Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Terms of Endearment Tea Towel tutorial


~One of my favorite things about our family and close friends is the sweet names we come to call each other. I have so many names for my burger, I add to them almost weekly. Watching burger come up with a learn the family's names for each other has been a sweet experience. The ladies in his family have some lovely terms of endearment that all have their own history. One of my favorites is Donda, burger's great grandmother. She is Kg's mother's, mother. I am still unsure of the actual meaning but I now Kg's older brother and the first grandson coined it. Donda's husband's name was Don( which I assumed when I first met her was the origin) but I am not so sure it is really from that or just a sweet first child's utterance of love. My burger, the first great grandson coined his own grandmother's call of love as MaMe. We all tried a few things before that but he came up with Mame and I think it is perfect. I decided for Spring and Mother's day this year to make a set of tea towels that had each recipients term of endearment from our evolving family. Adding the wild flower theme made this the perfect way to send these ladies some flowers for mother's day!

Materials
fabric cut as follows:
One piece of fabric 19"x26"
one strip fabric 19"x4-6"
one small piece of fabric 3"x6"

scraps of various sizes to make your applique' from
thread and embroidery floss
needle

embroidery hoop
interface

heat and bond lite
sewing machine(optional)
iron
scissors

instructions

1.Cut and press all your fabric to the sizes specified above. I chose to use woven cotton for my towel fabric(19"x26"). I think linen would be especially nice and pays special homage to the Victorian England Tea towel tradition. For the 19"x4-6" strip choose something that will lend itself to embroidery and accent the overall towel design well; I like to use lighter values for this fabric strip to make transferring the embroidery design easier . At this point if you are digging through your scraps you might as well make a pile of stuff that might work with your applique design.


2. embroider name on the 19"x 4-6" strip of fabric.
I have really terrible handwriting I mead gawd awful . It is embarrassing .really.but I have overcome this by choosing from the multitudes of handwritten looking available fonts. This site has some nice stuff. I think the ones I used for the towels is school cursive. Print and cut out your name, making sure the font size is right for your design.With your fabric in your hoop tape your paper printed name to the back side of your fabric. Holding the hoop up to a window or over lamp shade trace the name onto the front side of your fabric. I like to use those little plastic pencils(pictured) because the new points are nice and sharp and make a thin precise, dark enough line. Now simply embroider your names, make sure you use a complimentary thread that you will be able to see on your towel, you cam use floss but if you do not have the color you like you can use several strands of regular thread; (floss will be smoother but since it is such a minimal amount of embroidery you can get away with regular thread). I am a real novice when it comes to embroidery I usually just use a running stitch when I am stitching a name, however you may want to do something a little fancier. After you have finished your stitches add a piece of feather weight interface to the back.


3. Attach strip to the piece of fabric 19"x26. I put all of mine across the bottom to use as a visual anchor for my floral appliques'. Apply your heat and bond to the back of your strip and trim the edges neatly if needed. Iron and stitch your strip to the towel. You can use your machine here or use a decorative embroidery stitch. I used my machine mainly because I was making five at once, but in my original fantasy idea of this project I envisioned myself doing all the sewing by hand in the true tradition of a tea towel. But back in the real world I had like a week to get them done( mothers day gift) and I always add way too much in the way of applique design that would make hand sewing more difficult. I do think this is a perfect project to make as all hand sewn.

4. design, cut, and attach your applique. I use flowers as my theme for this set of towels.
I was sleeping, eating, and breathing Texas wild flowers this past spring I had so many ideas and inspirations from so many different flowers. All these wild flowers were the major inspiration for the concept of this project.This project was a perfect way for me to play out a lot of my design ideas. Since all the material I used for this project came out of my scrap containers, I felt very free to do whatever I wanted to try. If you are looking for a theme for your towel you are making as a gift for someone I suggest to try a think of something that reminds you of that person, like My sister loves humming birds so maybe I would do some humming birds on hers. Or if you wanted to make a set you could think of a theme for your set, such as a Holiday or a group of animals like birds. I think this would make a wonderful Christmas gift project... and there is so much imagery to mine for Christmas themes.



5. Finish the edges of your towel. to create a finished hem along your towels edge, press 1/4" fold on the edge . Then press and fold over another approx 1/2 " and pin into place. Machine or hand stitch the hem of your towel.


6. make and attach your hanging loop. Press the 3"x6" piece of fabric. Turn, press and stitch the top and bottom 3" edges, 1/4 ".
Press and stitch right sides together in half vertically making a 1 1/2 " x 5 1/2 " tube. Turn and press your tube. top stitch your tube. Make a loop with your tube and hand sew the bottom corners together. Stitch your loop to the backside of the top left corner of your towel. Attach the button to the front side of the same corner to hide the stitching.


7. Wrap it up! Wrapping this gift is fun there are lots of options.I thought it made a sweet gift with a tea cup and couple of yummy tea bags. It would also be sweet included with christmas cookies, or homemade preserves.What ever you choose make it with love and you will have fun!!!

Monday, July 12, 2010

summer fun..... summer mud!!


~Well If you are one of my Digi buddies you might have or not have noticed I have been MIA the two last weeks. I am having a little bit of sickness but we are working through it and part of what is helping keep us sane is of course air conditioning, DVDs, cupcakes/ muffins, and last but certainly not least muddin'!
We made cupcakes from the joy of cooking using the quick cake recipe on pg681. We iced with the quick white icing colored blue by request. I put all the icing in a zip lock and snipped the tip and let burger" slime " the cakes. His diabolical giggling is not captured in this photo.
I also made a batch of these banana muffins(usually nut- less) , they are a household fave; and we have been slicing them in half and putting a spoonful of peanut butter inside then nuking them for 15 seconds (yum).


We have been watching loads of Shaun the sheep including the HI~ larious new one" one Giant leap for Lamb kind". The Mr. and me have been alternating between the new season of True blood and the early seasons of Homicide; life on the streets.I cannot get enough of these 1990's Baltimore detectives....

I have been going a little crazy not sewing although I did make a new patchwork duvet cover for a hand -me down twin size feather comfort( I made it before the bed rest was being inforced) It has been keeping me ( and my pea pie)couch happy~
I also worked a little on this new embroidery to use( maybe) in a banner for the blog and/or new business cards

~And then there is mud , I cannot hit the pool right now so we have been playing in our mud pit. Burger has become an expert at mud and loves explaining the process of making mud to me ...repeatedly, He also loves making me "chocolate milk"