Tea Towels

When my son started his kitchen linen business, I bought some blanks to embroider and sell as well.  

Blooming Beauty by Embroidery Library

It offers me the opportunity to embroider some of the beautiful designs I amassed over the years.

I added a little butterfly and dragonfly button to two of these towels.

Jacobean pumpkins from Embroidery Library

When I embroidered this tea cloth, the design looked rather small, so I enlarged it a bit and embroidered it on either side.  Another design by Embroidery Library which can be purchased here.

I just love this cheeky hen with attitude from Embroidery Library.

Betty chicken is available here.

I thought about finishing all the kitchen towels and then post all the photos, but I just don't seem to get all done.  It's been over a month since I started writing this post and I manage to finish only 3 additional towels.  Eish.  So much to do, so little time.

Four patch posy

Last year when our quilting group discussed projects for 2024, the Four Patch Posy was one of the possibilities mentioned. So off to the shops to find 4 repeats of a floral fabric with large motifs and a dark background.  One would have thought it is a rather simple task, but I rather struggled to find a piece that met all the requirements.  I finally settled on red hibiscus flowers printed on a black background.

Under the guidance of one of our members, Elsa, we all got cutting our fabrics.  With Elsa's help I was able to use the whole one meter piece I bought with minimum waste. As the flowers are so big and prominent, I cut 6" blocks whereas the other ladies cut 4" blocks.  The pattern is a simplified kaleidoscope with four identical blocks making up one posy.

I wasn't really happy with my choice of fabric when I initially started laying out the blocks as it didn't have the prominent kaleidoscope effect, but I do think the 9 blocks turned out quite beautiful in the end.

Orders

After renewing the adverts on Facebook Marketplace, I received a few orders.  First was a 3d chicken stuffie ordered in the same colors as the sample.

Design from Embroidery Library

I also received orders for baby statistic bears.  The first was ordered in grey with black and white.  As the baby's room decor is done with panda's, I put a bow with pandas around his neck.

Available at Ofnah

Then I received an order for another two, but the lady didn't like the Ofnah bear, so she picked Tiny Ted.

These ones are a lot shorter, but I managed to fit all the wording.

Tiny Ted from Bee Stitchin

Stitchdelight

A few weeks ago, Daleen Lubbe, of Stitchdelight expressed her intend to clear out space for new projects in her cupboards by offering all items and projects previously embroidered, stitched and/or quilted for sale.  In order to be able to sell embroidery designs, they have to be embroidered and being in the business for about 25 years, the samples quickly stacked up.  Upping the sales of her designs by making complete bags, quilts, cushions, placemats etc. to give prospective buyers an idea what the designs can be used for, took up a lot of space.  Daleen offered it at ridiculously low prices with the idea to just recover the input cost of the fabrics, lace, batting etc. she used.

So, shopping I went.  Being an avid buyer of Daleen's designs, I mainly focused on items for which I don't have the designs, large designs and complex items.  Below is my stash (thus far)...

Dream Big for small hoops

I bought all the different embroidery sizes for these panels and did embroider a medium size one thus far on an Amafu print in 2020.  This post refers.  However, to embroider one panel like this, take 50 hoopings, so buying a completed one is a huge bargain.

Plain fabric leafy panel

Another huge bargain, 38 different key fobs.

Majestic Lion

A beautiful masterpiece of 85cm to which I will add blocks to convert it into a quilt.  I collected twelve patchwork quilt blocks as and when they were on sale and think they will make a gorgeous addition to this already masterful piece.  So, watch this space.

A beautiful 40cm quilted circle.

Quilted Mandala

Elegant horses

I received all the fonts below for free which I will convert into some useful items.

Matching Jurassic Font

Scratch Font

Swirly Swan Font

Elegant Renaissance Font

Hunter Font

Boho-baby-font

Little Blossom Font

Perfection Font

Little Ellie

Little cloud nine font

Montery Font

Little Stance Font

This cross stitch Christmas bauble sneaked its way into the package.

That's all for now.  As promised another sale will be held this week for the articles left over as well as fabric she also wants to clear out.  I just hope I will get a few pieces, as its fastest fingers first on that Whatsapp group.  Do ccome back regularly to see what was done with these pieces.

Placemats

I finished the placemats and is really happy with them although they took so long to embroider and was really heavy on thread usage.  I had to visit our local Jacksons to buy an additional piece of the Shwe-Shwe print I bought last year at Wookeys (this post refers) as I needed some just to finish the last one's binding.

Sew Happy BOM

I finished this quilt and is super happy how it turned out.  I was hesitant about the navy border as I couldn't get the exact same shade of navy as was used elsewhere in the quilt, but oh boy, don't it just look lovely, bright and breezy?

 The quilting was done using various techniques.  The four blocks were done with feather embroidery designs from Embroidery Library as well as some stitch in the ditch.  Walking foot stitching was done on the sasching strips with freehand feathers on the wide navy borders.

The four outside corner stones were embroidered in the similar fashion with matching feather designs.

A closeup of the feather done around the outside as well as the braid I attached to the small red border.

I then stitched some red and green buttons on the small yellow cornerstones and another one in the center and I just love the appearance of it.

With the label at the back, this quilt is done.