Meanwhile, Back in My Sewing Room...

Yes, people, things have been happening in my sewing room.  My last post from there was about a baby quilt and while I pondered starting another, I decided upon a different course of action.  About four years ago, I found a project in a Fons and Porter's Quilting Celebrations magazine that I just loved.  It was a banner for Thanksgiving that simply said, "Thanks."   

I made one and gave it to daughter Ann.  She hung it from her mantle and it was perfect in her house.  While it was in place, Ann hosted a baby shower at her home and our pastor's wife saw it and loved it.  She asked if she could pay me to make one for her.  I declined because I hate to sew for pay--I discovered long ago that it takes all the joy and fun out of it.  I also need to say that at the time I made Ann's, my embroidery machine was giving me fits and it didn't know if it was the digitizing of the designs or my machine.  At any rate, I had no desire to make any more!  

Fast forward three years to last year.  I decided I would try again.  Since I had realized I could hang banners under my dining room window (my fireplace has no mantle), I wanted my own "Thanks." I decided I would stitch on my new (more on this in another post) Brother embroidery machine and see how it liked the digitizing.  The answer?  It did! I hung my banner and loved its message. **

So, back to this year!  I decided to make another banner--a gift for our pastor's wife.  I would make one for her because I wanted to and for that reason only.  I happily stitched out a pile of letters.

These need to be trimmed and a ribbon inserted and then they will look like this:

I just realized that there were two projects in that particular issue and that I wrote about the other one here. I really like Patrick Lose's projects and predict other embroidery designs will soon be purchased for my stitching fun!  And in this link-heavy post, here's a last one--to his designs.

**Note:  It was indeed my machine that caused the problems on my first stitching of these designs.  A trip to the spa straightened everything out, but still I was a bit "buffaloed" to try it again using any of these designs. After stitching the banner pieces on my Brother machine, I decided enough dilly dallying and stitched out a sunflower hot pad, which it hadn't liked either and it did just fine. Boom! Buffalo slain!