Fizzy Drinks

 For many decades, I have lived on the Gulf Coast of Texas, where summers are steamy, and the best thing to do is to stay inside and pray for October to get here! But when I was a kid, our family lived in Wisconsin, and summers were actually enjoyable.  

We kids would stay out all day, coming in only to consume pitchers of Kool-aid.  And every now and then, as a special treat, we got Fizzies!

Fizzies were little tablets that you dropped in a glass of ordinary water, and then watched it transform into a flavorful bubbly beverage, that was almost as good as real root beer or soda! It was not just a taste treat; it was entertainment!

The theme of Effervescent brought back those memories, so I have captured them here in vintage and reproduction fabric, trims, and buttons.  One large button represents the fizzy tablet, and the resulting bubbles are shown with free-motion quilting and small buttons.

Fizzy Drinks

Strawberries and Citrus

Lemonade

I looked up Fizzies, and it seems they were tablets of sodium citrate, with flavorings and saccharine to cover up the salty taste.  Once saccharine was taken off the market, Fizzies sadly followed.  They have been brought back a few times with different artificial sweeteners, but they have not been successful and are not currently being produced.

This piece could use more quilting in the background, and I would love to add some textile paint for shadows and highlights, and finish up with embroidery stitches and beads. But I really loved working on this theme.  Working on this piece not only brought happy memories from childhood, but memories of where I got each piece of fabric and trim. 

Vintage: Pretty Posies

 Coming up with an idea to use for vintage took me awhile. I ran through a gamut of ideas, none of which seemed to feel right. In the end, I pulled out vintage fabrics and just played around a bit. 

All of the fabrics used in this little quilt are vintage, dating back a couple of decades or more, with the exception of the backing. 

The background fabric is part of a sleeve from an old (and well loved) denim shirt of my husband's. I decided to leave it in the "sleeve shape" because I thought it added a fun twist to the quilt, and it reminded me of a window view for some reason. 

The "table" is a piece of fabric that I remember as a dress for my mom. It is a little sheer with little nubs of thread throughout. I'm not sure what type of fabric it is. 

The vase is from my stash of my grandmother's fabrics. It is cut in a hexie shape, although it is a very wonky hexie, as you can see. I'm not sure who cut the shape, that is the shape I found it in. 

The crocheted lace was made by my grandmother. I've been looking for a chance to use that in one of my quilts, so I'm glad it worked in this little piece! 

The posies, or flowers, are cut from a vintage handkerchief that came from either my grandmother, my great aunts, or my mother. I cut around the flowers and then machine stitched them to the quilt. 

I attached each little piece by raw edge applique with my sewing machine. The trickiest part was stitching around the flowers, and getting them overlapping the lace just so. It all worked out well and went together quickly. 

I kept the quilting very simple and subtle. I stitched straight lines 2 inches apart, then added a serpentine stitch in between. I used Aurifil 50 wt thread in Dove Grey (#2600) for the quilting. 

For the backing, I had this piece on my shelf. I bought this fabric a few years ago for a specific purpose. Since I can no longer recall what that specific purpose was (can you relate??), it has been used for backings. 

I finished the little quilt by binding it with more of the denim shirt fabric. The fabric is so well worn, it was very soft and easy to stitch through. 

So that's what I came up with for the vintage challenge - using vintage fabrics in my stash! I look forward to seeing everyone else's challenge pieces! 

Wendy

Big Stitch Embroidery

In March, my branch of the Irish Patchwork Society had a sit and sew night.  We try to do that once a year where all of our members gather round our tables and we all work on the same type of project.  We've done EPP (English Paper Piecing), Needleturn Applique, Hand Quilting and this year I volunteered to lead the group in what I call Big Stitch Embroidery (uses big stitch quilting with embroidery stitches).

Inspired by Laura Wasilowski, whose book Fanciful Colourful Stitches is in our branch library, I came up with this bird house and a flowers in vase design, that we could make on the night. It's a technique I had wanted to try and I had it in mind for this Endeavourer's challenge as a new to me technique.  I thought it would be fun to share with our branch too. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.

 

I love perle cotton (I've been told this is primarily used for crochet but quilters have adopted it for hand stitching).  I used size 8 and 12 for this project but embroidery floss works just as well.

Using scraps and Bondaweb fusible paper, I cut shapes to make the applique and took inspiration from Laura Wasilowski's book (she has a class on Craftsy too if you want video instruction) to add embellishment with embroidery stitches.

I used cross stitch, running stitch, stem stitch and back stitch to outline the shapes and french knots, pistil stitch, sheath stitch and stab stitch to add texture and it was a lot of fun!

It doesn't take very much scraps of fabric to make a composition and I found it very relaxing to add in the running stitch as a quilted background.

This was an odd size as I was winging it (?) with the composition.  Originally I thought about binding the piece but almost everything I have made in these challenges has ended up framed.  I searched through the frames squirreled away about the house and found this, that just about fits.  

Its a teeny bit tight, and I may have to look for a bigger frame, but for now I have some happy birds building a nest and are ready for Spring. It makes me feel like I could get on with the weeding and planting and get the garden all ready too.

This was fun and reminded me how nice it is to do handwork once in a while.