The Lowly Zen of Cardmaking

Posted on by
Reply

No one uses paper any more. I know. Just a quick email or text…how are you? what’s up? how’s everything? hey, thanks (I may be using too much punctuation.)

But I am a card writer. I would much rather tell someone how I feel in long form. And if I want to confound my son, like sending a message in code, I use cursive, which no one in younger generations can interpret.

Last year, or maybe the year before, or maybe even 2019, I purchased some card stock for machine embroidery.

The two best places I have found to purchase card embroideries are Embroidery Online, Embroidery Library.

The designs you see here are a mix of the two.

I did not purchase anything new to make these. That’s part of my new goal, to be as much of a non-consumer as possible unless it is electronic. The designs don’t count, at least not in my book, as they are digital–a simple download, and off we go.

Here are a few tips if you want to work with machine embroidery and cardstock:

  1. Use designs specifically digitized for cards. Unless you are daring and a pro, I don’t recommend trying to use any design that is stitch-heavy. It’s just not worth the hassle.
  2. Use a sticky back cutaway stabilizer like Stabilstick Cutaway from OESD
  3. Score the paper side of the stabilizer, and remove it from inside the hoop. You hoop the stabilizer first, paper side up, then score it with a straight pin. Don’t be afraid. Then just tear it out of the inside of the hoop.
  4. On OESD designs, the first stitch is for placement of the card. The first color of the design is a stitched rectangle that goes directly onto the stabilizer and shows you where to place the card. It saves you from some fiddling you might have to do with other designs to get the placement centered.
  5. General machine embroidery tip: If the machine says it will take 15 minutes to stitch out, allow 30 minutes. The time allowed for stitching is just that: stitching time. It doesn’t account for any thread changing time, or cutting of jump stitches or your general speed that you like to work. The more thread changes, the more time you should allow “over” the predicted time.
  6. Always start with a well-oiled machine, a full bobbin and a new needle (sharp or Microtex 80/12.)

This Christmas card from OESD was quite stitch heavy, and I’m not sure I would do it again. It required an applique for the black background. I measured the placement stitch and cut a piece of Kraft-Tex to fit. It turned out well, but I did not appreciate the amount of time involved for one card.

You can see the back of one of the cards. I think you can cover that up with another piece of cardstock. But I thought that some of the charm was that it looked as nice from behind as it did from the front.

As someone who loves stationery, I found these lovely and easy to stitch, for the most part. The designs do come with thread charts and instructions, but it’s a lot more fun to choose your own color way.

Finally, for the last card in the box, I took one of my photos (a peace lily bloom, with a pointsettia background). I transferred it onto the card using Transfer Artist Paper. It was simple and easy, and now I have a set of personalized cards for all occasions.

I hope you still write letters from time to time. I love to receive them and I think others do too. In a world where everything is fleeting, fast and electronic, let’s cherish a little bit of slow communication.

Peace out.

Kraft-Tex and Machine Embroidery…My Favorite Combination

Posted on by
Reply

Once again, I’m on the path to create something new and fresh for Valentine’s Day. I don’t know why I always want to make something for this holiday…it’s so over-hyped and over-done already. Except that it’s mid-winter, and once I put the holiday decorations away, I’m left yearning to do something different. And I always find something unique for Valentine’s Day.

Here are a few of my past posts:

—My Heart’s Greeting, and Other Valentines

–The Un-Valentine

–-Valentine’s Day Kraft-Tex Project

–My Practical Valentine

–-Kraft-Tex, Transfer Artist Paper and Living on the Island of Lost Tools

–Buttoned-Up Valentine

I noticed that I tend to use Kraft-Tex paper a lot for this holiday. Not sure why, it just inspires me.

These days, I am obsessed with little houses. So I found this set of cross stitch designs on Etsy, from Waxing Moon Designs. It is an e-pattern with 3 designs.

I don’t do cross stitch, but I digitize designs. So I used my Bernina Embroidery Software to re-create these in machine embroidery.

I love thiem.

Each one is adorably cute and just perfect for Valentine’s Day.

