A gorgeous piece of work in the quilt collection at the American Museum. This is one of twenty five panels of a quilt top made in Newark, New Jersey, in 1862. The leaves look particularly lifelike - it is clever use of printed leaves cut from chintz. I might have to have a rummage through my stash to see if there are any printed cottons that lend themselves to this technique...
Not the most colourful butterfly, but endearingly furry.
Finished! Thank you QuiltE for the lovely fabric!
And well done QuiltE and Gavin, both of whom spotted a tea cosy in the making.
Hiding underneath the cosy is a two and a half pint teapot...
... but the cosy can stand up on its own when there is nothing underneath it.
Here is the method:-
First, round off the top corners of the two quilted panels. Cutting round this 6 and a half inch plate gives a nice curve.
Make a loop and machine stitch it in place at the top centre of one on the panels, stitching about an eighth of an inch from the edge.
Stitch panels together a generous quarter of an inch from the edge. For the backing when quilting I used a lightweight cotton and synthetic mixed fabric that has been in the cupboard for years. Because I am lining this tea cosy this fabric is not going to show and I can happily leave the loose ends of thread hanging on the back.
When the seam is done, machine stitch an eighth of an inch from each side of the seam line.
These two extra lines of stitching keep the edges flat on the inside and the tea cosy will keep its shape once you turn it the right way out.
For the lining I used thermal curtain lining. I cut two pieces 12 and an eighth by 8 and three quarter inches, and rounded off the top corners with the plate..
This stuff is stiff, with one fluffy side, and is very fray resistant, so I can get away with sewing just over an eighth of an inch from the edge. I sewed them with the two smooth sides together. On the picture they are already sewn together, so it is the fluffy side that is showing.
I have used more yielding thermal curtain lining in the past that has a slight tendency to fray, but I prefer the stiff variety.
Next I slid the lining into the cosy. It was a good snug fit.
Now for the trickiest bit. The lining and the outer shell are never exactly the same size. The lining seemed a bit tight, so I hand sewed some running stitches at the edge of the quilted outer shell to gather it slightly. Then I did two parallel lines of machine stitching with a large stitch to tack the two edges together before adding the binding.
That gave a firm easy edge to work with when binding the bottom edge.
I dread to think how many gallons of tea I got through when working on this cosy.
This post is being linked up with the Let's Get Acquainted Monday Link Up at Plum and June, hosted this week by Nat at Made in Home, so you can visit lots of other blogs showing interesting projects.
Here is the panel with the quilting completed.
The teapots have an extra layer of wadding so they stand out in relief - this post shows the method.
To stitch around the edge of the appliqué I used the trusty Singer 99K hand machine and the hinged cording foot, as shown on this post here
Next I filled the background with free motion quilting on the Singer 15K treadle. It's a bit fiddly getting into the small spaces, but worth it for the finished effect.
Fortunately I had a variegated thread with shades of pink and green so it went perfectly on both colours of the background.
Once I had finished the quilting I cut the panel into two pieces, each measuring 13 x 9 inches.
I'm hoping to have this project finished by tomorrow so you can see the end result and perhaps make one of your own... the mystery will be over and this post will have a brand new title!
And again I am linking up with Leah Day's free motion quilting blog so you can visit other blogs showing some lovely projects... These Friday link ups are a brilliant idea, I really need the kick to make me practise!
Here is the pretty pink material sent to me from Canada by QuiltE transformed into two appliqué teapots. Just for the fun of it, I am not saying what this is going to be, but somebody is bound to work it out before I have finished.
To start I made a rectangle using sage green with polka dots, measuring 4 and a half inches by 13 and a half, and two pieces of cream measuring 8 inches by 13 and a half. The seams were pressed open.
Next I did the teapot appliqués using a paper stencil, following the method described in this previous post. The picture shows the pink material after being trimmed to just over half an inch of the machine stitching.
Next I turned the work over and worked from the back and did two more lines of stitching inside the first line, so there are now three lines of stitching side by side. I worked from the back because it is easier to follow the first line of stitching when you can see it against a plain colour. For me three lines of straight stitch are the equivalent of a line of zigzagging.
Then I trimmed the pink material away a fraction less than an eighth of an inch from the stitching. The raw edge will not fray enough for the appliqué to come apart from the backing, and this is not a mega posh project calling for blanket stitch. Of course, anyone with a fancy modern machine would have that raw edge covered, but I can live with it...
Today we took a trip to the American Museum just outside Bath and spent hours looking at the wonderful exhibits. This pitcher (by the Buffalo Pottery Company, circa 1908) is just to give you a flavour of the place. We spent four and a half hours there, there was so much to see, not to mention the quilts...
... and this plaque on the wall outside.
More pictures coming in later posts, but if you can't visit in real life at least you can enjoy the gorgeous daffodil dress on the website.
Welcome to Marianne Camps, the latest follower - thank you for joining!
A couple of months ago I received a fat quarter in the post from Canada. It was sent by QuiltE, one of the members on the Quilting Board Forum. The fabric is from the True Friends collection by Nancy Halvorsen for Benartex.
QuiltE had sent out lots of these, with a note saying we should make whatever we like using this fabric so we can all post pictures on the forum. What a brilliant idea! It took me about eight and a half seconds to decide what to make. I should get started later today. I have a funny feeling that the note suggested we have them finished by 1st April, but the note is buried somewhere...
This colourful floral print is a Rose and Hubble fabric that I got from a charity shop. It is in fact a skirt with an elasticated waist. Awful as a skirt. It doesn't hang well and is an example of the sack of spuds school of couture. Perfect for the stash.
How often do you see pictures online of fabrics for sale that give you no idea of the scale of the print? Or more irritating, with a coin, but to you it's foreign so you have no idea how big it is? Or even if it is your own country, the coin is heads side up so you don't know which coin it is? Just for larks I am going to let my compatriots guess whether it is a 5p or 10p coin in the pictures and whether it is the same coin in each picture.
