Crystal Bright!

This morning I was able to finish everything on the "Oh Christmas Tree" quilt I've been making. It's ready for hanging now. I've decided to call this quilt "Merry and Bright".

This started out as a Let's Book It project. I don't know about you, but the Let's Book It challenge has caused me to make a lot of projects that otherwise would remain untouched on my bookshelf. This one came from this book:

And that's a perfect title for the book because this quilt is made entirely with scraps from my stash, including the back. It ended up at 32 x 44 inches.

When I finished up yesterday, I had the binding sewn on by machine.

Before I sewed the binding on, however, I put a little pocket in each corner,

and a small sleeve in the center.

With those, I can insert a dowel rod for hanging. This isn't appropriate for a show since most shows require a four-inch sleeve. I'm not planning on entering this quilt in any shows, and so this is an easy way to accomplish the same thing. I've done this on several of my quilts. I've even attached a four-inch sleeve over the top of one when I decided to enter a quilt in a show at the last minute.

So this morning, I had time to hand sew the binding. I used a green metallic print.

And there it is...still "unlit" at this point.

I've used hot fix crystals before, but I've always used my craft iron to apply them. It's the only use I've ever found for my craft iron...oh, that's a lie. I've also used it when doing stained glass applique. The problem with using a craft iron for crystals, however, is that one runs the risk of scorching one's fabric, as I did with this Winter Wonderland quilt.

After all the embroidery, and all the piecing, and finishing the whole quilt, I was applying crystals to some of the snowflakes while using my craft iron. On one, I held the iron just a little too long and scorched the white fabric to a sickening shade of brown.

Geez, I wanted to slit my throat in that moment. You can't see it here because I was able to use Oxy-Magic to get that out, but I was lucky. After that, I was less enthusiastic about using crystals on my quilts.

One year at a quilt show, I saw them using one of those applicator wands for crystals, and they made it look so easy. It was on sale at the show, and so I purchased one. This is the one I have.

Then I took it home and tried using it, and I couldn't make it work at all...certainly not like they did at the show. Nevertheless, with so many crystals to attach in this case, and fearing the scorch, I decided to give it another try. So, I consulted my friend YouTube (I have a lot of internet friends), and found this video...which is annoying at the beginning, but eventually they get to the stuff you really want to see.

If you can't see the video, click right here.

So...okay. I gave it another try and it worked like a champ. I had those crystals applied in no time at all, and they seem very secure. Smitty helped me in the best way possible, by sleeping through the entire procedure. It seems to me that a cat could have had a field day with those little crystals.

What can I say, except that if you snooze, you lose.

And here's my finished quilt! I'm very happy with how this turned out, despite my tension problems on the quilt back. It's a wall-hanging, right? The wall won't care.

It really sparkles in the light, but it didn't photograph very well.

I had a few extra crystals, and so I put one in the center of the star.

You can see a little sparkle in that image above. I was wishing I could take a better picture of it, so I broke out my big DSLR camera and put a star burst filter on it. It shows a little better, but to really get the effect, it needs to be seen in person.

Some come on over, wouldja? I'll even give you some fudge!

Today I'm hanging out at home. I was going to get my hair cut, but there's a big scary, hairy wind storm headed our way. I got caught out in a wind storm once. It wasn't that the storm itself was so bad, but trees fell down between me and where I lived, and I had a heck of a time getting home. No matter which way I went, I encountered crews of citizen volunteers with chainsaws cutting up some big Douglas fir down across the road. Wanting to avoid a repeat event, I decided to reschedule my hair cut for next week. When it comes to weather, I'm a quick study.

So one last housekeeping item before I go. I have gobs of these bobbins from my Bernina 440QE that I can no longer use. Will these fit your machine? A lot of what I have still has thread on it that I'm using little by little. Right now I have about a half dozen of these cluttering a space in my drawer. If you can use them, I'll send them to you. The first person to respond can have them. Just let me know.

Making its way to the top of my sewing list today is the Hello Moon quilt. I'm going to sew this puppy into a flimsy if it's the last thing I do.

And with a "damaging" wind storm headed this way, who's to say what might happen?