busy hands

I have finished the embroidery I was working on over the past week and thought I'd share this pic with you...

I used some heavy weight linen for the background, little scraps of felted wool, an assortment of threads and a few dozen beads.  No preplanned concept in mind before I started, I just went with my impulses.  For a change, I was not led astray!  I worked on this over the 4th holiday weekend, since our plans fell through and we watched our fireworks on TV this time!

I also put a few charms together for a swap using old stamps and tiny little frames that I found in the bead dept. at Jo-Anns - these were so easy and quick, I wanted to make more!

I've also been stitching up some blocks for a sampler quilt that I'm teaching - these blocks were 6" square T blocks - they came out pretty well, and I remembered that several of my students have asked me to post some hints and pics on precision piecing, so here are a couple of tricks that I use:

pin low - notice the block on the left is bumpy from pinning straight down and back up.

the pieces on the right lay flat because I pin 'low' - meaning I pin from a slant instead of straight down.  I pin abut 1/2" away and parallel to my seam lines.

and before I sew, I hold the pinned pieces up to the lamp and check the seam alignment one last time...

and in the event that a seam allowance gets pushed in the wrong way in the seam - it isn't usually necessary to remove all the stitching - just take out the stitches that are holding the seam allowance,

and resew from the other direction....

and on smaller piecework, it often helps to press seams open, as I've done here.
Hope this helps answer a few of your questions.

Must be going - I have a long to do list this month.  Watch for more pictures coming soon.