I finished up a project today that should have taken maybe three hours, tops, but ended up taking seven hours.
A good friend of mine is having her son baptized on Sunday, and I had been wracking my brain trying to figure out what kind of gift to give for the occasion. Then it occurred to me: A baptism blanket! Something in which to cradle the little one during the ceremony. I had no idea there was actually a market for these things; a Google search helped me with the general dimensions and some decorating ideas.
The blanket would be a nice neutral creamy ivory, with a blue banding and blue ruffle. I wanted to embroider the baby's name, birthdate, baptism date and a nice quote on the banding. Off to JoAnn's to find fabric!
What was I thinking?
The only thing I could find in the colors and texture I wanted was an acetate fabric. "Dry clean only". Yeah, right. I figured I could make it work. I brought it home and tossed it in the washer and dryer.
Did you know acetate wrinkles? And refuses to let go of those wrinkles? When I took the fabric out of the dryer and tried to press out the wrinkles, I nearly cried because those wrinkles just weren't going anywhere. But then I remembered: I had a bottle of Crease-Away on the shelf, left over from my drapery days. Would it do the trick? Yes it did!! After a spritz of Crease-Away, the fabric smoothed out beautifully with a barely warm iron.
The construction of the blanket was a battle with the fabric and my machines; I couldn't get a decent gather with the ruffler attachment on my Bernina, so I ended up gathering the ruffle with my serger. Luckily that worked out pretty well.
Once the blanket was done, I brought it over to my friend's house and her baby promptly crawled over to it with a big grin and drooled on it, which was his way of saying he liked it. I'll be attending the baptism tomorrow; my only concern is that the acetate is so slippery the kid will squirm out of his parents' arms and into the font.
The finished blanket:
The colors really don't show true in this picture; the central piece is a very pale ivory.
The lettering was done with Embird, using one of their font plug-ins.
The top banding piece has the baby's name; the two sides have his birth date and baptism date. Along the bottom is a passage from Psalm 43:3.
In the center of the blanket is a shell with three drops design. I looked for a long time for a nice shell design and finally ended up using a shell from Embroidery Library, deleting a portion of the design, rotating the shell, and adding three drops I digitized with Embird Studio.
The quilt was tacked with a single repeated motif, done with my Designer 1.
Now that this project is done, I need to get back to finishing up the new purse for Diana. Hopefully that will be finished tomorrow.
Not Sewing, but Still Creative
We've been kind of busy around here the last few weeks: my husband Bob and I decided to tackle a small home-improvement project this month. We built a deck in our back yard! We are all but finished now; all that remains to be done are the handrail on the stairs and some lattice to cover the open areas on the sides of the deck (to keep critters out from under it).
A good friend of mine is having her son baptized on Sunday, and I had been wracking my brain trying to figure out what kind of gift to give for the occasion. Then it occurred to me: A baptism blanket! Something in which to cradle the little one during the ceremony. I had no idea there was actually a market for these things; a Google search helped me with the general dimensions and some decorating ideas.
The blanket would be a nice neutral creamy ivory, with a blue banding and blue ruffle. I wanted to embroider the baby's name, birthdate, baptism date and a nice quote on the banding. Off to JoAnn's to find fabric!
What was I thinking?
The only thing I could find in the colors and texture I wanted was an acetate fabric. "Dry clean only". Yeah, right. I figured I could make it work. I brought it home and tossed it in the washer and dryer.
Did you know acetate wrinkles? And refuses to let go of those wrinkles? When I took the fabric out of the dryer and tried to press out the wrinkles, I nearly cried because those wrinkles just weren't going anywhere. But then I remembered: I had a bottle of Crease-Away on the shelf, left over from my drapery days. Would it do the trick? Yes it did!! After a spritz of Crease-Away, the fabric smoothed out beautifully with a barely warm iron.
The construction of the blanket was a battle with the fabric and my machines; I couldn't get a decent gather with the ruffler attachment on my Bernina, so I ended up gathering the ruffle with my serger. Luckily that worked out pretty well.
Once the blanket was done, I brought it over to my friend's house and her baby promptly crawled over to it with a big grin and drooled on it, which was his way of saying he liked it. I'll be attending the baptism tomorrow; my only concern is that the acetate is so slippery the kid will squirm out of his parents' arms and into the font.
The finished blanket:
The lettering was done with Embird, using one of their font plug-ins.
In the center of the blanket is a shell with three drops design. I looked for a long time for a nice shell design and finally ended up using a shell from Embroidery Library, deleting a portion of the design, rotating the shell, and adding three drops I digitized with Embird Studio.
The quilt was tacked with a single repeated motif, done with my Designer 1.
Now that this project is done, I need to get back to finishing up the new purse for Diana. Hopefully that will be finished tomorrow.
Not Sewing, but Still Creative
We've been kind of busy around here the last few weeks: my husband Bob and I decided to tackle a small home-improvement project this month. We built a deck in our back yard! We are all but finished now; all that remains to be done are the handrail on the stairs and some lattice to cover the open areas on the sides of the deck (to keep critters out from under it).
Fabulous job on the blanket--it looks fantastic! And wow, the deck is amazing! That will be a perfect place to relax this summer!
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