be ready to quilt. 

One more pumpkin to go - and then the leaves

How did you spend your Thanksgiving week-end? I hope you didn't each too much turkey or pumpkin pie :)

My Favourite Fusible Webs

Hi everyone:

Pumpkin appliqués done with Shades Soft Fuse

In my last post I showed you the Perky Pumpkins tablerunner project that I was working on. While I was fusing down the appliqués, I started thinking about the various types of paper-backed fusible web that were available to use in these types of projects. There are many different brands of fusible web and they all have their uses, depending on what you are trying to accomplish. Let's take a look at a few of my favourites. 

My default fusible web product is 805 Wonder-Under by Pellon. 

Traced appliqué shapes on Wonder-Under

It's inexpensive, easy to use and does the job for me. I use it for simple shapes and often window it (cutting out the centre portion) on larger shapes or if I am going to be doing some layering. It can be a bit stiff, especially if you are layering, so I wouldn't recommend it for quilts or wearable projects. I use it on non-wearable items, such as tablerunners or wall hangings, so the stiffness that sometimes results isn't really a concern for me. This is how Pellon describes this product:

"The original paper backed fusible web.  Regular weight. Machine stitchable, fuses easily in seconds. Fabric maintains a soft hand after fusing. Great for apparel, home decor and craft projects. Fuse detail areas including hems in denim, facings, applique, cut-work and monogramming. Bonds fabric to fabric or any porous surface.Example: wood, cardboard and much more!"

If I ever need to bond my fabric to a wood background, I'll know what product to use!

I used Wonder-Under for Hoot-mon! and
the appliqués were quite stiff

If I want a product that is lighter and less stiff, I go to my second favourite product, Shades Soft Fuse.

This product is just as the name says - it remains soft and you fuse it down. Unlike most fusible web products, Shades Soft Fuse is 37" wide. This product was developed by Stacy Michell of Shades Textiles.Co., who describes Shades Soft Fuse as "paperbacked fusible web for machine appliqué or hand appliqué quilts". 

Image courtesy of www.shadessoftfuse.com

I usually purchase it at my local quilt shop where they already cut it into 1 metre lengths. I really like the light hand that the fabrics retain after fusing and this is a perfect choice for layering appliqué shapes. It fuses quickly - almost instantaneously - so you don't have to hold the iron on it for very long. The only downside of this product is the price - over $14.00 the last time I purchased a metre of it. Since Wonder-Under is about $5.00 a metre, it's still a better price, even if it is only 17" in width. 

I used Shades Soft Fuse for the pumpkins, stems and leaves

The other product that I sometimes use is Steam-a-Seam 2. There is often confusion about this product because there are actually four similar products available from The Warm Company (Steam-a-Seam, Lite Steam-a-Seam, Steam-a-Seam 2, Lite Steam-a-Seam 2). You need to understand the differences in these products before you decide which you'd like to use. As The Warm Company explains on their website:

"The original, Steam-A-Seam Sticky Back, has the pressure sensitive adhesive (the "stick") on one side which allows for a temporary hold to the appliqué material. It shifts easily on the second material allowing you to quickly reposition your appliqué pieces until pressed with an iron for a permanent bond. Once fused the bond is the same as Steam-A-Seam 2.

Steam-A-Seam 2 Double Stick has the pressure sensitive on both sides which allows for a temporary hold to both the appliqué material and the background material. You can hold your project vertically and the appliqué pieces stay in place and are still repositionable until fused with an iron. Before fusing, tack your project to a wall or try on a garment to check appliqué placement. You're able to reposition pieces while you're wearing them. Once fused the bond is the same as the original Steam-A-Seam."

Image courtesy of www.warmcompany.com

I like to use Steam-a-Seam 2 as you can reposition the appliqué shapes and temporarily "fuse" them down by pressing them onto the background with your hand. They stay in place and you can move them around until you are satisfied with the arrangement before you fuse them down with the iron. I find the Steam-a-Seam products add about the same level of stiffness to the appliqué shapes as Wonder-Under. 

So those are my top 3 fusible web products that I use. There are many more available in your local quilt shop and on-line, so if you aren't totally happy with the product that you're currently using, why not try out some of the other choices?

What type of fusible web product do you use and why? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Fall into Perky Pumpkins

Hi everyone:

Here we are in October already and it still feels like summer to me. This could be because the weather was warmer in September than it was in June - and there was a lot less rain too! But, I must accept the fact that the warm weather will soon be cooling and those first few flakes of white stuff (I hesitate to use the "s" word) will start to fall. 

In Calgary we don't get the vibrant colours in our foliage as those in the east do. The leaves do change, but they're usually yellow and brown, not the beautiful reds and oranges that I remember from my childhood. I can, however, enjoy the fall colours in my fabrics. 

This week-end I worked on a kit, Perky Pumpkins, that I purchased from The Quilt Patch a few years back. It's a simple fusible web appliqué pillow project with three pumpkins, but you know me, I had to add a bit to it. Rather than following the instructions and create a pillow, I decided to add a bit more fabric to it and make it into a tablerunner. It's simple to change up a project by just adding a little bit more here and there. Here's how the process went:

Here are the background fabrics for the pillow front - oranges and browns

The bright orange fabric was also included for the pillow backing, but I had other plans for it. More about this later in this post.

Pumpkins and stems fused down 

I liked the fact that the pumpkins were cream fabrics, rather than the usual orange. Of course orange would not have shown up on the orange/brown background fabrics. 

Pumpkins, stems and leaves all fused down

So this would be the finished top (except for stitching down the appliqué, of course), but since I wanted a tablerunner, it needed to be a bit bigger. As I didn't have any more of the kit fabrics, I started rooting through my stash to come up with some border fabrics. I found a nice green that I thought would be a good choice for border #1.

Border #1 attached

I liked the green border and wanted to add another border to make it even larger. So I found some brown fabric.

Brown fabric for border #2

You'll notice that the edges of these fabric strips are pinked - cut with pinking shears, not pink in colour :) This is because these pieces of fabric came from a bag of cut fabric pieces that I bought at Hamels Fabrics. There were several different coordinating fabrics in various sizes and these strips just happened to be wide enough to be border #2. I had to piece them together - yes, they were quite short - but with a mitered seam, you really can't see where they are stitched together. Here's how the pillow tablerunner looked after adding border #2.

Border #2 added

Now remember that piece of orange fabric that was included as the backing in the kit? Well, I thought it would be perfect for border #3, but there was just a small problem. Yup, not enough to go around all sides of the project. Well, not really a problem since I was pleased with the width of the tablerunner and just wanted to make it a bit longer. I decided to add the orange fabric to the sides of the tablerunner only. I then added more of the brown fabric to the sides as well. It looked like this:

Orange and brown side borders added

Well, that's a little different than it was supposed to be! I thought about adding some more little pumpkins in the borders, but decided that I would add some leaf buttons and do some hand embroidery on it to give it a bit more presence. Here's another shot of the top.

Almost ready for the table

I've already cut the backing and batting for the project and will avoid binding by using the pillowcase method to finish it off. Some hand embroidery on the appliqué pieces will keep them in place and then I just need to decide on how to quilt this baby and it'll be ready for the table for Thanksgiving - which is next week-end for us Canadians.

Are you working on any fall or Halloween projects? Leave me a comment or send me an email with photos of your latest creation.