May is our annual Tea and Stitches Tea Party. This year we will be up cycling a Teacup and Saucer or Teaspoon into a Pincushion! I just love useful sewing notions. I can’t wait to see what our Tea Party guests design.
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Do you appliqué or is it the “A” word as I have heard some quilters call it? Well, for me appliqué is the Bees knees! Specifically I love die cut appliqué using primarily the Sizzix steel rule dies and felted wool. Never a scrapbooker, I have always used the Sizzix dies in my quilting and fabric crafts. I encourage you to cut something out and create!
Have you jumped onto the Mug Rug train? They are a fun, fast stitch and make perfect gifts. And…oh by the way they are a great canvas for words of inspiration and look darling as a votive candle mat. Cut some wool out today and create!
My gals went crazy! I was afraid I would get grumbling as this is a departure from our usual felted wool appliqué. They surprised me by loving the tiniest hexie the best. Check out those fussy cut centers. These are just the ones I managed to photo.
If you have inherited or purchased some vintage or antique hexagons you are well aware of the pitfalls of this time honored technique. Every 1/32″ error in cutting or stitching compounds. You can see from the box how wonky they already were at this early stage in construction. There is just not much to be done to get these lovelies to lay flat.
My stitching group explored using diecut hexagons and the English Paper Piecing method. I precut hexagons from Freezer Paper in several sizes and we stitched away. All of the Sizzix Hexagon dies are awesome! We played with two construction methods, fusible appliqué and English Paper Piecing using Freezer Paper. The tiniest hexie is Tim Holtz Honeycomb 659430 with 3/8″ sides. Fantastic precision with all these dies thank you Sizzix! 
Top row: Used Freezer Paper hexagons. Reusable 4-6 times. Hexagons pressed to the wrong side of fabric. (Rough cut around leaving about 3/8″ for turn under.) Tim Holtz Honeycomb die 3/8″ sides of tiny cuteness.
Row two: First two from vintage box. Pincushion out of Kaffe fabric from a friend.
Bottom row: Vintage box hexies with Freezer Paper templates – nice and flat but those are some *narrow seam allowances. More hexies oh so nice and flat recently stitched. *If I decide to turn the vintage box of hexies into a Grandmother’s Flower Garden Quilt I’ll be ordering a Custom Sizzix Die with a slightly smaller sized side for the hexagon Freezer Paper templates.
Sew…another technique checked off of the bucket list. Like I told my stitching friends you need to try it and then decide to take it or leave it. I am stunned at how many actually enjoyed making the fun hexagon flowers and have a project in mind. Who knew?
What could be better than Tea and stitching fellowship? Not much in my little world! Sizzix.com has a couple of great Teacup Dies and I created a fun make ‘n take Teacup Needle Book with Bigz Die 658093, Flower embellishments 657722. You might think that a die cut project is pretty cookie cutter, but you would be wrong. My stitching friends blow me away everytime with their creativity. Here is a sampling of their progress today at our open house Tea in the Pretty Penny Precuts Studio. Die cut something soon and create! May your needle always be sharp and threaded.
Love a useful stitching notion. These Petifore Emory Pincushions fall into that category. The base/lid is from a Slimfast drink bottle. The wools are from recycled 100% wool garments some hand dyed. Even the Perle Cotton threads used to stitch mine were acquired at a local thrift shop. Of course I used my most favorite tools the sizzix.com Sizzix Bigshot Die Cutting Machine and Originals and Bigz Circle dies. The photos are the results of a Make n Take stitching session in my studio. Don’t they look good enough to eat? May your needle always be sharp and threaded!
prettypennyprecuts 