What's Coming up Summer...WIP

Not a lot of new sewing going on in my neck of the woods right now.  Just been busy.  Instead of crafting I've been doing a lot of...

This year, as you can see I am gardening partially in pots.  I am rotating my crops to help prevent diseases from infiltrating my garden plot...and I don't have anywhere else to put them really.  So pots it is.  I am going to do a little series on gardening as I have been taking gardening classes for the last several weeks and I am going to put to use my new knowledge.  I am a walking tutorial as we will see if this knowledge pans out at the end of the growing season.

Plus, we'll see if my seedlings actually grow and thrive...or fail completely. 

So, gardening has been my thing for a couple of weeks.  I'll get back to sewing...after today, when I plant my garden plot with corn and beans and beats and carrots and parsnips.  Yumm!  Plus, I really can't wait until I am harvesting  all this good stuff again!

In the first of my gardening series, I'm going to give you the recipe for what you should put in the pot before you put in a plant.  It's a witches brew.  It's science.  It's a witches brew and science all mixed up into one pot...or 10.

Okay, so onto the sewing.



If you hadn't noticed..May is pretty much over.  Which means June is upon is.  Which means the first day of summer is like...a month away.  I have to get going on my What's Coming Up Summer mini quilt.

Here's what's happening:

Strawberries using the machine paper foundation piecing and fusible web applique and a Calla lily using MPFP like I did for the What's Coming Up Spring  mini quilt.  So cute.  I really love how they came out...except for one thing...

Yeah...I obviously didn't make my seam allowance big enough.  Blah!  Now I have to figure out what to do.  Do I unpick the portion that didn't get sewn down and re-sew...which is virtually impossible as I have already sewn on my applique.  Or, do I try and patch it using some sort of miracle patching technique that hasn't been invented yet.  Or do I just suck it up and make another. Or, do I just leave a little hole in this particular piece and pray that after I've sewn everything together I can quilt it down and none will be the wiser...obviously I am going to go with that one.  I've already failed at a patching attempt.

I am giving a warning here and now to avoid a MPFP disaster...

Okay, so pretend this is your pattern (even though this isn't actually a MPFP piece) But, the point is, in doing MPFP you are using a piece of paper that has been copied.  If when you are doing your paper piecing and you want to iron it so that you get nice flat fabric mid-progress, and you iron over the copied pattern, the ink will bleed onto your fabric!!!  CATASTROPHE!  So, here's what you do to help.  I'd still do minimal ironing as it is...and try your hardest to peal off all the paper from the back...but this is a good preventative measure...

Take a scrap piece of fabric and place it over your pattern before you have begun paper piecing and iron over it.  You are hoping that this is going to set the ink.  Hope and cross fingers and toes and eyes.  The last thing you want is ink on your hard work.

Thanks for reading!

Heather