Back Again!?

I hope that things are back to normal here, and that we can carry on as we used to!

Dear Daughter #2 and her family are here for a few days, and that is a great treat for me, as all our children and grandchildren live far away from us and I'm blessed to see them once or twice a year!  So this will just be a short post to start catching up on the past weeks, really busy weeks with lots going on, including the wipe out of my computer.

So just for now I'll tell you about the fun thing that I taught at the last meeting of our local quilting club: folded fabric flowers.  We had been taught this several years ago, and the method involved lots of tiny stitches and was very frustrating.  

Each May several members of the quilt club get together to plan the meetings for the following year, and certain members promise to demonstrate certain methods.  My promise was to demonstrate the folded fabric flowers, a method I had totally forgotten.  So I borrowed the instruction book and reviewed the how to.  

The method began with a 6" fabric square and ended with a 3" completed square.  I soon decided it was easier to start with a 12" square.  That made folding and handling the material much easier!

I also soon decided that instead of "finger pressing" I would use my nifty little travel iron, and instead of just folding over the fabric I would glue certain areas down.  That worked like a charm.  In no time at all I had a large (6") flower!  

It was addictive!  I made quite a few, experimenting with different sizes.  Then I cut several 3" green squares for a background.  Sewing them together took longer than making the flowers.  At this point I quilted the background with a varied green thread in a loose meander.

Then I pinned the flowers on to decide the arrangement.  I opened up the flowers and sewed them onto the background by machine, and then folded them back and kept them in place with a little glue.  It needed a little more, so I zigzagged on a meandering gold thread that lead from one flower to the next.  

The final step will be to sew (or glue) a small brass bead in the centre of each flower.  The binding and the hanging sleeve will complete this project.  The result: a cheerful spring wall hanging!