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Another fun and creative project by our graphic artist, Moniqa. I love her projects because they look so stylish and rich but usually take no time, with scraps of fabric you have hanging around from your apparel or quilting projects. This month Moniqa has been bitten by the autumn bug and is getting ready for an influx of family visits for the holidays. She is focusing on the center of the holiday festivites, the family table. Bring in the warmth and color of
fall for your table with this super simple Burnished Leaves Table Runner. All you need are a leaf pattern (provided by us or nature), fabric marker, and fabric scrapes in fall colors or spring (depending on when you can finally fit this project into your busy schedule). Moniqa used Dupioni silk; this is prefect for our Dupioni Check Swatch set or just 2 or 3 1/2 yard Dupioni colors. You can also use quilting cotton, wool or felt. Don't forget to embellish with some fancy embroidery stitches; check out these embroidery tutorials by Crafty Daisies if you need ideas or tips!
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Determine the shape of the leaves you desire. Any basic leaf shape will do but here aresome to get you started. Moniqa's leaves are 7 inches long and 3 inches wide. Trace your free hand leaf shape onto some posterboard or cardboard (you can use that cereal box full of crumbs that someone stuck back in
the pantry), and cut it out. This is your pattern. - Determine the length of runner you desire. Lay your Leaf pattern at an angle and in that postion measure from top to bottom. Divide this measurement by your total desired length (Example Your desired length is 50'' and you leaf measure ment is 5'', You will make 10 pairs of leaves). The difference will be the number of pairs of leaves you will need (Rounding up or down is up to you). Moniqa's leaves are 4 inches on the diagonal and the Runner is 48 inches long. That is 12 leaf pairs!
- Cut! Using your pattern cut out 24 leaves in various colors for the top side (lays face up on the table) and 24 leaves for the underside.
- Pin! Pin your topside leaves to your underside leaves, RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER. Stitch together with 1/4 inch seam leaving an opening to turn out. repeat until all leaves are complete
- Press! Turn out all your leaves and press flat. You can slip stitch the openings closed but they will not show if you leave them open. If you do leave them open, you can leave secret holiday messages or candies in there for the little ones!
- Hand stitch your leaves together. Take 2 leaves and lay them end to end angling up. Hand stitch the end together. Repeat for all leaves.
- Stitch pairs together. Fit a pair of leaves above the first and stitch together wherethe leaves meet. Repeat this step until all pairs are united
- Give yourself a pat on the back and listen to the "Oohs and Aaws" from your appreciative family as they delight in your festive holiday table.
Don't be afraid to change it up or embellish. You can bedazzle this runner, add buttons, or beads! Moniqa did not pair up her top 2 leaves but stitched one on top of the other to make the top 2 tiers singular. This reminds me of a vine and really catches the eye.
I am amazed every day with Moniqa's creativity and am so glad to share it with you. Enjoy and don't forget to show us your take on this project in our Sew & Tell Gallery. We really look forward to seeing everyone's projects and love to get together and check them out!
Tara Miller for Moniqa
This weekend I felt the first crisp, cool breeze of Autumn. Autumn has arrived ushering in visions of falling leaves, apples and pumpkins, sweaters, football games, walking through drifts of gold and rust colored leaves. Not to mention great food! Halloween is coming, then Thanksgiving. This is my most favorite time of the year. I know there are people out there who have already completed their Christmas shopping. I do not intend to rush this season to get Christmas done. I am doing some planning for Christmas, but I will fully enjoy the moment. To help you, I have provided some easy projects to help you celebrate this season.
My first project is a no sew project, involve the children also. I call this my "Potato Chip Project" because you cannot do just one. This is a wacky leaf project. This is also suitable for charm packs ( I used Acorn Hollow which has 39 fabrics in the pack) To add some spice I used some fabric from the Harvest Spice collection.
You will only need 2 different fabrics, freezer paper, Misty Fuse, scissors and an iron. For very young children- you can use comstruction paper. Draw a free form leaf patterm onto the non-glossy side of freezer paper. You can free hand as I did, use cookie cutter shapes, an actual leaf, a stencil, or a color book. You might also find some shapes online or in a magazine. Prepare a fabric sandwich. ( 1 top fabric with the right side facing out, misty fuse and the bottom fabric with right side facing out) Using your iron, apply heat to the sandwich. Allow the sandwich to cool. Your fabric will be bonded together. This the first time I have used Misty Fuse and I was impressed with the weight. It is not a paper backed fusing agent, so it is a one step operation. Iron your freezer paper onto the fabric (shiny side down). You can reuse your freezer paper several times.
