Old projects

We all have old projects or more affectionately referred to as UFO's. I was looking for something portable the other day (so I could keep cool in my air conditioned part of the house!), and ran across a wool banner project from the store.  It was a "block" of the month that started in Jan. and I think I joined a couple of months into the project.  I had only sewn one of them and decided if I didn't get them done, they would probably get stuck on a shelf somewhere.

Love the ease of wool appliqué.  No turning the edges under.  Instead of pinning the pieces down, I prefer using Steam a Seam.  There are several different varieties, and we carried one at the store that had an extra layer of paper to trace onto.  Apparently that particular product is no longer available.  We are now carrying the new S.A.M. lite; it is bumpy on one side (that's the fusible side), and waxy on the other.  The directions said to trace onto the bumpy side.  After trying that for a minute, I thought it was ridiculous trying to trace over bumps.  The flip side is slick, and not great to trace on, but using a permanent pen or the right pencil, it worked just fine.  The product itself adheres really well.  I have tried Heat N Bond in the past and I don't like it ... Have had problems with it lifting at the edges or not adhering all the way.

So as I usually seem to do things, I pulled all the kits out that I hadn't done yet ... Six!  I traced the pieces onto the SAM and then cut them out of the wool and adhered them down.  

We sell a stand that the banners hang from, and obviously they are rotated by season.  

There is embroidery to be done as well as stitching the pieces down.

The sail boat has a lot of embroidery to make it more colorful.

The bunny is my favorite!!!  All the bottoms of them are supposed to be scalloped and many have "pennies," or something on the bottom.  I don't think mine are going to be banners ... Pillows? Maybe a background that's in a frame and then rotate the centers each month?  Not sure yet, but I have several months to make up my mind... I figure it will take me at least that long to stitch them down!

Doesn't she look like she's saying "hey Grammama ... Come play with me!"