These are stitched out on the brown craft paper color of Kraft-Tex. I always use 2 layers of Stabilstick cutaway stabilizer when machine embroidering. I could easily turn these into cards or ornaments or hanging decorations.

Here is a post where I created an entire village for a Christmas tree skirt. (It’s from 2020.) And below is a video (I’m not good at videos.) showing all the different buildings in the little cross stitch town.

These days I’ve been kicking around the idea of a quilt village, with my own designs of tiny houses and a village. I have some ideas, but I have to work out the patterns.

I want to do them in applique, but it’s all still in my mind. I have other projects to finish before then.

So stay warm during this mid-winter season, and Happy Stitching!

Dig Out All Those Old Fatquarters!

Posted on by
Reply

It’s that time of year where we start to clean out our fabric collections. This time, I dug deep and was ruthless about not “saving” these fatquarters for something else. The time for saving is over. Now is the time for using. And NOT purchasing.

If they weren’t slated for a project, they were open season to be made into grocery bags. My commitment this year is to avoid as much in single use plastic as I possibly can. Those pesky grocery bags were something I got away from a few years ago, and then along came COVID, and we worried about what we’d be bringing into our homes.

Now, we know it’s much more likely that we will breathe in the virus, and not as likely to get it from touching something that touched something else that might have had COVID sneezed onto it.

At any rate, it was time for me to stop with the plastic bags. Again. Fabric ones are easily tossed in the wash, reused, and if nothing else, I like them. At one time or another I purchased the fabric because I liked it. So there’s that. And, if along the way, I can avoid a tiny bit more in the landfill, then that’s my goal.

I shuffled through my collection of odds and ends of fatquarters and gathered twenty-five of them. Twenty for bags and another five for the handles.

It took me two days to make them all because I only worked about an hour a day. I lined up all the fabric and partnered each fatquarter with another that *could* be compatible. And I sewed them up on three sides.

On a serger, this just zipped right through.

The one thing you want to be careful about is having finished seam allowances. These will be washed over and over.

Next I made a bunch of handles that could be mixed and matched on the bags.

This type of sewing is really a lot like therapy. In these dark days of winter, sometimes I don’t have the energy to take on a tough project. Or to start something big. Or to work on that monotonous thing I committed to do, but have lost interest in doing. This stuff’s not hard. It’s not serious. It’s fast, it’s colorful, it has a purpose, and therefore satisfying.

And when you’re done, you have something practical and a little fun.

So get those old fatquarters out of hiding. You know you’re never going to make something with that bundle you just HAD to have. Or maybe if you look around, you’ll find the fatquarters you didn’t even know you had. Or possibly, you have leftovers from some other project.

Use them!

And make it fun and easy. Next week you can start that complex thing. You know.–the one that requires you to do THIS, before you can do THAT, and so on and so on, until you do nothing, because now you have to spend all your time looking for your good scissors.

I’ve been there.

It’s been a rough couple of years.

Do something simple and practical that will never be in a competition or on display or will never be judged. You’d be surprised at how freeing it can be. And those pretty fatquarters you’ve held onto for years? Or even the not-so-pretty ones you’ve also held onto for years?

Now they have a job.

Re-incarnating My First Quilt

Posted on by
2

Though it’s not a great picture, I created this quilt over 20 years ago in the aftermath of 9/11. I distinctly remember yarn-tying each and every little intersection with hunter green yarn. The news was on all day, and doing something with my hands was the only way to stay calm.

The quilt was enormous. It is a giant square, so 40 % of it is hidden on the other side of the railing. The squares are homey, comfy flannel. It was designed to say “cozy” every step of the way. Of course, even my first quilt, knowing absolutely nothing, I didn’t use a pattern–just laid it out in a way that seemed pleasing to me.

I didn’t have any idea how to quilt, though…thus the yarn-ties. And I put it together, like a pillow case. Turning the whole quilt sandwich inside out, I sewed 3 sides, turned it right side out, and managed to secure a seam along the remaining side. Then I started tying.

