Hair Cutting Lessons - Home Ec 102!

Ruffled Skirts and Ribbon flowers

Here's a cute project for Spring!
If you are following my blog and recognize these dresses, please don't mention it to the family who wore them as I wanted it to be an anonymous gift. I know hardly anyone is checking this blog. :o) Making skirts from cotton krinkle cloth makes a nice skirt with so little effort! I used a ruffler foot to gather these layers of a tiered skirt and a rolled hem foot to do the hem for each layer. It took quite a bit of practice to learn how to use the sewing feet which can be purchased at any sewing store. The ruffler foot costs 30.00--ouch! But we make a lot of square dance clothes, so it was worth it. (You could use a coupon at Hancocks to get 40% off.) Also, great for curtains and anything else you want a ruffle on.

This was so easy! I bought the beautiful scalloped cloth on clearance last summer. No hemming required! I roll hemmed the upper edge and than gathered the ruffle and then sewed it onto the bottom of an inexpensive baby t-shirt.
I had made yo-yo flowers before but found another neat way to do these flowers quickly. Just make a quick basting stich along the upper edge of a 12" strip of grosgrain ribbon, pull the loose ends to gather and then tie in a knot to make the circle. Then stitch it down really good, especially if it's for small children. I pinned the rickrack in place then topstitched it to hold it. The leaves were difficult. I had to fraycheck the whole leaf to keep it from coming apart. Grossgrain ribbon is not good for this! I pinked the edges and then zigzagged the leaves on to applique them to the shirt. I also decorated a cheap canvas tote bag with these flowers--so cute!! and quick! The blouses were on sale at Walmart and cost very little and coordinated very nicely with the krinkle cloth skirts.

Covering a Couch Cushion

This was a fun project! I recovered a bay window cushion for a friend. Here is one end view. I'll post a picture of the cushion wrong side out later so you can see how I did it.
1.The first step is to seam rip the whole original cover apart.
2. I used the pieces as a pattern to lay out on the new cloth.
3. I saved the zipper and piping to reuse. The hard part is figuring out how wide to cut the side strip to reapply the piping. I measured out a strip that was the width plus 2" each for the upper and lower piping. You can take up any excess by folding it behind the piping and into the seam allowance. That allows for a perfect fit.


Adding the zipper was a bit of challenge. But not too hard.

This was the most difficult part..pinning and then sewing around tight thick corners.

Right end of cusion.

Left side. To smooth the ends, you can tuck in strips of batting. I didn't want to make it so tight that I couldn't get the cushion back in!

Logos Speech and Debate Banner

The kids are members of Logos Speech and Debate club. Recently, all of the clubs in their region were encouraged to make banners representing their club. The kids designed the banner and then I sewed it for them.

Mom and Daughter YoYo aprons

I had a great time learning to make flowers with Yo-Yo's--just in time for Elisabeth (my daughter-in-law's birthday). We are both born on February 2nd. I brought them to the hospital after she gave birth to her first daughter three days afterwards--on the fifth. I made these aprons up 'out of my head' using scraps I had on hand.

Yo-Yo Flowers

Sunbonnet Sue Quilt with embellishments

This quilt is made with 100% scraps which for those of you who know me, know makes the project especially satisfying. I pride myself on being a 'frugal' artist. However, some things do cost money, and the embellishments on this quilt are not cheap. Total cost for lace, buttons, and applique was close to $30.00. However, that is a cheap price for a beautiful 'heirloom' baby quilt. My new daughter-in-law, Elisabeth, will enjoy this quilt, I'm sure! She is due Feb.18 and we are having a baby shower for her on Feb.1 at church.

Square Dancin' Fun

The kids square dance with friends from the 3D's Dancin' Dudes and Dolls Square dance club at the Huntsville Promenaders. This was the 'President's Ball" --an annual dance to honor the presidents of all the clubs in the Southeast Houston area-SHSRDA. Rebekah is in the red square dance skirt which she made from the skirt of a prom dress. Jacob is in black T-shirt and jeans.
One of the traditions of every square dance club, is that if they bring enough people to visit you to make a square, they get to 'steal' your club's banner. Our club, the 3D's, had a great banner but no 'mini-banners' to give to clubs who might want to steal it. I thought, surely I have enough scraps to put some together! And sure enough...I did. I bought the fringe and a couple of yards of cotton rope at .25 per foot...but the rest was on hand. Aren't they cute?

