Sewing With Friends

A few times a year I get together with my friends Robin and Judith at Robin's home to sew.  

We have been choosing a project and then spend the day working on it. 

 Last time it was a wedding quilt for a co-worker.  

This time they decided they wanted me to show them how to make oven mitts.  

I have been using this online tutorial to make the once I have done in the past. 

 So they printed this out and selected their fabric and we all met at Robin's house on Saturday.

  I see Skip To My Lou has a new tutorial out also for a little bit different oven mitt pattern 

and that one can be found here.  

First up was choosing my own fabrics. 

 I selected this fun fish fabric by Michael Miller for the outside of one set of mitts.

  I used fabric from The Lovely Hunt by Lizzy House to make the bias binding.

For my other set I chose these math themed prints with a mint bias binding.  

My middle daughter has chosen these colors for her kitchen (and her BF is an architect).  

Of course my helper had to check things out!

I love this math fabric!

I decided to do "wavy" quilting on the fish mitts.  

I really like how it came out and it was super easy! 

 I enlarged a stitch on my machine and it did the waves for me. 

First set of mitts completed!

Robin and Judith and I were on the screened in porch.  

Robin had a station set up for each of us. 

 This was later in the day.  

We stopped for lunch during the thunderstorm and this was when we got back to it.

Here are my four mitts finished.

From left to right.  Robin made the gold ones for part of a wedding gift.  

The couple chose Kate Spade gold dots on white for the dishes.  

The 2 fish mitts are mine.  

The French Provincial is Judith's and the math ones are mine.  

We had a fabulous time sewing and gabbing and eating.  I am excited for our next little retreat!

What were you up to this weekend?

~XOP~

Some More Finishes

I have managed to finish up a few more things for the upcoming bridal shower.  

I had decided that I wanted to make 4 embroidered towels, some oven mitts 

and an etched baking dish. 

 I finished the oven mitts and the 4 towels.  

I could not be happier with how these turned out!  

The oven mitts are adorable too.

I think I want to make some of those paper pieced trivets that I made one Christmas, to go with these.

I will need to look for some embroidery for the centers.  

Maybe some anthropomorphized veggies?  Maybe more dishes?  

I'm not sure just yet.

If I have time I would love to make a set of coasters to match these mitts.

Oh those faces!

Have a great weekend and a heads up that I will be taking over the 52 quilters Instagram/Blog and Twitter next week, so if you follow them please stop in and say HI to me!

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts

Have a great weekend!

~XOP~

WIP Wednesday

I have several things going right now.  

I'm working on some bridal shower gifts and 

trying to get my The Splendid Sampler blocks caught up.  

I spent a lot of time on this paper pieced block on Saturday 

(when I should have been in the garden weeding)

I think the resultant block turned out well though!

Hubby and son were out fishing on Saturday and since he does most of the cooking I decided to cook.  I made some chicken pot pie. 

 I use broccoli as my kids don't like peas.  

Kicker is that they are no longer at home and hubby likes peas better, but I love the broccoli!  

I decided to embroider some "Kitchy" kitchen towels for the bridal shower as part of my gift.  

I did get this one teapot finished, but have 3 more to do.  

There are black stripes down each side of the towels. 

 Their kitchen theme seemed to be black and white, so I thought these would be fun!

I also madea pair of oven mitts.  I love that the dots have faces!

I lined the mitts with white polka dots on black, so cute!

I also got the last round of my bee blocks finished.  So I guess that is not a WIP but the bee is a constant WIP!

Now I just need time to finish the embroidery on the last towels.

Quilt Fox Face quilt for the next baby.

Assemble the Little Birdie quilt and get that quilted.

Just a few balls in the air.

Linking to Let's Bee Social

~XOP~

Of Oven Mitts and Pot Holders

I am trying something new. 

 I got a bee in my bonnet and decided that I wanted to try to make some 

pot holders and some oven mitts. 

I posted these on IG and someone commented that I was good at everything I try.  

OMG, I laughed so hard at that!  Please do NOT look closely at these as they are far from perfect.  

I hope to get better at this!  

 I have a few more things on my list but those were the first up.  

I Googled some pot holder tutorials and settled on this one.  

I think the Vintage Modern fabric drew me in, it's so adorable!  

The pattern was relatively easy although making bias for enclosing the seams was a pain.  

There were not clear directions about how to end the binding either, but I figured it out.  

I am making all these things for a bridal shower that I am co-hosting with all my SIL for our niece.

I love the colors and hope she does too.

As usual, Autumn was "helping" me.

Then on Monday I wanted to make the oven mitts.  I used this pattern right here.  

Although, the directions on how to put on the bias binding were pretty much non-exsistent. 

 I think I will take some photos and post how I did that at a later date.  

First I had to quilt the fabric for the mitts.  I decided to go with a diagonal cross hatch. 

 I put a piece of tape down so I had a straight line to follow.  

Then I used the walking foot guide thingy to do my straight lines.

I managed to get 2 and a half done before I ran out of thread!  Awe, NUTS!  

I had to run to JAF for more thread.

One kind of cool thing while I was at JAF.  I spotted the magazine I am in on the shelf!

I came home, had dinner and then back up to the sewing room.  

I was kind of crabby (like Crabby Appleton), so hiding away and sewing was probably for the best.

I got a ticket for turning right on a red (I thought it was a timed deal like by my house), then the IRS sent me a letter telling me they think I owe them a few hundred more dollars, and I ran out of thread.

Yeah, it was *that* kind of day.

At the end of the day though, as a good friend pointed out, at least I could see.  

Another dear friend is undergoing chemo, so I am thankful that I am healthy. 

 It is wonderful that my friend kept my pity party of one from getting too absurd. 

 Perspective is important. 

 ALWAYS.  

I did manage to get one oven mitt finished!  

Look, I made the lower peninsula of Michigan!!!

Autumn and I were exhausted!  I still have one more mitt to make. 

 I would like to experiment with making a trivet too.  I have an idea and will share soon. 

 For tonight though, bed!

~XOP~