Ketchup?

I covered Judy's  kitchen chairs this week.  Aren't they pretty? 

This is a photo of what they looked like before. They had a pretty solid ivory fabric on them.   And then the grandbabies arrived and her lovely ivory chair covers were no more :) 

This is Sissy, Rob & Judy's sweet lab.  She is an old dollbaby.  Look at that face. :) She watched me  measure and take pictures for a few minutes and then went back to sleep. 

I found the fabric at Blaney's in Norfolk. It had all the colors we needed plus the flowers blend right in with the rest of Judy's home.  And a great price- it was $10.98 a yard. I used 4 yards for 8 chairs. 

I took the chair pads home a week ago and then brought them back to re-attach. This is so much easier than taking the whole chair.  I had them done on Friday but they were out of town, so I took them to her on the following Tuesday.  I try to do chair cover jobs in one week or less  so that they client isn't without seats for too long.

So. Everything is lovely and we are attaching the seats to the chairs,  the sun is shining- the weather is sweet.  I picked up a chair pad and felt something sticky on the edge. I turn it over and there is a blob of something thick, bright red and very sticky. On the edge of her supposed to be pristine new chair pad!!! @#$$%  Where did it come from? @#$$%^ How did  what looked like partially dried ketchup get there? @#$%^ 

The good thing is that I had saturated the chairs after I recovered them with fabric protector. If we know the grandbabies are going to be sitting there, lets be ready for them :)  I got the spray fabric protector from Hancock's. It works great. I fully saturated those chairs. 

Judy grabbed a washcloth and it came right off, but I was mortified- how and where did this get on the side of the seat???

Where did it come from?? Is it  ketchup? What is it?

@#$%!! 

 I do have a kid and a dog and a hubby. And me.  So I went over every place and time those chairs where in my house. The seats were here for 7 days.  I  did these covers  on the dining table, which was covered with oilcloth. The pads where stacked in the far  corner of the LR on a chair that we don't use.   I went back over our menu here in the house and we never used ketchup or any red sauce in the dining room or in the LR. We never eat in the LR ( and in the past two weeks not in the  DR  because I have been swamped with work and took over the DR table as work table #2. My other table is in the sewing room and needs to be clear every day or so for lessons. )   

I went and searched my car back seat.  We don't eat in my car either so I know there has never been ketchup in the car. Or red sauce. Or anything. But I still checked. The only thing we really eat in my car are  Sonic fruit slushies  and Eden likes the lemon so I know it wasn't that. And tic tacs. But mint tictacs don't leave large red blobs of gook . 

So where  did it come from?  I don't know. I have gone over every place those chair seats were and can find nothing. I have no idea.  Could it have come from Judy's house? I set the pads down on one of  her large LR chairs. I also checked that while I was there, but really quick, not a thorough look over that I did at my house. 

I don't know. I am stumped. 

The chairs are pretty though. 

And we now know that they do not stain easily- the fabric protector really works. 

Embroidered Summer

This summer I introduced embroidery to my younger students, the 8-12 year olds.    

In past lessons, a couple of them had mentioned that they didn't like hand sewing. Can you believe it? They said that- to me? So after I heard that, guess what I planned? A summer of hand sewing!  I thought summer would be a good time to do this as they would have some extra time around the house and be able to to it at home- not just in lesson. I use embroidery to teach hand sewing skills because it really encompasses it all: threading a needle, tying knots in the end of the thread, sewing and keeping the thread in the needle, making the needle go in and come up where you want,  tying off at the end, etc.  Plus is is fun to sew pictures in thread on stuff. 

I set each girl up with a hoop. fabric, embroidery needle & thread.  I used a dressmakers tracing wheel and pattern tracing paper to transfer straight lines on to practice fabric. Then we learned the running stitch, back stitch, stem stitch and chain stitch. 

We started out on muslin for practicing. We ended the project with embroidering on a t shirt that they could wear to school. Kayla even did one more project and made a bib for her soon to be born cousin! 

Here are some of the girls learning how and also some finished projects!

Madi and Eden
Eden is teaching her friend Madison how to embroider. 

Nina

 Nina loves dogs. So far every project she has made skirt- purse, pj pants has been out of a fabric that features dogs. So I was not surprised when she chose to embroider two scottie dogs on a shirt.   She is intending for them to look" kinda alien" so she has planned for them to be  green and purple and weird colors.

Nina is using a stem stitch to outline her scotties

Izzy

Izzy is working on the chain stitch.

Izzy is 8. This is Izzy's sewing folder. When each girl starts with me, they have a folder to keep handouts and patterns and the other paper things they need to bring back and forth. Izzy drew a picture of me on the back of hers- aren't I gorgeous!!!

Isn't this just the cutest thing ever? 

Kayla made a bib for her son to be cousin. He is a boy and so she designed a bib with an outer space theme.
Kayla really took to the embroidery. She was the main one saying she didn't like hand sewing. She admitted to me this morning, it isn't so bad. :) She is even planning to incorporate embroidery into her christmas presents!

The pattern piece for this bib is a dinner plate! Trace a dinner plate onto your fabric- then use a saucer to draw in the neck area. Cut this out and you have a bib! Bias tape edges make this a really quick , easy to sew up gift. 

We used some iron on transfers from Sublime Stitching for our images. 

This alien is absolutely adorable. Look at her perfect stitches! This could not possibly be any cuter!

We had a hurricane here in August.  We lost power in the morning on the first day and were without it for 6 days. Eden and I sat in front of the window and embroidered. A lot. There really wasn't much else to do!  She worked on a pair of birds. 

 Here she is working on her birds during the hurricane.

These  are her finished birds.  I am so proud of my darlin'- these look incredible! We are going to frame these and hang them in the dining room. She worked very hard at getting her stitches to look like feathers.

This last project is mine! :) I saw this in a catalogue for way too much money so I made my own- I think I am going to make a pillow cover out of it. The moon and witch are appliques. In the catalogue it was framed but I think a pillow would be  much more fun.