Saturday, June 30, 2012

gathers &giggles

 
Made this quilt with my daughter-in-law the other day.   I love the fabrics she chose.


The ruffled strips were fun.  I'm anxious to see the "washed" product.  Heavy starching the ruffled strips made putting the quilt together much easier. Fortunately, I had remembered the "fishing line technique."


Quilting the border was my favorite part :)





YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN:

Scrappy Log Cabin



Lavender Sachets







Saturday, June 23, 2012

easy "fishing line ruffles"

I made dust ruffles last week for the first time in ages.  I started out the traditional way, sewing 2 long stitch rows close to the edge, tying knots, pulling strings, hoping that none of them would break.




Then suddenly, I had a flash back and it all came back to me . . . FISHING LINE!!!  I quickly pulled it out of the kitchen drawer where I use it for making cinnamon rolls.



Here's how you do it: 

Lay your fishing line along your sewing line: (these pictures are from a different project)




 Leaving a good 6 inch tale out the starting edge:






 Sew a long, wide zig zag stitch along the edge of your fabric, feeding your fishing line down the middle.  When you get to the end, gather your fabric along the fishing line. 


I like to attach one end to my sewing project with a clamp, then gather fabric along fishing line to desired length.  Attach other end with a clamp (be sure you grab the fishing line).   Sew gather to your project.   Pull out fishing line.  If you're careful, you can re-use the same piece of fishing line over and over.   EASY PEASY!!!




Finished dust ruffle:



I hear that there are lots of ways to make gathers.  Please leave me a comment if you have any tricks.  



FIRST GRAND-BABY BORN !!!
Yes, I know, he is the cutest :)

Monday, June 11, 2012

more play quilts

3 more play quilts.  I tried different sizes on the raggy bindings (NO HAND SEWING!! :)

You can go to this post about raggy bindings for instructions on the raggy (no hand sewing) binding.




4 inch binding

3.50 inch binding (I think this looks better on smaller play quilts)


OFF TO GIRLS CAMP :0 !!!