art for my sewing room

A few years ago my mom gifted me her embroidery stash.  She saved all her leftovers in the original kit package.  A friend was telling me she wanted to finish an older piece but didn't have matching yarns.  I suggested we raid mom's piles and see if we could find scraps to work with.
Jack pot!!!

It was so much fun going through each package to glean usable leftovers.  I remember seeing most of these pieces finished over the years.  I hated to throw away empty kits so I cut out the photos and made a one of a kind art pieces for my sewing room.

I still have the finished mice in the center photos.

I don't know who ended up with this woodland series but I have the package photos and  love how cute they are together.

I am not an embroiderier (yet)

In my defense, I have only had this machine about 6 yrs.  I have made a couple of labels and many throw away projects.  I keep thinking all I need is to commit to learning how and do it.

This practice piece (and that is a biggie for me to practice- I almost just pinned in the quilt and went with it) will be framed and kept as a reminder.  A reminder that I have NO business trying to embroidery with or without a machine!!

My first line, I 'forgot' to lower the presser foot.  Totally messed up the first letter.  I re-threaded (after clearing the thread jam) and continued.  Not too bad so I figured I would just 'start' again and stop after the "B".

Didn't realize that my machine cuts thread after a line.  SO.... now I had to re-thread again.

My machine is a touch screen.  My fingers evidently ''touch'' everywhere on the pad except what I want to be touched.  I spent a lot of time erasing and starting over.

The third line, I learned about spacing.  I didn't learn very well but I did learn a lesson.

The last line is wonky.  One reason is I dumped everything out of the hoop when I tried to cut a thread.  Two is I didn't load it back up very straight.  And three is I evidently hit a different size font.

30 minutes later I have confirmed that I am not mature enough to do machine embroidery.  Maybe next year!  Thankfully I have grown up enough to have not practiced on a real quilt- lol

auction pt II

My son call me this morning to say that the auction down the road had a couple of quilts at it. He also said, there was no need to go b/c it was all stuff I already had. (yeah right!)

There were a lot of people that showed up to buy mostly b/c of the antiques that were available. After seeing how high the items were selling for I resolved that I was NOT going to be bringing anything home. I watched at least a couple of dozen different ladies fondle this top and comment. I figured it would be out of my price range fairly fast. I was hoping that I could at least get a bid in to say I ‘tried’ I called our son and asked him to run by my house and grab the camera, I was hoping to at least get a few pictures to remember the ‘one that got away’ He showed up just as I won the bid on a couple of boxes of barbies. I had to they were only $2.00 for choice of box. Sadly the camera didn’t have its card in it. I decided to run back to the house and find it. When I got back the quilts were already being auctioned, I didn’t get picture of several of them but did get a few to share. I couldn’t believe how low they were selling for. I assumed it was because everyone was waiting to save up their money for this beauty of a whole cloth hand-embroidery full size top

They started the bid at $200---- no takers, 150---100—50—no one- really? I jumped in at $25- couldn’t believe it!!

I got raised and WON at $45! I am still in shock. The whole set, 2 pillows and the quilt, this is un-real. Mike asked me how much paid and I said “I am not sure, I think 45 but I might have mis-understood, it could have been 145- he said, hope it wasn’t 45-hundred! How’s that for a holiday scare.The pillow tops are in really good condition, I will probably take out the pillows and re-do the case. The quilt has some stains and is headed to take a bath- I am looking for a wall to display it on. Can’t believe how much I LOVE this quilt- I know there is no way I would have made it myself, although I am now looking through my embroidery patterns to see how many of these flowers I have.

Several other quilts and tops sold before I could get my heart back in the game. I did bid on a couple but only won one other.

I am thinking I need to hang out at more auctions, my ‘other’ find was a little less expensive but priceless to me. A Full size hand quilted grandma’s flower garden- there are a few places to patch but I have period fabric that should work. For what I paid I might not even fix it. Just hang it for display- $30.00- Oh my, the amount of work that went into these pieces- I was in the right place at the right time-

- cw