You can use these leaf shapes any where. You can sprinkle them like confetti across a table. Paste them to a lampshade or a mirror. Tuck them into a wreath. Create a place card by pasting a small piece of cardstock onto the leaf and writing your guests name on it. I am hanging mine with fall colored ribbon and hang from a chandelier.
My next project is a simple tablerunner ( I have made it in the Butternut Farms collection and Harvest Spice) , This can be done in 1 1/2 hours from start to finish. No patterns required. Determine how wide and how long you would like to make it. For example ,14 inches wide x 54 inches inches long. Cut 2 strips of fabric 14.5 inches wide by 54.5 inches long and a piece of batting such as Warm and Natural. This is also cut to the same dimenions. This is also great to use left over battng Create a fabric sandwich by layering the 2 fabrics right sides together and placing the batting on the top. Pin in place. Stitch around all edges 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch. Leave an opening wide enough to turn - about 3 inches. Turn inside out and using a pencil - gently push the corners to make a square end. The cotton batting should be in the
middle. Slip stitch the closing shut. The same basic table runner will look different depending on the fabric you. The Butternut Farms fabric collection is a rich, traditional fabric with accents of gold. This is a classic fabric. It is so beautiful, you hate to cut it. Very good in a formal setting. If you are not afraid of color- Harvest Spice is for you. These sun-drenched colors are so rich that you can almost feel that if you wring it out, the colors will drip like droplets of colored rain. I call this "Whimsical Tuscany". You cannot be sad around these colors.
Reversible napkins (I used the Harvest Spice-- sew easy project, just cut 2 squares of contrasting fabrics the size you would like your napkins to be. Layer the fabrics right sides together- sew around the edges leaving an opening wide enough to turn. Turn, using your pencil to poke the corners out. Press. Slipstitch the open edges together:
I also created a hot pad for my casserole using the Harvest Spice Stripe. Cut 2 pieces of fabric the dimensions you would like your finished hot pad to be plus a 1/2 inch for seams. Cut 2 pieces of batting and Insul-Bright. Create a fabric sandwich by placing the top and bottom fabrics right sides together. Create a layer of batting, insul bright and batting. Place the Insul-Bright sandwich on top of the fabric and pin. Stitch around all sides 1/4 to 1/2 inch leaving an opening for turning. Turn inside out . Use a pencil to square up the corners. Slipstitch the closing.
I hope these easy ideas will enhance your joy in the new season.
Vickie
Next month: Get your Moda runnin, Christmas is comin
If I said I have always liked Fall, well, I'd be lying. Returning to school always seemed to overshadow any pleasure I may have found in this season. Now that I'm older and free as a bird, I have decided that Fall is probably my favorite season. If I had to name the number one reason for this, I would have to say it's due to the rich palette of colors coming from the leaves and other seasonal vegetation. I combined this adoration of beautiful reds, oranges and yellows with one of my favorite fabrics (Dupioni Silk) in my newest project - a pumpkin.
I got the idea for this project from Tara's Blog not too long ago on Halloween projects. I took the pincushion project, but scaled it up quite a bit. For my pumpkin,
I used a circle that was roughly 16 inches in diameter - you can use a mixing bowl or any round object (I used a cat toy). You want it to be big enough to get a decent sized pumpkin, but not so big that you can't get an upholstery needle through the middle once it's stuffed. Cut out 2 pieces of orange fabric and sew around the edge using a .5" seam allowance, making sure to stop a few inches short to leave an opening for turning. Once you are finished sewing your circles together, turn the fabric right side out and push all the seams out (so you have a nice circle again).
