A Craft Project... Remember This

Well, since hubby had to work tonight and I am off I actually had a chance to work on my project for my parent's 40th anniversary coming up on February 14th.  See post. 

I had done some embroidering of the names on a different night but had to wait until I had a chance to wash the backing material so I could actually start sewing it together.   Super Ninja Mommy has been posting her craft projects lately along with pictures so I thought maybe you might be interested in seeing mine. 

              

These are the circles that I am embroidering the family names on. I will have to cut them out and applique them on to the final project. Normally you're supposed to do it before you start sewing but I plan on doing some extra embroidering of the tree.

First I had to cut four even strips (and cut straight I might add) and then sew them on to the panel which in essence are going to "frame" the tree. I picked this lovely brown material with darker swirls on it. I think it stands out quite nice.

Pressing seams. I just love pressing seams. Don't you?

One mitered corner.  In order to make the seams nice and neat, I could either postage stamp the corners with separate material or fold one corner at a 45 degree angle. The catch, I had to hand sew the those corners. Can I just say, I hate hand sewing. It's a real pain trying to sew not only neatly but also so it's hard to see the stitches.  One down, 3 to go. 

Then I laid my panel onto fleece backing and cut it out to size.  I then quilted all around the inside of the square with a zig zag stitch.  It's my mom's trick. It's a lot harder to detect a crooked seam when you zig zag than when you sew straight.  I used a tight zig zag setting on my machine and so it actually looks really nice, almost like serging.  You can't really see that on the back.  

This is as far as I 've gotten tonight and crazy as it is, I was anxious to share my success.  I'm normally what you call a lazy sewer.  I hate fiddling, I hate prep and I hate long projects.  I tend to cut corners so for me to actually have made it this far without any major screw up is a high five, dance around the table kind of victory. 

The plan is now to hand quilt the tree and some flowers around the bases of the tree.  

Whew..my shoulders are aching and my back is tired.  I'm off to have my tea and head for bed. 

Cheers, 

Zeemaid

P.S.  I couldn't figure out how to get the pictures and the typing to line up.. would you believe I actually strayed into the Edit Html and actually figured out how to stop the photos from lumping up.  wtgZeemaid. *L*