Mystery Day Is Nearly Here

Mystery Quilt day (and 2010) is nearly here! We'll get started at 9am and sew until we call it quits! The store is not open that day so we have the whole place to ourselves. For lunch we will walk down to Magoo Pizza - which is about 5 minutes away. And leave the dirty dishes there when we come back to our sewing.
Does anyone want me to bring a coffee maker? Let me know.

Alex Anderson is offering 12 floral redwork designs within a scalloped edged heart to be digitized or done by hand. The instructions at her site say to come back daily to download the design for that date - BUT someone goofed because I just downloaded all 12 of the designs! So click here to download these for yourself now! Perfect for a really darling Valentine's Day project.

Mr Magoooo Pizza That Is

I stopped by yesterday and they have a lunch special for $6.99 - salad bar, pizza and drinks. They open at 11am for lunch on Friday - even though it is New Year's Day! Plus they said they would bake a pizza for us if there was one we liked that was not out. We can walk down there to take a break and a little exercise (!) and then walk back. I don't think the price is bad at all.
I'm ready too - just finished up the remaining details last night. I'll have bottled water for everyone also.
I'm also ready for a new year!!
9am on Friday - see you then

Mystery Quilt Time Is Nearly Here!!

It's just around the corner! We still need to decide what to do for lunch that day. Today I wondered about pizza and salad from the pizza place around the corner from the grocery outlet. Then no one has to bring anything for a potluck. Anyone suggest something different?

Merry Embroidered Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

More Ideas

This is for a friend at my day-job for her first Granddaughter. I played with the monogram function in the Bernina embroidery software to create her monogram. The little curlques around her monogram and birthdate are also from the monogram function. The center square is flat minkee and I used a piece of the aqua film topping to keep the pile of the minkee in place for the embroidery. Once the embroidery is done the film is very easy to remove. The remainder of the blocks are flannel prints that I found when we were at the coast in November. I found a cute stitch on the 830 and I used that to stitch around the finished edge. I forgot the number but thought the curlee stitch matched the circles and dots in all the fabrics! There's so many new stitches on the 830 that I've told myself to look for a new stitch to use instead of the old faithful straight stitch, when possible. I'll take this to Penny tomorrow and know she'll love it!

Now, don't you love the beautiful embroidered ribbon on the towel below? Not! It's really a strip of this beautiful striped Christmas fabric that we have at the store. If you don't have a yard or so of this I would definitely recommend adding it to your list. There are various striped patterns and it's so easy to make yourself a strip of faux ribbon! Pick the stripe you want to use and then line up the 1/4" with the line to be the finished edge of your ribbon and using your rotary cutter you'll have the perfectly straight edge. Continue the length needed and then repeat for the other side. Then using your iron you need to press that new 1/4" seam to the back side taking care to keep the pressed edge straight! This fabric actually has a gold metallic line I used for my finished edge so I used gold metallic thread to sew it to my towel! The stitches just blended in with the fabric. Of course using a thread color from the colors in the design would be wonderful as well!

I just thought it was very beautiful fabric and has so many ways it can be used to show it off!

More Easy Gifts

This design is from Urban Threads - think it $2.50. I enlarged it enough to nearly fill the large oval hoop. Took one fat quarter and centered the design near the top going the width which is the widest direction of the fabric. Then took another fat quarter which is the print in the photo below. Sewed this to the piece with the embroidery so it encased the raw edge of the solid color piece. Then just do a double fold hem around the 3 sides. The 4th side is the fold of the print. The finished size of this compared to one of the nice towels we sell is about 1 1/2" shorter than the towel. Makes a cute towel or even an apron if you round out the top left and right corners of the solid color then add bias cut ties - like the one Annette showed us in Bernina Club.
I think I would sew the print piece on the top if I wanted to hang the towel because then the designs would be in the right direction - down.
Here's a closer shot of the embroidery. You can see it's a scribble type design which means it just stitches lines without stitching back over the line just stitched . Zundt embroideries (yes, another wonderful Swiss) produces some of the most beautiful Swiss embroideries as you'd ever imagine. This is their free design for 2009. Click here to find the page where you can obtain the design - just scroll down to the bottom right. Enjoy the scroll because there are some beautiful designs! Also notice the price of the designs - which makes you really appreciate their generous offering of this beautifully created design.