DESIGN STITCHES IN QUILTING

While Kevin has been looking for jobs and we are anxiously awaiting the decision of unemployment; I have been busy creating.

The picture above is of a reversible tote bag I decided to make. The blocks are paper pieced (pattern from Quilt Blocks Galore called Paper Stars) and were so fun to make. I chose these blues and the following tote bag.............pieced the blocks all together, assembled them and quickly discovered that these fabric colors looked hidious together.

Therefore, the tote bags were assembled. I really had fun making these and learned some new techniques. I did my very first zipper and created a pocket. It turned out fairly decent. I also learned how to sew in cording. It really adds character to the bags. Eventually, I would like to try and make my own cording.

In the photos above, (I can not figure out how to get them all seperated........Sorry) you can see that I have actually managed to put a whole quilt together. I found this pattern in a book that was given to me and after many days of looking the directions over and deciding which fabrics to use. I began assembling. It went together fairly easily, but I did have to make some adjustments to the borders.

I then had to decide how to place the applique pieces, this took a lot of time. There are so many possabilities to chose, rearrange, chose again. LOL. You can tell that Chicca has given it her approval, I have had some horrific pushing matches with Chicca with this quilt.......she just could not leave her paws off of it for any length of time.

After assembling it, I had to decide on a backing; well the person it is being made for is a cat fanatic (good thing she will understand the cat hairs mixed in with the stitches) I really wanted to try some applique cat shapes. After several attempts, I gladly gave up and decided to chose a fabric with cats on it.

Next, it was time to quilt it. On the tote bags I had decided to use a decorative stitch to add a little extra pizzaz. I dedided to go ahead and give them a go on this quilt. WOW! I am so astonished at the effect that they added. They are far from being perfect (some are tight and look great, some are spaced out and out of sinc) but hey for me that is pretty normal. Hee, Hee. But I really did enjoy and suggest to those of us that love to try new things, give some of your decorative stitches a fling and discover how wonderful and useful they really are!