Tuesday Threads with Karen Day

Hello Ai sewing fans!

It's the September edition of Tuesday Threads with Karen.

When I first learned that Art Impressions had come out with the Shop Hop fabric line available through Henry Glass Co., I immediately thought of the Ai Girlfriends stamp set called Quilt Set (Sku #4544) and wanted to make something to coordinate with the quilt in the image.  I decided to make a quilted style project that I've put into an embroidery hoop that can be hung on the wall of my craft room.  I made a matching mug rug as well:

I'm using an 8" diameter hoop, so I decided that I would do a pattern of squares that are all 3 1/4" after being sewn together.  I cut all of my pieces, including squares of Therm-O-Web's medium weight fusible Tricot interfacing that I fused on the back of each square of fabric.  I traced a heart shape onto the pink print, and adhered it to the cream square using Therm-O-Web's Heat n Bond Lite iron-on adhesive.

Using some embroidery floss, I did a blanket stitch around the raw edge of the heart to finish it off:

After a good pressing, I placed my finished square into the embroidery hoop.  On the backside, I hand sewed a running stitch around the excess fabric that was not in the hoop, and cinched it up so that the fabric is hidden underneath.  Now it's ready to hang on a nail on the wall!

While I was cutting my fabrics, I decided that a mugrug was in order, so I cut out a front and back square ( 3 3/4") along with a square of Therm-O-Web's Hi-loft Fusible Fleece to sandwich in between:

I cut another pink fabric heart, adhered it in the same way, and stitched around the edges again with embroidery floss.  I also used my sewing machine to stitch through all the layers, about 1/4" around the heart.  I sewed on the bias tape, carefully mitering the corners (I'm getting better at this!) and handsewed it down on the backside:

And finally, I coloured up the gals in the quilt.  I used all the vibrant shades that are in the spool fabric to colour the image with Copic markers, and kept the rest of the card bright & fun.

Happy sewing, everyone!