Pumpkin Time and the Sewist

Happy Monday Puppies, hope you had a good week end and some time to work on your projects! I put myself on a personal retreat to clean the studio and get some work done! 

I stitch traced the veins on the leaves, this was taken before I removed the markings. This is a small project between quilts, I like the quick little projects before I jump into another big one.

Isn't this a great time of year? I know, I lament the end of Summer but truly the fresh cooler air, morning fog, changing leaves and the approach of the 'nesting season' is now and has always been like vitamin bolus to me! I most certainly live my daily life by the change of seasons. And to that end so does my decor and sewing. I have been busy climbing attic stairs and carrying down all the bins bursting with fall decor items.

The Sewist has so many opportunities in cotton and wool to perk up the home. For example, I used my Go cutter to embellish a table mat and some Fall themed towels.

I Go cut Maple and Oak leaves along with some acorns. The background is some left over fabric that I used as a backing on a quilt from a couple years ago. (don't forget to save your scraps quilters) Then I layered the piece with a scrap of fusible cotton/bamboo batting, also a left over. I used some of the decorative stitches to secure the layers.

Remember I said I was going to use those decorative stitches!

The triple stitch that is supposed to look like hand quilting (?)

this is a 'stem stitch'

I also used a triple stitch that was to mimic a hand-quilted look. On the outside edges I simple straight stitched around the leaves, too tedious for a small project made from a bunch of scraps!

I used a circle template to round the corners on the mat.

I applied the binding by machine and used a smoke colored 'invisible' thread.

At home on the tea cart.

Waiting for tea.

Project Summary

• I like fast, quick little projects between the quilts. 
• This was not as quick and easy as I expected. Stitching down all those details on the leaves was more trouble than it was worth, time wise. 
• I like being able to use up my scraps. 
• I prefer to use bias binding on small projects. Turning tight corners with French style binding is bulky. I need to remember that but truthfully, the binding was also a left over piece from something else I don't even remember.. What the heck!
• Machine binding is OK, the smoke colored thread was a bit of a pain. Thin as a hair I had trouble seeing it! It frequently became too tight through the tension mechanism no matter how many adjustments I made. Then it would snap. The bells were ringing I can tell you now. After lowering the tension to 3.0 it was better. The normal tension for a straight stitch on this machine is 4.0. Now I am thinking I should have used a finer needle. The one in the machine was #80, maybe a 90 next time. I bought that thread on sale, 4 spools, I need to use it. 
• I will eventually find a use for every decorative stitch....give me time!
• On to the next quilt.