Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Here We Go Again!

It’s Tuesday and I meant to post this last night as one of my tips and tricks posts but I didn’t get it done (actually this was written one week ago). The tip is at the end of this post. Okay now for a little update on my UFO’s, Www.allpeoplequilt.com UFO Challenge for 2016.
March UFO Crazy Quilt

March’s number didn’t even get touched. Why? Because I was busy, busy, busy making things to go in the quilt show that my local guild holds every year. I thought I would do a little bit on that project but it didn’t happen. April came along and the number pulled was a good one – number 1 the small aloha quilt. 
April UFO Small Island Quilt

I can handle that. Not. I’m still working on it and here it is well into May. 
May UFO Birds In Flight Crazy Block

May’s number is 7 the Birds In Flight Crazy Block. Now really I should be able to get both of those done this month.
For my tip I was working on this small mini quilt to go in the silent auction held during the previous mentioned quilt show. 
View From My Window Auction Quilt

The small flowers were re-embroidered by me by hand but the fabric was not a quilt quality fabric and I was not happy with the results once I had pieced the blocks together. They were not the right size, and they were not consistent in size. So I did something I rarely do, I took it all apart and started again. Since the flower fabric was a fairly loose weave I decided to stabilize it by adding a muslin backing. I thought the best way to do that would be to use a spray on quilt basting glue. I really didn’t want to do that in the house but I didn’t want to set up a large table outside either. Then I spied this:
TV Tray

Now I know some have covered these and made them into a small portable ironing surface and/or cutting mat. My thought was to cover it with freezer paper (shiny side out) and use that as my glueing table. Worked perfectly and now I have something I can use outdoors when I’m using a spray or a glue that needs a lot of ventilation. I can also use it when I have just a little painting to do. When the freezer paper gets too bad just replace it with a fresh sheet.
Freezer Paper Covered TV Tray

How simple is that!
Oh and the quilt show? My rag dolls “The Slow Stitchers” took second place in their category Textile/Fabric Items.
The Slow Stitchers Rag Dolls


Happy creating!


Rose 

2 comments:

margaret said...

good to see back in blogland, loving your dolls. You have been busy and what a good idea with the tv table, unpicking seems to take for ever what patience you had to do that

Karen said...

Love the colours in you ''May'' piece Rose. Thanks so much for visiting, it's always lovely to hear from you and I think of you often x