My New Eye Bowl

Pass the Visine! Here's my new Eye Bowl!

The name is inspired by the orange Tula Pink fabric covering the small diamonds. I drove the point home (because too much is never enough for me) by placing glass eye beads on half the outer shapes. 

It's entirely English Paper Pieced. Before embellishment, it looked like this:

Afterwards, along with the beads and buttons on top, I added danglies below.

 Lower.

 The back: 

Pure fun! I showed a different polygon-based bowl in my last blog entry, here. All my techniques and many more ideas (but not this exact project) are in my polyhedron book, "Stitch-a-hedron"; more information is here. 

Impulse English Paper Pieced Heart Dish

I always get in a Valentine's Day mood at the last minutes. Here's the impulse project I made yesterday, an English Paper Pieced dish that can serve as a pincushion:

...or a thimble holder:

...or maybe an embroidery thread basket....

Or, pile it with chocolates for your sweetie. Here's how I constructed it. There's stiff fusible interfacing inside each piece; both sides are covered with fabric. 

The bowl takes shape when you sew up the side seams. 

Last, I did a bit of embellishment with the variegated embroidery thread in the ball above.

If you'd like to make this project, and you have any kind of hexagon and pentagon templates, you just need one hexagon and six pentagons, each with the same size edges - mine were 1". I redrew the top drawing below into the second drawing, altering the pentagons into soft heart shapes. Each piece is made up of two back-to-back EPPed forms, one with stiff fusible interfacing inside.

By the way, you can also cut this out of one piece of cardstock, for a fun paper project. Score and fold on the lines, instead of cutting the pieces apart.
My step-by-step method for English Paper piecing fabric bowls and other 3D forms - though not this exact project - is in my book, "Stitch-a-hedron, English Paper Piecing Polyhedron Gifts and Accessories to Sew," on etsy in digital form for instant download here; and on Amazon as a paperback, here. Wishing you a sweet holiday!

Why I Love Leftovers, When to English Paper Piece Squares (Rarely), and Why I Still Like Facebook

If I bake a cake, I know there won't be any leftovers. My DH and I, unfortunately, share a sweet tooth - we'll eat the whole thing in 1-2 sittings. So I don't bake.

That gives me more time to quilt. And one of the great joys of quilting is knowing that there are going to be lots of yummy, color-coordinated, high-fiber, calorie-free leftovers, with a shelf life much longer than anything involving butter!

Here's my newest leftover quilt - a trifle about 22" square.

It's the direct descendant of this large (about 70" high) English Paper Pieced concoction, made a couple of years ago.

(Even as we speak, this quilt is hanging at the Houston IQF show, a bucket list dream for me!) See the small squares between each hexagon star? And the triangle points? I made and auditioned many more than I used. When the quilt was done, I packed away about 30 extra 4" squares and triangles, with edges folded and lightly glued around cardstock.

Alongside them, I stored a stack of circles, ovals and other shapes, all fused to and wrapped around pieces of Decor Bond interfacing, prepared for, but never used in the original quilt.

And there they sat, until last week, when I needed scrap therapy. I decided to stitch all the squares together. 

I didn't want to unwrap them from the cardstock, press out the folds and trim to correct size. Instead, I did something that normally doesn't make a lot of sense - I machine English Paper Pieced them together (With squares alone, EPP takes longer, is more complicated, and is no more accurate than traditional piecing.) 

If you've never done machine English Paper Piecing, here's how it works.  Lay the pieces side by side, good side up, and use a tight wide stitch to bring edges together. (I start and end with a few back-and-forth straight stitches on one side.) 

Tips for machine EPP:

- Use thin, strong thread on top and bottom, to minimize showing. Threads like DecoBob, InvisaFil, and Bottom Line are good choices.
- Monofilament "invisible" thread shows least, but it does create a shine. And it's not quite as strong as other threads; when it comes time to rip out cardstock templates, some stitches may break. That's why it's important to choose the narrowest, closest zigzag - almost a satin stitch - that you can stitch accurately.

Here's how my squares looked after stitching with monofilament.

Time to remove the cardstock. For this stage, a ball-tip stylus aka embossing stylus is a big help. I use a largish size ball tip, at least 1.5-2 cm. 

I rub the stylus end up against the stitching, which helps tear the cardstock. Then the stylus helps me pry out its edges. 

Using my midarm, I straight stitch appliqued everything in position. 

With my regular sewing machine, I did a serpentine stitch with variegated thread between the squares; it covers the monofilament stitching and adds bumpy texture. 

I liked it quiet, with no embellishment; but auditioned other options, like buttons on all the squares:

How about buttons on the triangles, too?

Or maybe buttons between triangles?

Help! I was stuck! So I consulted with a couple hundred of my best strangers and friends. Yes, I'm talking about Facebook - I know it's evil in so many ways, but I still love it because my associates there are so wonderful, interesting and funny! I posted the photos with and without buttons, and invited people to vote. 75 people and/or Russian bots weighed in! Results: 

No buttons: About 6 people voted for this option. 

Yes buttons (to different degrees): about 68 "people"/entities. 

