Thread Painting

I want to introduce you to an amazing fabric artist I met in one of my treadle groups.  Marilyn Lee makes art quilts and does thread painting on a treadle.  I asked her some questions and wanted to share the answers with you.

Me:  How long have you been quilting?
Marilyn:   I have been quilting for about 8 years and I only do art quilts although I have been sewing since I was a small child...I always tell people that I was sewing before I could walk! LOL. I learned to sew on a treadle machine but had not used one since. Two years ago in June I started using one again and I love it. I do a lot of free motion embroidery and lace making with a treadle. If you like you can see some videos on my YouTube channel where I am using the treadle for lace making and embroidery. A treadle machine is so easy to be in control of and it is quiet and very peaceful to use. It is kind of like therapy to me!

smile emoticonMe: Do you always know what you are going to design before you start a quilt?
Marilyn: No I do not always know what I am going to design when I start a quilt. Yes, there are those that are planned such as some of my recent portrait quilts and then those that start with a plan and end up evolving more as I work on it. My recent landscape scrap quilts are totally unplanned...they completely develop "free form".

Me: How long does one of your quilts normally take?
Marilyn: It depends on the quilt as to how long it will take me to make. The longest was the Obama quilt which took me 900 hours. My recent "Loon Song" landscape took me two weeks to complete start to finish. Some only take a week. It is hard to put an exact amount of time that I will expect to work on a quilt. It also depends on how much thread work that I plan on doing on it.

The frame is also material.

Marilyn is a true artist.  She even decorated her ceiling with a starburst pattern using wood!

Be sure to check out Marilyn's you-tube channel.  She even makes lace on her treadles.
Say hi to Marilyn!

I borrowed all of these pictures from her facebook page with her permission.  She is a true inspiration and I appreciate her sharing all of this inspiration with us!

Have a great day!
Missy

Happy Valentine's Day!

This month's Queen Bee for the Sew Sweet Bee wanted a heart block to make a Valentine quilt.   This is the block I made for her.  It was a super easy tutorial from Cluck Cluck Sew.

 Since today is Feline Friday, I had to share a picture of Oreo being super cute on my quilt.

I also have a hint for you today.  These charm lockets are super popular right now.  I have found the knock offs are cheaper then the name brand ones.  You can even buy charms at Hobby Lobby.  The one below is me (I still need to find a sewing machine charm).  I love cats, Route 66, penguins, flamingos, cupcakes, and the Cross stands for God.  

 I call this my teacher themed one.

 To keep the charms in place, just use some of the tiny glue dots.  It works great!  Such a simple solution to keep your charms from falling!

 My husband has bought both of these necklaces for me.

Saturday night we have a Valentine's Day banquet at church.  My husband is giving the message.
Have a great weekend!
Missy

New Attachments!

I was the Queen Bee of the Sew Sweet Bee 2015 last August.  One person accidently did not send me my block, but she sent it to me this week.  It was worth the wait, I love the bumble bees on the blue fabric!

 We went to a huge yard sale at the fairgrounds in Springfield last week.  I found two new attachments for my sewing machines!
The first attachment is a Singer blind stitch attachment.

 I can't wait to test it out and see how it works.

 This one is a White zig-zag attachment.  I don't know if it will fit on any of my machines though.

You can see a zig-zag attachment working here:  http://missyscakesandaprons.blogspot.com/2015/10/zig-zag-foot.html

I can't wait to test them out, attachments are so much fun!

Missy

A little sewing done

I finished my block for the Sew Sweet Bee for this month.  She sent some Daysail fabric and I used fabric in my stash to match.  The first step took me forever, I could not get it right, then I watched the video.  The video helped a lot!  Unfortunately my sail fabric is sideways.  :(  I hope she likes it.

This week at school was spirit week, getting ready for hoopcoming.  Thursday was dress up as your favorite Disney character.  I dressed up as Mary Poppins.  I even had a spoonful of sugar made with sugar and glue.  I wore a wig since she was a brunette.  I wish I had had a hat though.

 Wednesday was dynamic duos, so I wore a shirt with Mickey and Minnie.

 Meanwhile at home, Cupcake has discovered the warmest spot is the fireplace mantel.

I hope you are having a great weekend!

Missy

Feline Friday and News

Happy Friday!  I took my Christmas decorations off the fireplace mantle and my cats decided it was a great place to hang out.  The warmth from the fireplace makes it a warm spot.  They like to run across the fireplace mantle and the top of the windows.

 This is the view from the couch.  Crazy cats!

Of course, they love having a cat bed in front of the fireplace too!