And it does work. You really could make a quilt that way.

However, the yarn started to fall out. Every night on our bed, I would find another one or two strings. And the quilt was so massive, that it was impossible to find where the yarn came from. After a few weeks, I decided that it needed some more work.

So I put it away.

In a closet.

For 20 years.

My nephew recently married, and he and his wife have a cabin-themed home…they love all the pine trees, the deer and northwoods-type atmosphere.

I went back to the closet and pulled out this quilt. I sent a pic of the pattern to my sister: Will they like this? Oh yes, was the answer. That’s just their style.

I examined the quilt and that night I got out the seam ripper.

I took off the entire backing and pulled out the batting. I straightened and corrected and made sure the quilt top was completely solid again.

I found some neutral backing which had also been in my closet…hmmm…maybe 7-10 years now.

And I laid the whole quilt sandwich out and quilted it for the first time, on my home machine. This time done right.

It really was a huge quilt to attempt at home, and remember the top is flannel. Not lightweight.

But I got it all quilted with an overall pattern and an edging that gives it some distinction. I still have to make a label and bind it, but I think it will make a perfect Christmas gift for them.

An heirloom, in their style, with a breath of fresh life. Nothing thrown away–just recycled, re-used and re-incarnated.

I wish I were better at re-purposing. I think it’s a skill I want to improve and increase.

May your holiday season take you on a spiritual journey… to loved ones, to the Earth, and possibly to the back of your closet.

My Newest Website Addition–green.edgestitch.com

Posted on by
Reply

I’m launching a new website called green.edgestitch.com. You can access it from the top menu on edgestitch.com or visit green.edgestitch.com. Of course, I will continue to post on edgestitch.com for sewing and art related topics.

But in addition, just as it sounds, I have decided to curate some content around Climate Science. Now I know that plenty of info is out there. That’s the problem. As folks who are going around in our everyday lives, we don’t always have the time or the energy to search for good data in a million different places.

Furthermore, I think we are all in for some changes. Ready or not, climate changes are affecting our lives in ways we could not have imagined years ago. And the changes will continue. This will not end with most of our lifetimes. It will continue to the next generation, and so on and so on.

Yet, if we are to preserve so much of what we hold dear in this ecosystem, (say, for instance, our food and water), we must make big changes. And this is very likely to cause anger, uncertainty, upheaval and fear.

I don’t want to go through that alone. I want to do it in community, with the help from experts and truth tellers.

I don’t think most of us are prepared for what’s to come.

So in an effort to get through this trying time together, I am sorting through information, presenting it with as much clarity as possible and backed by science and data from reputable sources.

I’ll meet you there.

As a start, Here are a few links. I’ll be adding more content as time goes on.

—green.edgestitch.com

–Introducing the EN-Roads Modeling Tool

–Plastics are the New Coal

The Eco-Redemption of My Husband’s Pants

Posted on by
1

One day my husband strolled in the house after work, and turned his back to me to put something in the sink.

Me: Did you wear those pants all day at work?

Him: (slowly turning) Why?

Me: (coming up behind him and wiggling my cold fingers through the giant tear in his rear end.) Just wondering.

Him: (turning in circles, and reaching around) Oh man. Can you fix it?

He stripped right there in the kitchen and I made the obvious assessment.

Me: No. That tear is shredded, the fibers throughout are worn, and those pants should be thrown out.

Him: I really like these. Can’t you…(waves hands) make something else out of them?

Of course I can. And now I’m looking at my whole closet differently.

The pic above is the original tear. And you can plainly see that the seven inch tear down his backside was not going to be an easy fix. And look at those beltloops…worn past recognition.

He brings a bag to work every day for his lunch, so he needs a few of them. That’s where I started. A simple bag made from his pants.

I used the pant leg hems for the finish at the top. Some simple coordinating straps and I handed him a new bag the next day.

A few days later he was helping me hang a mirror in our son’s room and he strolled past a pillow and stopped in his tracks.

Him: Is that made from my pants?