Many offered specific embellishment suggestions, including:

• Just a few buttons, not on every square (Sandra, Paula)
• Buttons plus beaded trim (Saraj, awesome quilter)
• Buttons plus maybe some crazy quilting?(Randi, world-class embroiderer. Easy enough for her to say.)
• Buttons with sparkly thread (Cecelia)
• Buttons on the triangles only (Cheryl, genius quilt designer, and others agreed)
• "You know what I think!" (Christy, awesome sewer and button collector/dealer)
• "Buttons in random places, out of the norm: stacked, sewn from holes outward, small clusters of teeny-tiny baby buttons, with beads in or across the holes, etc. Ha! Can you tell I love the button thing?" (Jeanie, fabulous fiber artist and handbag maker.) 
• Zippers or Velcro (Gary, non-quilter - I told him about Jamie,)
• Multicolored zipper pulls (Jamie, the queen of zippers and other hardware on quilts!)
• "Buttons, cabachons, rivolis, crystals, beads and clay pieces" (Phyllis, who uses all these things exquisitely!) (I had to look up rivoli.)

• And finally, my friend Heather, a knitter and thoughtful person, who dresses tastefully, and has an elegant, artistic home. She suggested that, instead of buttons, I should use decapitated Barbie heads. 

Mark Zuckerberg did not weigh in, unless he used a false identity. So I tested the suggestions, and then decided to  put buttons to all the squares, AND to add 36 more navy buttons to the corners. These rounded the squares into near-octagons! (Counting each 1/4 button as an angled "side".)

The navy buttons also give the triangles an arrow shape, 

...which goes well with the arrows quilted into the borders. 

Just for good measure, I took Randi's suggestions to do a little embroidery. (My hand embroidery is a whole lot more "primitive" than hers. I should have sent it to her.)

Below, a weeping button (It's weeping over that incompetently turned angle at 3 o'clock.) 

I am so grateful to my friends for their perspectives and pushing me creatively! If you're inspired to make a quilt like this, I have two suggestions: 1. Don't English Paper Piece the squares together. It takes much longer than traditional piecing. And 2. Start saving up Barbie heads now.

Switch & Stitch Improvisational Stuffed Fish

Stuffed fish, high in fiber, yum! Here are a couple of whoppers (11" x 5"), made from blue jeans, though you can use any fabric. They serve as pillows and/or toys. This fun and forgiving method makes two at the same time, stacking and switching pieces. It can also be used to create four applique fish, if you're making an underwater quilt! My pair: Fish 1, 

And Fish 2,

With minimal embellishment, they exude serenity. One has a coconut shell button eye. 

Its partner started out with two vintage mother-of-pearl button eyes, and decorative stitching on the seams.

Later, I added buttons and brooches, to turn it into a sensory and memory toy for my elderly aunt. (Details here). 

Ready to make your own? You'll need (at least) two pairs of old jeans. Chose two values - one noticeably darker than the other. Turn the jeans inside out.

Draw a fish on a large piece of paper (packing paper, newspaper, anything). My shape started at 15" long by 7" high. (It wound up a few inches smaller, due to the piecing.) Make the body plump, because cutting is going to narrow it. 

Turn one of your jeans pairs wrong side out. Smooth one leg,  and put a few pins in the center to hold the two layers together. Place your paper pattern on top and trace all the way around it. (I used an air erasable marker). 

Cut about a half inch out from your drawn line, all the way around. 

Cut out, it looks something like this.

(Ignore the first draft of a smaller fish inside, sorry about that).

Use the paper pattern, or one side of the fish, as a pattern to trace and cut two more pieces from the second pair of inside-out jeans.  

Now you've got two pairs, one lighter and one darker, with wrong sides out. 

 Cut each in half the long way.  

Lay all the pieces right side up, so you can see them. Swap pieces so each side has contrasting pieces.

Sew each side together along the horizontal seam. Option: Leave about 3" unstitched in the middle of one seam, if you want to insert a fin in there. Press seam open.  

Mark off the heads about 3" from the tip of the snout. (Do fish have snouts?)

 Cut it off. 

Surprise - we're not going to swap the heads (unless you want to!). We're going to turn them into fins! 

But first, borrow one to serve as a pattern for new, single color heads: Place the head on a different shade of denim (consider using different jeans; the reverse side of a pair of jeans; or the back fabric from inside one of the pockets - it's often much darker than the outer fabric.). Trace and cut out. Repeat. 

 Sew the new heads onto each fish. 

If you won't be adding a fin to the center seam, now is a good time to add decorative stitching. 

Below are the four former heads. We could turn them into two fins if we sew them to each other - but to reduce bulk, I sewed each to an unseamed piece of denim.

Here you see two of the fins, pinned to denim in a different shade than the fish bodies. (I used the same shade as the head).

Sew the curved edge, leaving straight the bottom edge unsewn. Turn right side out. 

 Option: stuff lightly. 

The photo above - that's too much stuffing. I took some out.  A little goes a long way. Option: Quilt the fin, by hand or machine:

If you left a gap in the central seam, insert the end of a fin in there, and sew in position, closing the gap. 

Now place the fins along the top and/or bottom. Pin and/or baste in position.

If you want a top fin as well as a central fin, you're going to have to stack them a bit, like this. 

Place another half of the fish on top, right sides together, and pin all the way around. You will probably need to do a little trimming and redrawing of the overall shape to get the sides to line up (because of the piecing.)

Stitch all the way around, 1/2" in, more or less on your drawn line, sealing in the fins. Leave a 2-3" gap. My gap is along the lower left part of the body, before the tail curve starts. Trim seams down to 1/4", except at the gap - leave it longer there. Clip inward curves almost to the seams, especially the curves between the tail and body, and on back of the tail.

 Turn good side out. 

Ta daa! Stuff 'em, hand sew the gap, and have fun embellishing!