Petal Projects

I hope everyone had a good weekend!  When we moved into this neighborhood, we were aware that not too far away is a really nice YMCA.  We looked into their offerings and liked what we saw, so we have been meaning to join.  But, we have been busy and managed to procrastinate until yesterday.  When the Sunday paper arrived, on it was an advertising sticker that announced that the Y was offering to waive the signup fee for most of September.  That was all we needed, so we went over in the afternoon and joined. 

So this morning, we got up around 5, and got out the door by 5:40.  It was supposed to be earlier and indeed I was waiting at the door when my husband decided he needed to get a towel (our bags were supposed to be readied the night before), and then when he had gone upstairs and back he decided he needed to fill his water bottle.  I was trying not to tap my toe.  In our house, it is not the lady who is "high-maintenance."  I went to water aerobics and he went to a workout class.  It felt great to be in the pool working out and not sweating!  The Y not only has water aerobics, but they have 5 or 6 different kinds of water aerobic classes.  Cool!

Needless to say, it is nearly 10 AM here now and I'm...    tired.  Ha ha.

But, back to quilting...

This is the project I'm making with the petals from my last post.

 

This is the back of the bag.  This is a "prototype" and after making it, I'm tweaking it a bit.  I'm actually using this pattern from the Moda Bakeshop

 

Here is the front, with the flower in place.

 

Here is a closeup.  Can you see that bit of green felt showing behind it?  There is a reason for it.  I'm in an organization here and this is our logo:

 

So I was trying to replicate the look for the bag.

 

 

The problem with this prototype is that you are supposed to pinch the corners and stitch across them to give the bag a flat bottom, but I sewed the felt square too close to the edges, so that didn't work.  I'm also going to use more than just pink fabrics.  Hopefully I will have one of those to show tomorrow?  At least this week sometime. 

 

  PS.  I HAVE to mention the ric rac.  I LOVE ric rac!

 

Have a great day!

JoAnne

Pretty Petals

I suppose that I have quilter's ADD, but don't we all at times?  This week I set aside the star blocks to begin my Schnibble, and then yesterday, I set that aside in order to play with petals.

Have you or did you know that you can make fairly realistic petals pretty easily?  All you need to do is get some polyester fabric in the color of your choice.  This is pink, pongee lining.  It MUST be 100% polyester or some other chemical fiber.  No cotton!

 

I find that cutting it into strips that will accomodate my pattern is the easiest.

 

 

I drew a rounded heart shape a tiny bit larger than I want the finished petal.  I pinned the pattern to the fabric.  This is 8 layers, so I get 8 petals with one cut.

 

 

 

Now that you have fabric petal shapes, it is time for the magic!

 

 

For the next step you will need the following "tools:"  a candle with an accessible flame (not something down in a jar or other holder) and a bowl of water.

 

The bowl of water is for safety:  if you catch the petal on fire--and this is pretty likely if you haven't tried this technique before--then you want to be able to drop the burning petal into it to extinguish the flame. 

 

PLEASE BE VERY CAREFUL IF YOU TRY THIS PROCESS!!!

I would hate for your house to get set on fire!!

 

 

 Take a petal in your hand and approach the flame with the edge.  You don't have to get very close to the flame, just near enough to melt the edge of the fabric.

 

 

 

 Can you see here below that the fabric is just curling?  That is absolulety what you want.  You don't have to get it any closer to the flame.

 

 

 

 Just keep moving the petal around to melt the entire cut edge.  It will "draw up" a bit, too.  That is also what you want.



 

When you are done, the petal will look something like this.

 

 

In no time you will have a whole pile.  I think the texture of the fabric really makes the petals look real.

 

 

You may be wondering what you can do with these beauties!  I will show you what I'm doing with them next time!