Diving into Art

My No. One Son has been home this past month and we all have enjoyed his stay. Every day has been great. We have worked in the yard this trip. Probably more than we would have liked to but we have gotten some planting and weeding done. He has purchased some border plants and some accent plants for use to take care of while he is in Iraq so we will have a memory of all our good times here during his stay and he can follow via web the gardens progress and feel apart of its daily progress. Needless to say his stay is moving towards the end and with that is the knowledge that he will be being deploying to Iraq on August 15. That little bit of knowledge, is like a rat gnawing in my hart and mind. Now with these tears of not being able to see him for another 15 mo. it will also awaken the creative side of my soul. So crank up the rock and roll and let it flow.

Right before he came I managed to get this cute tea cozy done. I had some of this red ticking and could just see the end result in my mind. By the way you can download this great little Tea Pot Applique (just follow this blog and you will be able to get some more applique design to use as they become available weekly. It's a win win.) I will also be offering patterns for sale that I have designed. Hopefully you will like some or all of them. Since I work with graphics I have decided to incorporate that in my quilting and make them available to you my followers.
On this project I did it old school. I pined the little tea pot applique to the fabric and turned the sides under 1/8 of inch all round. I would recommend that you use some of freezer paper and leave 1/8 inch overlap of the fabric when cutting the applique. Spray some starch in a bottle cap and then dab on the edges with a small brush. You can then use a small hand held iron paddle to fold over the edges for a smooth applique finish around the edges. You can use a clear thread or matching thread for your material. Coming up from the bottom with the applique pinned or glued on your background material grab a very small amount of your applique material on the very edge and securing on to your background material. Always run your needle just under the edge of your applique design when securing the applique down, so as not to see the thread. Or you can use your sewing machine with a blind stitch. I love working with my hands so I use the hand version of applique.
You will notice that I have added some wording above that say "Tea Pot" . I have also Feel free to do what ever you like or use the applique design on your next quilt nothing says that you have to do what I have done, just let your imagination run wild. I added some scraps for the border. I had a square that was not exactly square so I cut it up and used it for the binding. It added a great country feel to it.
For some interest on the back of the Tea Cozy I did some machine quilting (different from the hand quilting that I always do but due to the fact that this was Ticking it was a heavy fabric and would have made the hand quilting harder and awkward so I use the method of machine quilting so as not to look messy. Country is one thing messy is another.

Thanks for visiting my blog and I hope that you enjoy your "Tea Pot"

The Tea Pot and Applique is a Jeweled Frog Creation Copyright Jeweled Frog Studio All rights reserved. Contents on this blog can not be duplicated and redistributed with out permission.