We have been married for twenty years and have decided to buy our first home!  We put an offer on the house yesterday!  I'm excited, nervous, and want to move in now!  This is the worst time for a teacher to move, but it just happened that way.  Please be in prayer that it all happens quickly and without any hitches.
I have always wanted a yellow kitchen, so the first thing I am going to do is paint my kitchen yellow!  My theme will be cherries, here is my inspiration:

I have some other material that is grey and blue with bowls of cherries that I am making curtains out of.  I need to find the time to make some potholders using the cherry block patterns.
Like the ones Podunk Pretties made.  I love her patterns!

Have a great weekend!
Missy

Singer Spa Salon

My treadle really needed a good cleaning.  She was giving me some trouble, so I took her apart and gave her a good cleaning.  I spent all morning cleaning her using my favorite products.
I use Mother's Mag and Aluminum Polish for the silver parts and the Singer badge.
The GOJO is perfect for the tough grease underneath and the Murphy's is great for the top and will not destroy the decals.  Do not use water, use sewing machine oil to wipe off the soap and shine up your machine.

You would not believe the fuzz/lint that was gunked up in the feed dogs and bobbin area.

 Q-Tips are great for cleaning out fuzz.

I never did a deep clean after I got my machine, I had not realized how filthy it was.  There was a 100 years of tar built up on my machine.  After scrubbing for hours today, I turned four hand towels black and half a roll of paper towels!

 Do you see the brown?  It is tar from people smoking around it.  Can you imagine what a smoker's lungs look like?

 My throat plate all shined up with Mom's.

 I love the decals on my big, old girl!

 The tar mostly cleaned off and the Singer badge shined up.

I also gave her a good oiling, I oiled the head all the moving parts on irons.

I did not get any quilting done, but she sure looks a lot better!  Because of ice, we have not had any school Wednesday or Thursday.

Trim Healthy Mama

In my last post I had mentioned wanting to lose some more weight.  I am at 148 and would like to be between 130 and 135, so 130 is my goal.  I weighed 120 when I got married, but I do not plan on ever being that skinny again!  LOL
Several of my friends across the country have  lost a lot of weight through the Trim Healthy Mama Plan.  This, of course, peaked my interest.  The plan is based on keeping your sugar levels under control.  It has piqued my interest, so when I saw the book about the plan on sale at Mardel's Christian book store, I bought it.  I still needed the cookbook though.  Then I got the chance to review the cookbook!

I have only tried two recipes so far.  The big boy strawberry smoothie was delicious!  I had it for breakfast one  morning.  I did get hungry about an hour before lunch but I am sure if I got used to drinking them for breakfast it would be different.  The next day I tried the creamy oatmeal.  You mix everything the night before.  In the morning I just had to heat it up.  It was delicious and filled me up!
I would definitely recommend this book!  You can find out more information from their website.  I follow them on facebook, give them a like, they share recipes on there all the time. More information about the book and it's price is here. 

 "I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

I want to add that this book is great even if you are not wanting to "diet" but just eat healthier.  It is set up so that you do not have to follow a strict diet regime, which really appeals to me!

Let me know if you have read this book!

Missy

Seam Rippers

Old meets new!  I love this picture I took of my featherweight and serger.

I had a thread stuck in the dog feeds, so I bought a cute chubby screw driver to use.  The only problem is that the screw is stuck and I cannot get the screws out!  I finally got the thread out, but I really do need to get under there and give it a good cleaning.

 I did have time to work on free motion quilting the borders, after pushing my helpers off the quilt.

 I was having all kinds of tension issues, which meant spending a lot of time fiddling with the tension.

 I felt like I finally got it fixed after a while and got quite a bit quilted.

I was on a roll, only to have about five inches of it be totally messed up.  After an hour of seam ripping I decided to put the quilt to the side until I can give my machine a good cleaning.

 Since my surgery in June, I have lost 19 pounds.  I still have 20 more pounds I want to lose.  Meanwhile, my skirts are starting to fall off!  I took three of my maxi skirts and folded down the wide waistbands and put elastic in them.

 Just make sure your elastic is not twisted before sewing the elastic.  I sewed two of them wrong!

I also needed new curtains for my bedroom.  I found this long panel on clearance for $7 and it was the perfect shade of blue to match my quilt.  I just cut it in half and hemmed it to make two curtains!

School starts back Tuesday and I have teacher meetings all day Monday.  I was able to cut a lot of squares for my single wedding ring blocks.  I hope to have time to finish a few blocks.

Happy New Year!

Missy