Of course it was. I ran out of fabric for the back, so I used some coordinating fabric from my stash. A little serged trim and voila! New pillow. That button was salvaged years ago from the flea market where I am inclined to purchase containers of old buttons.

This is all that remains, but I’m saving it. Sometime when I’m watching TV, I’m going to harvest that zipper, and possibly those hooks. All that will be left will be a few shreds.

I’m starting to think about all our old clothes the same way. Fast fashion, as you know, is one of the hugest polluters on the planet. We purchase clothes for a season and off they go to the donation box or just the trash. They’re not constructed to last.

Now, I can’t really say that about my husband’s pants. He’s been known to wear his clothes until they literally turn to dust.

He’s way ahead of his time.

But now I’m re-examining everything in our closets. Doesn’t fit? Hmmm. It matches this thing over here. Polyester? Oooh, that will last 200 years before it breaks down. What can I do with that? Scarlet O’Hara and her drape-y dress have nothing on me. I’ve been giving my old drapes the side eye. (And of course, all I can think of is Carol Burnett coming down those stairs…)

You might be surprised at the inspiration you get from things already in your home. Have a little fun with it.

#GardenFail–But It’s All Good

Posted on by
Reply

So do you remember the barren piece of dirt from the garden plot from my last post?

I went to work on it like a crazed garden lady, and by June I had conquered some of the hurdles and seed was in the ground. I also managed to plant a few things, like tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and peppers.

Day after day during the drought, I showed up. I dragged gallon after gallon of water onto the tomatoes the lettuces, the kales, the flowers.

I weeded. I got out the hula hoe and I worked it, baby.

Here is what I managed to eke out of it by mid-June.

I harvested young lettuces, and kale. Delicious.

Then the rains came. And came. And came. A small pond formed in the garden at one end. Rivers flowed from the tomatoes to the dahlias on down to the peppers and just kept flowing.

I couldn’t walk in the garden even a little. My shoes sank down into squishy mud, and I could barely pull them out. If I managed to pull out a weed, it took out a pound of dirt with it. The waters didn’t recede, but I did.

I’ll give it a couple of days, I thought.

In the meantime, I started feeling pain on the ball of my right foot. It felt like a balled up sock was there. I had to stop walking on it. I started to see doctors…what’s happening with my foot? Well, they said…could be overuse, could be neuroma. Try rest.

So while the garden dried out, I rested my quirky foot. On a day when it didn’t feel too bad, I ventured back to the plot.

Wait. This is not my nice little plot. This is some overgrown parcel of wildness with random plants. I made a feeble attempt to catch up on the madness.

Now let me just say that while the weeds are taking over, and Mother Earth is returning this site to its natural meadowland, I am getting an astounding amount of harvest. Despite the chaos, every day, I am able to harvest at least a pint of cherry tomatoes. (They are in the far left in the back) The zinnias, by the way, are prolific. They are producing like nobody’s business, and tolerated both drought and biblical flooding without the tiniest interruption in growth.

The dahlias (one shown above) on the other hand, are like precious fragile blown glass figurines. They wilt when it’s hot. They rot when they sit in moist soil around the tubers. They take forever to start growing and bloom late in the season. And mine? I have no idea if they will ever bloom. But for now, they are still alive. The grass growing in there? I can’t pull it, because if I do, the whole tuber will come up. Sigh.

All is not lost. My peppers and beans, tomatoes and cucumbers are producing well, despite my ping-ponging from doting obsession to negligence.

The cosmos and asters are happy as can be. They don’t seem to mind competition from weeds and grass.

A volunteer tomato plant appeared in the back and seems to be happily producing with no encouragement whatsoever. Same for some sort of weed that looks like it might produce either sunflowers or some sort of puffy seed pod.

Someone on social media was lamenting that they worked hard all season only to harvest 5 peas. Someone else recommended “The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden.”

I can relate.

Still. The first bite of that homegrown tomato was worth it all. The green beans…simply boiled, were the stuff of heaven. I had forgotten what food is supposed to taste like. Fresh green peppers? Like candy.

So.

