Bookmarking Time

Good morning, my friends. I'm afraid it was another snowy day here yesterday. Snow in our area is supposed to be a temporarily enchanting distraction...for a day or two...not a permanent fixture. Somehow it makes us bored and lazy, even when we have plenty to do. When I raised the blind covering Eliza's window, snow was still coming down. Oy.

Of course, the morning started with the next inchy. This one has chain stitch and French knots.

By then, it was time for me to stop procrastinating and do my workout. But in the interim, the prompt for Challenge 5 of Project Quilting Season 14 was announced: "Sew Not Square." Of course, that delayed my workout for another half hour or so. (A word to the wise: Never pass up a good excuse to delay a workout.)

The challenge was to make a quilt using no square pieces...and not a square quilt either. Well. I wasn't sure what to do here. I thought about circular or triangular quilts. Then, I opened one of my Pinterest boards marked "Handmade Gifts." There, I found lots of inspiration. When I saw this pin, I knew I was onto something. Looking below at the "More Ideas Like This" section, I found another pin for 11 Unique DIY Bookmarks. There, I found a tutorial for a "Sundress bookmark." Sadly, the link required permission to see the tutorial. No problem. I went dinking around until I found something suitable. 

Eventually, I happened upon this pin, and then I was off and running. All I needed was a template for the dress, and I could take it from there. I found one here. Aside from looking at pictures and tracing the template, I figured this out on my own. For the batting, I decided to use flannel in order to avoid it being overly thick. I fused the three layers together with the same Heat 'n Bond I use for fusible applique. 

Then, I wasn't sure about machine stitching around the edges, and so I tried it out on a test piece. It worked just fine, although it was a little tricky stitching around those curved edges. It was important to keep the edge of the fabric snug against the sewing machine needle. I left long tails so that I could bury my threads within the layers, just like with free motion quilting.

When the thread tails were buried, it looked like this.

And then I created a little fob at the other end of the ribbon, using a button as my template.

It seemed like it needed a little something, and so I stitched a belt with a closely spaced, wide zigzag stitch.

And then I sewed a button to the fob end.

It took a little more than an hour, and then, my project was finished. There's my quilted bookmark, and it is sew not square.

It was fairly late in the day by then. I'd lost my desire to do any more sewing. Looking outside, the snow was coming down fast in big fat flakes. 

Sadie was completely disgusted with the weather.

Smitty was just plain bored. (Note to self: Smooth out Smitty's rumpled quilt.)

So I'm happy to have my challenge finished for Project Quilting. There is one more challenge after this. So far, I've participated in all of them for Season 14. Today I'll get back to my quilting and sewing. The next Tiny House has been released, but I'll hold off until tomorrow for that. There's one housekeeping chore on the agenda, and I'm going to start a new pork dish in the slow cooker this morning. Let's hope for some warming weather. The snow has been fun, but I'm ready for it to be gone now.