Hey, my friend Melissa of SewBitterSweet Designs has a FANTASTIC Valentine’s lineup – capped off with a grand prize from Fat Quarter Shop of a $75 gift certificate! Oh yes, $75 smackers for you to buy yourself some lovely new fabric. Now doesn’t that cheer you up a little?
I’ll be posting a tutorial for a sweet Valentine’s mug rug on the 10th – but I figured a few teaser photos would be ok, even though it’s a way away. Actually, it’s because I’m so proud I made the whole thing late yesterday afternoon – from foundation piecing to binding. Brilliant! So here’s what you can expect:
This is the 3rd paper/foundation pieced heart I’ve made this month – the first two were blocks for the Cherish circle of do. Good Stitches. Thing is, following a tip from the Romsey Quilters chair Jackie Sparks, this time I drew the whole thing out on calico instead of using paper. Partly because when she did it, the calico made sewing easier – not to mention no ripping off the paper after. And partly because Mike is a fusspot and buys fancy, heavy printer paper which is impossible to see through. Told ya. Fusspot.
So I’ll show you how to do that too in the tutorial. I tried fancy pantsy quilting on it too – see the hearts? I took pics of the good ones – uhhh yeah some are…not so good. Oh, did you want to see those too? Well, I have no pride:
I’m not sure where this particular mug rug’s destiny lies. Maybe under the oil burner in the living room. Maybe I’ll send it as a joke to Santa Claus. He’s probably got his sense of humour back by now, don’t you think?
P.S. Because I write a non-Blogger blog, I am one of those unfortunates who will lose my Google Friend Connect widget soon. I really value you as a reader and follower, and I’d like to ask you to consider following me on BlogLovin’, a free service built specifically for people to follow their favourite blogs, or by Feedburner, which is an RSS feed. Thanks!! 🙂
© J C Excell, 2011
I do see the heart quilting – just lovely 🙂
that sure is a very tempting “sneak preview” … I would love to join – but without the sewing machine the time frame is far too small… but there is always a next year …
Btw. I’m sure Santa would love the hearty mug rug – it must be really depressing to only get christmasy presents …
I like all of your heart stitching ! Can’t wait to see the whole thing .
You are adorable. I love the term – thread vomit. I need to practice my FMQ and I’m sure i’ll have something just like this to share. Love the sneak peak!
I love it! You should definitely send it to Santa – I’m sure Mrs. Clause wouldn’t mind a little healthy competition 🙂 Can’t wait to see the tutorial!
I’ve never seen thread vomit before but the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie features yarn vomit when the infinite improbability drive is running (face it, it’s infinitely improbable that the characters turn into knitted dolls).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjbtZ4NgtdA
Still, the hearts are adorable. We all start somewhere and I am currently even farther back than that.
lovely quilting!
Yay, way to embrace that paper piecing, told you it wasn’t hard 🙂
I’ve never tried paper piecing before so I’m interested to see the tutorial and the calico technique! – I also hope you’re leaving out the instructions for thread vomit 😉