A Little Coffee Mat

I decided to make mum a coffee mat to put on her glass table outside when she has her morning coffee out the back. It is difficult to think of Christmas presents for her so this will be it.
I go down to visit her once more before Christmas so I need to have it ready.
I have a collection of cup and saucer drawings that I traced off photos so I picked a nice shaped one. I also liked the bit of design on the cup.

I cut a 10 1/2" square then cut 2 1/2" strips 2 x 10 1/2" and 2 x 14 1/2". You must measure and cut them to make the mat square.
I like to press my seams open.

I made a one piece applique of the cup and saucer then drew in the details with my air erasable pen. It was easy to free motion over the design.

I glued the wadding and the backing on with 505 basting spray.

I used a 2 1/4" wide strip to make the double fold binding and folded it using my electric bias machine.

I stitch the binding onto the wrong side stopping 1/4" before the corner, do a back stitch, then with my needle down turning to direct the stitching out to the corner. That is the only different step all the rest is the same. I find this little angled stitching makes mitring the corners so easy.

Here it is all done. I love it. It was quick and easy so it doesn't have to be treated like a treasure. I know mum will like it.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

Playing with Washi Tape

The book Washi Wonderful by Jenny Doh and my washi tape set.

I borrowed a lovely craft book from my library, all about using washi tape. There are some great gift wrap and card ideas but I was taken by the covered light switch.

I used my Kikki K washi tape set.

The finished light switch.

I can just see it from my desk and it looks so pretty. I really need to put washi tape on a lot more things :)

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

KNK Zing Air

I have been far too slow to get on the Klik n Kut and work out how to use it. Today I took the final plunge and used the cutting blade. I had several goes with the pen only, to work out how to place my fabric and set up the machine to cut in the right place.

I already had my SVG file ready to import into Make the Cut software. I deleted most of the shapes and kept the heart and two circles for testing.
Using 100% cotton quilting fabric backed with fusible applique paper I did a test cut on the minimum settings recommended. The fabric didn't quite cut through.

The only two things I could adjust were the amount of blade sticking through the holder and the force.
I adjusted the blade so it easily cut through two sheets of paper and I adjusted the force up to the higher recommended level.
I was thrilled that it worked perfectly. The fabric was cut through nicely and the paper backing was only just cut. My fabric pieces peeled off the paper backing very neatly.
The fusible paper backing is perfect to use with this machine because it sticks very well to the cutting mat.
As you can see, my mat isn't very clean. DH has been doing lots of testing and playing with light card. The paper backing stuck well though.

Here you can see where my first go didn't cut right through. On the new settings the fabric lifted out easily.

My KNK Zing Air settings were:
Yellow Fabric Blade - easily cuts through 2 sheets of paper. It just peeps out of the casing.
Speed - 9
Force - 135
Cuts - 2

I used a 12" virtual mat on portrait.
I chose the WYSIWYG setting for cutting.
I set the origin at the bottom right hand corner of the mat.

What is the point of all this?
I need to cut out 14 sets of applique pieces for 14 blocks of my Go Wild Quilt. This machine will make it very quick and easy.

My next experiment will be fabric on its own. I have read that the fabric tends to be dragged by the blade rather than sticking firmly. We shall see.

Happy Quilting ans Crafting,
Val

Scrapbooking

I have some physical scrapbooks from the late 80's early 90's when the daughters were little and we moved around a bit. I thought it would be nice to have a journal with photos and various clippings as a memory jogger for the different places we lived.

Those were the days when you had to wait 3 days to get your photos back and my scrapbook was a school project book from Big W where I glued everything in with a regular glue stick.
I don't do much with my photos anymore but I do write a journal of sorts in a physical diary.

I like to blog and I have seen that a bit of embellishment with photos on people's blogs looks really nice. Where do I get pretty backgrounds and elements to use on my blog? There are not many out there that can be used on a blog or webpage without a large fee and some just don't allow it at all.

If you are looking for some nice embellishments and can't make your own I can recommend a look at Pixel Scrapper.

For personal use and at no cost you can register and download several elements or papers a day. There are lots to choose from and free is good. There is also a free mini kit each week that you can sign up for for free. Well worth it. The founders of the site just want to share their joy of scrapbooking so they make it easy to get their images and files.

I was looking for something I could use commercially with my doll clothes patterns. For $20 USD a month I can download 5 kits a day and use them pretty much for any commercial project. If you pay for the year up front you can download as much as you like. I decided to go month to month to see what I needed. I can stop at any time and keep the kits for commercial use for ever.

For $10 USD a month you get personal use downloads.

The site is also a nice community of scrapbookers who share their layouts in the gallery as well as lots of free elements and templates.

The only thing I have done so far is this collage. I made it to promote the free fashion file that goes with the the purchased pattern. My favourite part of my pattern business is designing and sewing. The promotion part just has to fit in somewhere when I feel like playing on the computer. It sucks up a lot of time. But as with my sewing and designing, only practice and playing with it will lead to improvement.

I don't have any affiliation with Pixel Scrapper. I just like them and their product.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val