Life is a bit complicated right now, and yet, I find that I need to try and sew a little something every day. I'm almost done with the bee potholders and am really liking the way they're turning out. I'll have pictures of the finished products soon. The tops are made, the sandwiches of top, batting, Insulbrite, and back are made. Now it's time to complete the machine quilting around the bees themselves and make and apply the bias binding. I've made the decision to use the gold bandana and the bee fabric for the binding. I'll make fabric with non bias strips and then cut the bias strips and make the binding from that.

One of the ways I help myself fall asleep is to complete sewing projects in my head or create new ones as I ease off into the realm of sleep. I have so many specialty fabrics in my stash that I am vacillating between Christmas stockings, tote/grocery bags, placemats, and other small kitchen accessories. I have a couple patterns for tops I want to cut out for myself. I also have fabric I'd like to make pants with. For now, though, time is an issue, so I'll work on designing those items as I drowse and nod in bed.

Though it's not specifically project oriented, I am finding that sewing still helps me keep myself centered and brings me back to a place of my own when there is chaos all around me. I can focus and simply be. That, again, is the zen of sewing, and I hope it rings true for you as well. Sewing is our friend. Our very good friend.

Sewing almost every day

Life is a bit complicated right now, and yet, I find that I need to try and sew a little something every day. I'm almost done with the bee potholders and am really liking the way they're turning out. I'll have pictures of the finished products soon. The tops are made, the sandwiches of top, batting, Insulbrite, and back are made. Now it's time to complete the machine quilting around the bees themselves and make and apply the bias binding. I've made the decision to use the gold bandana and the bee fabric for the binding. I'll make fabric with non bias strips and then cut the bias strips and make the binding from that.

One of the ways I help myself fall asleep is to complete sewing projects in my head or create new ones as I ease off into the realm of sleep. I have so many specialty fabrics in my stash that I am vacillating between Christmas stockings, tote/grocery bags, placemats, and other small kitchen accessories. I have a couple patterns for tops I want to cut out for myself. I also have fabric I'd like to make pants with. For now, though, time is an issue, so I'll work on designing those items as I drowse and nod in bed.

Though it's not specifically project oriented, I am finding that sewing still helps me keep myself centered and brings me back to a place of my own when there is chaos all around me. I can focus and simply be. That, again, is the zen of sewing, and I hope it rings true for you as well. Sewing is our friend. Our very good friend.

Bee Potholders 2 - How a project progresses

Trial and error - that's how it works, especially when you're either working with no pattern or creating your own. The potholders continue. I consulted the drawing and used a water soluble pen to draw antennae, eyes, and legs for my big bee. I tried a couple different decorative stitches on the Bernina and came up with one that suited the design, stitching the legs per the picture. I created half circles on top of the black piece of the bee to serve as eyes. And then, I did the satin stitch around the whole body.

Looking at the picture above, it looks eh. the legs are not the same length and seem to have a cattywampus placement. That alone wouldn't be a problem, but the antennae aren't quite right either. Check it out in comparison of the drawing.

I didn't stitch the wings on, but did want to see how they looked, so placed them on, trimmed them down to fit so the legs would show, and then stood back and reminded myself this was my prototype and that I get to keep this one. Argh. Sometimes things don't go perfectly the first time! The position of the legs looks even worse with the wings, but there you go. This is how a project progresses. For the next three bees, I'll follow the drawing a little closer when drawing the legs and antennae. I hope that I won't have to cut down the wings any more than just a smidgen; they should be bigger than shown on the piece above.

I'm laughing as I type this because it is really kind of funny the first time you try something and it turns out a little wonky. I'm sharing it with you to show you that you will make "mistakes" along the way and you need to not let them bother you. It's never a waste; it's always a lesson. And I'll end up with a pretty groovy potholder to use in my kitchen. What I won't do with this one is use the bee fabric for binding since I know for sure I'm keeping it. I'll use black bias binding, which will work just as fine. For an item I want to sell, I prefer to use handmade bias binding that matches the design a little better.

Hopefully, the next post will show you the one above completed and one that is a little more like the drawing. I do love the colors and like the choice of bee fabric for wings.

Bee Potholders 1 - How a project happens

I'm back home and after some family health issues, have decided it's time to sew, and that means it is time to post.
People often ask me - "How do you come up with stuff?" Honestly, there is no rhyme or reason to it, but hey, here's a shot at explaining it. What I'm not going to do is go over every instruction for these potholders. You can see the general "how to" for potholders here. I've made them many times and the process is the same.

For many holidays and birthdays, when my younger son was asked what he wanted as a gift, he would respond, "a jar of bees." One birthday recently, I decided to do just that and made him a jar of bees pillow.

I  have leftover bee fabric and it has been speaking to me. So I went looking for bee pictures and found this one:

 

Now I have bee fabric and a drawing of a bee. Hmm, what to do? Potholders! I traced the basic bee parts from the drawing onto Wonder Under and cut the body of the bee out of a golden bandanna and the top and head out of black, but couldn't decide what to do with the wings. I fused the body to an 8" potholder blank that I cut out of recycled denim. Then I used a tight zig-zag/satin stitch on my machine to make the stripes on the bottom of the bee.

It looks kind of plain, but there's a lot of work to be done. I decided right about at this point to use the bee fabric for the wings and then use a satin stitch to give the illusion of veins per the drawing.

I have not yet stitched the wings down as I want to do them last. I'm still thinking on it, but I think my next step is to draw the legs, eyes, and antennae with a water soluble pen or pencil and get them stitched onto the denim. I'll use a water soluble backing when I do the embroidery (I do not have an embroidery machine, so will be creative with the Bernina I do have) for stability. The back of the potholders will be the bee fabric. I don't have enough of it to do the binding, so am thinking of doing a striped length of fabric with the black and bee fabric and cut my bias binding from that.

As projects go, this one is fairly easy. It will be time consuming because of the legs on the bee and the fact that I'm making four of them, but I need a machine project that will take some time. I'm not sure if I will sell these or keep them, but there you go. I looked at a pillow made from interesting fabric and decided it was time to use the remnant. I gathered other fabrics, including the junk jeans, that I already had, hit the internet for a drawing to use for my Wonder Under pattern, and there you go. You could do something like this on jeans or anything you wanted.

Start with something in your stash that speaks to you and just do it. More to come as the design progresses. Hope you have fun with your sewing!