Day 13 - 40 Bags in 40 Days - Cute St. Patrick's Day Placemats
I'm taking a bit of a pause today on our Decluttering Challenge to show you my placemats I made that I'm so proud of. You can still enter the Decluttering Challenge here.
About a month ago I posted my St. Patrick's decor and the projects I made with my Cricut machine and my table runner. I also thought I'd be ambitious and do some quilted place mats. It was a bit harder than I thought, but I got them done, and I'm really proud of how they turned out - mistakes and all! I'm really getting into sewing, quilting, and embroidering. I found these embroidery files at a couple of sites. My two favorites being Designs by Juju & SWAK embroidery designs. They've got a great library, some freebies, and a lot of other fun stuff.
For the placemats I used Simplicity pattern 5530. I picked out my fabric and notions according to the pattern instructions.
I began hooping my applique and embroidery designs on the front of my placemat. However, the first placemat I noticed that my spacing was off, and I couldn't line everything up exactly like I wanted. In fact, this first placemat caused me some grief, and I gave up for a few days because it just wasn't working out and laying out like I wanted.
I had an idea in my mind, and it wasn't executing like I wanted. It was driving me crazy after I had mess up after mess up.
The one applique that just wouldn't get straight no matter how many times I measured it and laid it out - it just wouldn't work. So, I had to just suck it up and let it go. As cute as the little leprechaun legs looked, it wasn't going to work on my placemat.
I started all over. Only to mess it up once again.
After mulling it over a few days, I thought, "there has to be an easier way to get some of these appliques on the placemat where I want them. I tried to fudge and do a "frame" around the misplaced applique. Ha!!! It looked awful. I almost gave up. I happened to share my mishaps with the gals at Joann Fabrics, and the salesgirl introduced me to Heat and Bond! So, for the most involved applique, I hooped up some WSS and did the applique. Once it was done, I applied it to my placemat exactly where I wanted it with heat and bond.
From then on it was a breeze. I sewed up my placemats, and loved how they were turning out.
I just needed to complete them with border. Now, the pattern had me cutting the border, but I thought I'd try to use double sided bias tape. I had already bought the fabric for my borders, but then I found a great tutorial on making your own bias tape here, and gave it a try. It worked like a champ! Then I watched a video here on how to do mitered corners with bias tape. Again - worked like a champ.
Here's the finished product, warts and all, but I absolutely love them!!
Ashes to Fire Devotional by Lorragenia Jackson - you can find her daily devotions here.
Today when I got into work, I received a phone call that at the end of it, had "I Believe in a Hill Called Mt. Calvary" running through my head. So as I opened my A2F book, and read the following "How precious is the gift of the cross...", I smiled, as yet again, God is using 'the little' things to speak. The highlighted portions of the reading today, sound like a prayer to me: It begins in Psalm 72, with praising God - 18 Praise the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone does such wonderful things. 19 Praise his glorious name forever! Let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen!
It continues on with confession (from Genesis 42:21) 21 "Alas we are paying the penalty for what we did to our brother: we saw his anguish when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen. That is why this anguish has come upon us."
And in I Corinthians 6:11 we are reminded that we were like that, but because of the cross, we have the opportunity to be cleansed from those sins, being sanctified and justified by His sacrifice, when we call on His name. Praise God!
The reading today continues in Mark 4, and verse 9 seemed to jump off the screen before I read anything else: ...“Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.”
Allowing God to control our thoughts, so we are deliberately looking for the worthy things, has a way of 'cleaning' our ears, so we can have 'ears to hear' His voice. Beyond that, it's our responsibility to *listen*. Listen and understand.
Think on these things...One day at a time.