Klaus's Musical Quilt Finished!

Well, it took a lot of stitching--but I finished Klaus's quilt while in Germany. I really wanted to stitch each key down which would have looked awesome, but I just didn't have the time. Instead I quilted the instruments, the white keys, and the bass and treble cleffs. I really like the look of that gold border--and it matched Klaus's livingroom which was a plus. I didn't know what his livingroom looked like. He really liked it and plans to hang it there.

Klaus is the second singer from the left and sings tenor for at least two symphony choirs.

Klaus played a special morning concert just for us. It was exquisite. He played a long piece from Mozart.

Here he is playing a Christian choral piece from Bach to witness to the neighbors on New Year's eve. He plays the trumpet in a church orchestra and another music school's orchestra along with his brother Hans, who plays many instruments too, but usually plays the tuba.

The Art of Mola Making

Cuna indian girls wearing molas stitched to their blouses which were made by their mothers.

One of the most interesting textile art forms I have ever scene is the art of mola making traditionally done by the Cuna indians of San Blas Islands, Panama. My mother brought one home after visiting Panama and I just knew I had to try to make one some day. I was amazed to realize that the designs on her 'picture' were done by reverse applique but with many layers of different colored cloth and in pencil thin lines. It was a beautiful piece of stitching and art.

Click on the following link to see a wonderful web page on Molas and the beautiful Indian women who make them. It is a great page for kids! It has intriguing native music playing in the background as well. http://charlottepatera.com/html/MAKE%20A%20MOLA/makeamola.html

In America, we do a very simple form of reverse applique using only two pieces of cloth. We cut away the shapes we want to reveal from the top layer of cloth to show a color below and then stitch the raw edges of the top layer down to the bottom layer. This technique is used for flowers, leaves, or even animal shapes. But never do we attempt such intricate lines or so many layers of cloth.

There is very little information available on how to do this, but as you can see from this picture, I am attempting a practice piece. I also bought a book from Dover publishing that has many authentic Mola indian designs that I may try to use for a piece for next year's art festival. It is much harder to do than it looks but it is really fun to try!

This is my second attempt. The cloth on my first mola was too thick allow me to do a good job on the applique stitches. In this mola, my lines are still wide. The pieces of cloth layered beneath the top layer of black cloth were not even, which is why the blue shows through the fish at the bottom. In the photo, you can see at the top that I have just cut slits to reveal blue for radiating lines. I used a white chalk marking pencil to draw the main designs and to plan out where I was going to cut. I'm mostly designing as I go.

Molas were made by the Kona indian women of Panama to replace body painting. A woman sews two identical pieces, one for the front of her blouse or dress and one for the back. She wears the dress with the mola until the dress is worn and/or faded and then rips the mola off and sews it onto another dress until she is tired of it. Then she rips it off again and sells it to local tradesmen who sell it to tourists. The average cost you will pay to buy one is around $75 to upwards of $200.00. If the mola doesn't have torn threads on the edges, or isn't a little worn or faded, it probably isn't authentic. The tourist versions are often made by machine and are not very well done. The artwork is also not usually traditional.

The most authentic mola designs are geometric. More contemporary ones incorporate more modern imagery. You will often see flowers, fish, birds, and other jungle animals. You will sometimes see Christian imagery from missionary influence. Some molas have indian spirit symbolism in them, if they are for religious purposes.

To learn more about this art see the rest of the links below.

• Kuna Indian women and their art - http://www.panart.com/molainfo.htm
• Mola Art Gallery - http://thorup.com/mola.html
• How Molas are made - http://thorup.com/makeamola.html
• Detailed instructions on how to make a simple Bug Mola. (Very Good!) http://charlottepatera.com/html/MAKE%20A%20MOLA/makeamola.html
• Kid's Construction Paper Mola project- http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/2008/08/how-to-make-mola.html
• Link to a great book -Molas!: Patterns, Techniques & Projects for Colorful Applique (Paperback-Buy used for less than $5.00)http://www.amazon.com/Molas-Patterns-Techniques-Projects-Colorful/dp/1579902235/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227384982&sr=1-3