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 These Needle Grip-Its are fabulous for hand sewing!

You put one on your thumb and one on your forefinger, right where you pinch them together to pull the needle through. They help reduce hand fatigue by gripping the needle to help you pull it through your project so you don't have to pull as hard. They stick very well and can be used several times before they stop sticking. I'm not sure how long that is because I'm still using the first two!

For proper placement, pinch your thumb and forefinger together pretty hard like you are ...

 I shared this idea with you previously in July. Click here to read that post. I finally got it finished!

Here is what it looks like all stitched but not sewn into a pillow cover yet.

For those of you who are curious, here is what the back looks like before I sewed it up into a pillow cover.

I cut a piece of batting the finished size I needed the pillow to be. Next time I would cut the batting about an inch larger than the finished size. I added the fabric directly on top of the batting and ...

Last week I showed you the sights of Tekapo.  This week I'll show you what we did at the retreat.  

I taught 14 ladies how to make my Summer in Tekapo tote bag.  We had a great time experimenting with wool felt, Perle 8 threads and ombre fabrics. Everyone's bags are going to look so different because they applied their own artistic flair to the design. 

Tula Pink lining

It was a great weekend with good people and very good food.  And of course the scenery was gorgeous with all the snow on the mountains.  I definitely hope ...

 I've been playing with this idea of scraps and hand stitching for a while. So far I've only made small projects, pin cushions to be precise. Now I'm going to try making a larger project, a pillow for my chair. It will finish at 16" by 16".

Above you can see the layout I have chosen using scraps from my scrap basket. I have everything cut to fit and pinned in place. There is batting underneath the fabrics. When I made the pin cushions I just laid the fabrics loosely where I wanted them, took a picture ...

Seems like it has been a slow start to this year when it comes to creating new works. I have hardly worked in the studio lately. It has been months since I finished my last quilt. Yet, the way time is passing by, something tells me I am extremely busy. I better sit down and really think about where it really goes. 

Here is the last Kawandi I finished early this year. This one started out as wanting to take a break from my usual palette of colors and needing to work with texture. The choices of fabrics were random ...

 The name of this post is a joke. A group of us here has been making these and we joke that "we've gone down a rabbit hole." Hence the name, rabbit hole covers. Actually these will eventually be turned into pin cushions once I can stop hand sewing them and find time to turn them into pin cushions.

This first set are woven patterns. You do some stitching then you weave through the stitching to create the design.

This one is a rice pattern.

This one is just a spiral ending with an X in the middle.

We started ...

 It's been a while since I've shared my progress on my version of Crimson Tweed. This is what it looked like when I finished with my hand sewing group last Thursday.

Right now I am working on the pomegranate block (left side in the upper middle). If you look closely you can see my needle and thread where I parked it in the block.

Here are a couple of close-up shots.

I still have quite a bit left to do, but I am making noticeable progress every week!

This past Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I participated in a Zoom workshop on Textural Style with Natalya Khorover. We had a two hour Zoom session each day and then homework to do for the next day’s class. The class focused on using scraps of any type to create small machine and hand sewn collages. Natalya stresses materials reuse, especially plastics, in her work and teaching, though this workshop used fabrics more than plastics.

By Friday afternoon my studio looked like a fabric scrap cannon had been fired off, I had started four pieces, and my brain was exhausted. So ...

Toward the end of last year I received two fun Color Wheel fabrics in my shop, Color Wheel Pink and Color Wheel Green. I used the green one and some gray Essex Linen to make this fun bag.

I hand quilted the exterior bag pieces before assembling the bag and I love how it turned out! Now I want to make another one with the pink version of this fabric.

 I am slowly making progress getting this one quilted.

I started with the snowflake block. After that I moved to the right and did the block above the tree. Then the tree block. Now I am working on the triangles block right below the tree. I got to sit and work on this for two days last week and made good progress those two days. I still have a long way to go but I am happy with how it is turning out so far.

My Kawandi is finished!

I took a one day Kawandi class with Lorena Uriarte at Quilt Symposium 2022.  We learnt to make Kawandi and here is mine.  

Kawandi are meant to be scrappy, but I used a charm pack of Koi Pond by Ruby Star Society.  I knew the colours would all work together and I'm pleased with how it turned out.  

 Last weekend I had a small SIYOB Retreat at my shop. SIYOB stands for Sleep In Your Own Bed. I got to work on my Crimson Tweed the whole time, except when I was helping customers.

I started quilting the center snowflake block. When the retreat started I had less than a 1/4 of that block quilted. Now I have about 1/4 left to go. See below for a detail shot of this section.

Seed stitching is slow going but I really like the effect. This is going to take a while, which is why I decided that ...

 I finally decided that I am finished with the embroidery on my Crimson Tweed. Here is the final layout, before quilting.

Would you believe that I didn't have ANY of the thread colors that I needed to seed quilt this with!? I was a bit shocked, but I gravitate toward the brighter colors and I need neutrals for this.

The tin shown in the photo above contains the 5 colors of thread, size 8 Eleganza solid colors, that I will use for the seed stitch quilting. This style of quilting takes quite a while to do, but I'm ...

 Missy gets a lot done! Recently she stopped into the shop to get some backing and binding fabrics for these projects.

Autumn Art Panel Pillows:

 I have been playing around with more scraps to make stitched pincushions. Previously I was using only one color of thread so I was using only that color fabrics. This time I decided to switch the threads to match the fabrics and use whatever fabrics I wanted.

For all the fabrics except the bottom right I just stitched them down with a running stitch. But for the one in the bottom right corner I stitched along the print on the fabric. I really like the way that piece turned out and I have that fabric in several colors. I decided ...

 I finished up my COVID sanity project!

I am currently out of this embroidery kit but I have ordered more. They will be here in a day or two. I also ordered a bunch more of these type of kits besides this one.

All of these kits are listed on my shop website in the Kits section. When the new kits arrive the website will be updated. All the ones listed right now that are sold out have been reordered, plus a few new ones. These are really fun to do. They come with the design already pre-printed on the ...

 Cynthia C. purchased this adorable panel at another shop on her travels. The border fabrics came from this shop. She has embroidered some of the elements on the panel.

The photos below show some close-ups of the hand embroidery she has done.

Cynthia is my newest employee. She's been working at the shop about 7 months now. She is eager to try just about any type of sewing. She's done some hand embroidery before but just recently picked it back up again and is enjoying it.

 I was quarantined upstairs away from my family for over a week recently when I had COVID. There is only so much surfing online I can do and watching movies and such on my iPad. I just had to have a hand sewing project! Luckily I had one ready to go in my sewing room. So one morning when I was briefly allowed downstairs to shower I snagged the kit on my way back upstairs. (My sewing room is right at the base of the stairs so I didn't have to go far.)

I had actually started this the ...

 I taught my first class for the little stitched pin cushions. I had two willing "guinea pigs" and they both did great. One didn't think she would like the technique but went along with it because she is just super nice like that. However, she ended up really enjoying the process. This is her pin cushion.

My other student was more of a willing participant. She asked to join in when she found out what I was doing. She also did great and enjoyed the process.

They both started out just doing running stitches but quickly caught on to ...

 The Spargoettes Group (Sue Spargo design fans) meet several times a month at my shop. Janet D. has been working on this bunny during her recent visits.

The pattern is not a Sue Spargo pattern. I can't remember who designed the pattern, but Janet only used the pattern as an inspiration and for the main applique elements. She is doing a lot of hand embroidery on this in the style of Sue Spargo. She thinks she is almost done now.

Barb R. has started Squash Squad, a Sue Spargo pattern. She has all 9 blocks appliqued but has only ...