If I try this again next year, I’m going to simplify. I really wanted cut flowers. Gonna have to stay with zinnias and cosmos.

Vegetables? Tried and true. Tomatoes, green beans, peppers.

And me? I’m getting too old for this.

But I’m not giving up.

Endings and Beginnings and Quilts, Oh My!

Posted on by
Reply

This barren pathetic patch of earth is where I’m setting up my community garden plot this year. The ground is hard, prone to weeds and, frankly, as inhospitable a piece of land as I’ve worked on in a long time. It reminds me of pics from Curiosity, the Mars Rover.

It’s clear to me that it’s been deprived of nutrients and expected to perform over and over with nothing returned to the soil.

But it’s mine this year.

In our house, it’s a season of beginnings and endings. My son is heading off to college in August, saying goodbye to an old school, old friends, and his old parents. Yesterday, he was 10 years old, reluctantly traveling with me to 30 quilt shops one summer. We did the entire Northern Illinois Quilt Shop Hop. He was supplied plenty of food, was instructed to be Chief Navigator and man of the GPS, and off we went. We found our way to unknown towns (with candy shops) and got lost in cornfields and stopped in strange places for food and potty breaks. He later told me it was the best summer he ever had.

Fast forward a few years to the present, and he (again reluctantly) is tasked with helping his mother by carting 10 bags of organic compost and spreading it out on that empty, unyielding piece of land. (I’m going to make sure he’s happy to be headed off to school.)

In return, I’m making him a quilt of his choosing. I won’t go into the horror on his face when I showed him all his t-shirts from middle school and high school and suggested I’d make a quilt out of those. It was as though nightmare zombies from the dead had reappeared and come back to haunt him and travel with him to college. In the end, he selected a tasteful French General pattern. And it just so happens that I’d been collecting that fabric for years so…hooray…no new purchases.

With the cutting done, I’m ready to start sewing. I figure, if I don’t finish by August, it’s OK, I can always ship it to him. He won’t need an extra quilt for a month or two.

In the meantime, at the garden plot, I’ve had a few seed failures. I tried purchasing flower seeds from an independent grower, and most of those seeds just haven’t germinated. The commercial seeds have begun to emerge, and some of the vegetables are doing OK.

On we go into summer. I hope you have some exciting things planned. I’ll be delving into this quilt in between trips to carry water buckets at the garden plot. Wish me luck.

Happy growing season!

It goes by fast, doesn’t it.

Spring Machine Embroidery Ideas

Posted on by
Reply

Great minds think alike. Or at least that’s what they say.

I had just recently been working on this lawn flag for the front of my house.

I am a great Kraft-Tex lover and I use it for things like this all the time. You can read about my door hanging here and last spring’s greeting here. It’s almost always my fabric of choice for wallhanging-type projects, because it is eco-friendly, recyclable, and does not contain any scary chemicals.

But this year, I desperately wanted to use some of this new buffalo print ribbon as well.

My project is simple. I start with a large piece of black Kraft-Tex. That is the base. I embroider on smaller pieces. The “Hello Spring” font I’m using is called Strawberry Blossom, available on dafonts.com. I really was having a hard time finding an embroidery design that would be perfect and colorful and cheerful, but with a cap of about 30,000 stitches. With a double layer of sticky back cutaway under the Kraft-Tex, it holds up quite well. But if the design is too stitch-heavy, I start to worry I might perforate the fabric.

The embroidery design I used is called Truly Tulip Blooms from Embroidery Library. I have to admit, it was not my favorite design, but it turned out pretty well.

Of course, once I had this project completed, I received an email from Embroidery Library with a grouping of some designs that are just adorable. The line is called Blooming Expressions by Shannon Roberts.

Check out this project. They offer designs and even yard flag fabric, along with a tutorial.

Now, you don’t really need a tutorial, because it’s just basic machine embroidery. But the designs are just the sort of thing I was hoping to find. They just came too late for me.

