Monday, December 29, 2014

Tea With Friends


At our annual quilt guild Christmas party, my friend Rosemary gave me a cute quilt kit for "Tea Leaf Ornaments"

The finished ornaments, as pictured on the pattern, reminded me of Cathedral Windows, although I have no idea if they are similarly constructed.  Anyway, it was a new-to-me technique, so I decided to have a little fun and give it a try.

You start by folding the red and green squares on the diagonal,  with wrong sides together:

Next, you place a pair of the folded squares on top of a plain square,

and sew baste the triangles to keep them attached:

Then you use the squares as you would use any other fabric squares and make pinwheel blocks:

When you open out the folded edges,  it reveals the plain fabric underneath:

Then came the tricky part.  You need to sew the folded edges down so they will stay open.  I tried pinning first:


I could see there was trouble ahead, trying to maneuver around those pinheads.  Then I remembered that I had a fabric glue stick:


Surprisingly, it worked like a charm, and held the folded edges nicely while I sewed them down.  In retrospect, I should have used invisible thread for that part of the sewing, but I didn't have any on hand and I wanted to keep going.

The pattern was for making tree ornaments, but I decided I wanted a mug rug instead.  By adding a couple of fourpatch units, I would end up with a nice size.

A little light quilting, and then all it needed was a binding.  While I was in the mood to try new things, I decided to try a technique I had read about where the backing gets folded around to the front to make the binding.  It starts out looking like this:

and ends up looking like this:

That particular binding technique is probably better suited to a larger project, but in a pinch, it was fine.  All that was left to do was make up a nice cup of tea and enjoy my new mug rug!

The tea I chose was also a gift from the party.  My friend Linda gave me a tin of Downton Abbey English Rose tea.  The rasberries in the tea give it a lovely red color, just right for the season.

Speaking of seasons, season 5 of Downton Abbey is just around the corner.  Looks like I'm prepared, how about you?





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4 comments:

  1. Hello Em, I enjoyed seeing how you made the squares, I think that's something I'd like to try. I particularly liked the little heart, I'd love it if you could show how that was made?
    Every year I make my Mum a tree decoration, so I'd like to try and make the heart, she would love it.

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  2. I love the cathedral window patchwork. A lot of work but looks great.

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  3. Hello Em, one more question, that may be helpful to anyone else who wants to make these ornaments. Can you tell me how big are the little squares to start off with? I realise I can make them any size I like, but it would help to have a starting point. MAny thanks KAth

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  4. I love that you made the mug rug using the kit! It's much more useful. Looks like a great Christmas accessory! Hope you keep using it for awhile!

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