Next, stuff your pumpkin to where it is pretty tightly packed, but still kind of fluffy. I used just a cheap bag of poly filling I had laying around, and I found that it worked better if you kept the filling coming in a constant piece, as opposed to ripping off little pieces and putting them in. When I worked with smaller pieces, my pumpkin was lumpy (my apologies to all the veteran pillow and toy stuffers out there who know the stuffing-ropes. If I did this wrong, please note that I am a COMPLETE novice at this). Once stuffed, you can slip stitch the opening closed. 
To make pumpkin sections, grab your longest upholstery needle and a coordinating embroidery floss (for bigger pumpkins, you'll probably need the whole skein of floss). Depending on the size of your pumpkin, select the number of threads you want to use (I used all 6 and doubled them up). If your pumpkin is on the large size, yarn would even work well. Tie a nice big knot at the end of the string, find the center of your pumpkin, and put your needle to work. If you used a pretty big circle, you'll really need to squeeze it flat to get the needle through to the middle of the other side. Once through, pull the thread tight and bring the needle back to the bottom and back into the center, so that the thread stays on the outside of the pumpkin and creates a ridge. Do this 5-7 more times (make sure to keep that thread tight), creating 6-8 even sections (depending on size and looks). 
For my leaf, I did a quick search of the Internet for an image of a pumpkin leaf and used it as a pattern. I cut out 2 pieces and sewed them together, leaving an opening at the base to turn it right side out and push the leaf points out. You could make this step easier by using one layer of green felt, but I'm a sucker for silk so I kept going with it. To give the leaf more detail, I did a quick blanket stitch around the edge with embroidery floss in a darker shade of green. 
For the stem, I took a scrap of the green silk I used for the leaf, folded it in half, and sewed a curved line down 2 adjacent sides (see image). I turned it, stuffed it, ran a quick stitch through the top, and pulled it closed like a drawstring bag (make sure to put a couple knots to hold the hole closed).
Some floral wire wrapped in floral tape and spiraled around a pen made the little curlies. I stretched the wire out a little and tucked it under one of the section strings at the halfway-point of the wire. Finally, I hot glued the curly wire and the leaf down into the center of the pumpkin and then hot glued the stem on top of them to hide the knots and unfinished edges. I added an inexpensive bunch of silk leaves for accent and placed it all on a small table in my living room.Part of what I like about projects like this is the ability to tweak and modify it to your own whims. Tara had mentioned making smaller pumpkins and using them as garland, whereas I envisioned a larger version as a center piece. I may even buy some black felt and make some temporary Jack-O-Lantern eyes and a mouth for Halloween. If this project inspires your creativity, I want to see! Post it up on the Fabric.com Sew & Tell Gallery and let us all share in the Fall-time fun!
Happy Stitching!
Melanie
Moniqa is our Graphic Artist. She is one of the most creative young ladies I have ever known, and I have known a lot of creative ladies! Moniqa creates purses, tops and dresses for herself and these wonderful flowers. We all marvel at them when she wears them to work. She'll pin them to her top or coat, but usually we see them on her handbags. She designed the handbags herself, too.
Here's a link to the pattern, but I wanted to give you a little instruction to go with it here.
- You decide a set number of petals to cut from any fabric you like. Felt, suede and faux suede will not unravel. Boucle, silks and other interesting woven fabrics will, but if you can stand it, the raveling can become part of the design.
- There is a template for the stigma, or center of the flower.
- You will clip little fringes half-way through your strip of fabric and roll it to create the center.
- Hand stitch the bottom of the roll to hold it in place.
- The bottom layer of petals are the larger size petal template. Lay them in a circle overlapping them slightly and hand tack them together. Do the same for the smaller top layer of petals.
- Push the sigma through the middle and hand stitch the whole flower together picking up each petal layer and securing it into the stigma.
- Add a little fabric or felt circle at the back either with glue or hand stitching.
- Now you can add a pin back or create a necklace with two pieces of ribbon. Make several flowers and create a fantastic bracelet!
Remember, these are only guidelines. You can make the flower larger. You can make the stamens shorter, longer, thicker, thinner. Add leaves. I think you get the drift. Try my No Rules rule: just start cutting and see what happens. I think that's how Moniqa came up with this project in the first place.
Have fun!
Kristl
P.S. The green flower is created from Dupioni Silk and the indigo flower is Wool Felt. Try our great silk bundles; they are the perfect size to make up a few flower pins for you and some friends.