(Embroidery Library, in case you are paying attention, we need versions of these for summer and July 4. Watermelon and lemonade with flowers and butterflies would be so cute, don’t you think? . And start designing the new cozy ones for fall and the holiday season as well. I know I’m bossy…I’m also a good customer.)

I have a weakness for these types of designs that show up so well on black and are reminiscent of chalk art that is so popular these days, as well as the use of script.

The only difference I would notice between my project and theirs is that I have added velcro across the top and along the side to attach to the pole. Last year, I watched on a surveillance camera how my garden flag got swept away by a mighty gust of wind, never to be seen again. So I added a bit more security, attaching it not only at the top of the pole, but at the side as added reinforcement.

The ribbon is just something I purchased on Esty…wired ribbon 2.5 inches wide. It’s perfect. I sewed it on just inside the wire at the top and bottom of the ribbon.

It’s possible to create a design on the back side as well and just sew the two pieces together. Because of my location, I chose to just add a blank piece of Kraf-Tex on the back.

While it’s a bit too early for my annuals to brighten up the house, this little piece of lawn art adds a bit of cheer.

I’ve also been spring cleaning in the sewing room. What a nightmare. But that’s for another post.

Scrappy vs. Stash-y

Posted on by
Reply

We have all seen the books about making “scrappy” quilts. You may even own a few of them. I know I do. And most of them recommend separating all your fabrics into neat, color-coordinated bins.

Sounds great.

Have you ever tried to do it? I find myself asking questions. What about this colorful print which really does not seem to fit into just one category of color? What about this collection I purchased all at once which coordinates perfectly with the other fabrics from its own collection? Do I really want to wrench those apart? (Hello Downton Abbey fabric line from 6 years ago.) And then there are the pre-cuts. Am I supposed to take apart these charm packs and layer cakes and re-sort each and every fabric into different categories even though they are all from the same collection and look great together?

As you can imagine, my answer was no. In fact, I was feeling a little defiant. Guess what? There are no rules.

Normally when we talk about making a scrappy quilt, we just mean that we are going to make an ordinary quilt from some pattern we’ve purchased, by shopping our stash. I’ve done that many times. Here’s a nice pattern. What do I own that will look good? Most of the time, I can fill out the pattern requirements part of the way. But in the end, I’m missing the exact perfect shade of grunge that I need to finish. Or I just need 5 more fatquarters in this color family. Or I need a better binding or 4 yards of backing. No matter how hard I try using that method, I always end up purchasing more fabric. Which, frankly, is not my goal.

That old saying? She who dies with the most fabric wins? No she doesn’t. She just becomes a pain in the rear end to her family AFTER SHE’S DEAD.

That’s not the legacy I want to leave. Too many quilts? Yes, my family will grapple with that, but at least those are useful.

Anyway, I might be in a dark place because a friend of my sister’s, and a family acquaintance, just suffered a severe health emergency. (not COVID.) But she is middle-aged, and was healthy and vibrant until this struck. And now she’s got a long recovery ahead of her. I’ve had her on my mind so much recently, that I decided to make her a quilt. One that was scrappy but strong…a message I want to convey to her. Lots of pieces put back together in odd ways can make something interesting and strong and vibrant.

So instead, I started with whatever fabric I had been hanging onto for years, moved from bin to bin, never having a purpose. I put them all together in a pile and challenged myself to make a quilt.

And this is the result.

It’s made from a mini charm pack bundle I was given as a sampler at Quilt Market years ago, along with a couple of charm packs, and scraps of red and coral fatquarters. The backing is 4 yards of vibrantly red fabric. I feel like this quilt is saying:

I’m strong.

I’m tough.

I’m fierce.

I break the rules.

Don’t f$%^ with me.

And that’s the message I hope is conveyed to our friend who will receive it. Ride it out. Don’t let anyone tell you that you are weak. Show them you are a survivor. Be bold.

So my challenge to you today is this: If you’re feeling like you’re in a rut, break out. Do the thing you are told you should not do. Put two colors together that don’t belong. Simplify. Complicate. Whatever it takes to shake it up for you. And then pass it on to someone else who really needs the courage.