Slow Stitching - No. 034 - Mola Inspired - Reverse Applique

Week 34 in the K3N Cloth Tales Slow Stitching Challenge - prompt - Mola Inspired Reverse Applique. This is practiced by the Guna people of Panama.

I designed my own geometric pattern and I used 4 layers of fabric.  True blue, then lime green, then royal blue and finally tangerine orange.

This was quite stiff - the top & bottom layers were poly cotton, the lime is silky and the blue is for sure polyester.

The shapes are a square, a triangle, a rectangle and a circle.

I used sewing thread to based around the edge. Found embroidery thread to match each color and outlined the shapes with running stitches.   Debated about adding additional stitches and decided against it.

Small Gifts - Oil Diffusers - Wood

I am working on small gifts and I decided to re-imagine a previous project.  I use essential oils in my everyday life. 

I was fortunate to find white quartz stones this week which worked well for my new diffusers.  

It gives these little wooden peg dolls a beautiful base to anchor them and provides a solid base.  The stone is gorgeous, smooth and feels luxurious which helps with mood one is trying to create. The wood works well to diffuse the oil and the base protects your surface from the oil. 

Here's another wood one which features a wood elephant carving. 

I have added it to one of the larger white quartz stones and it looks really good.

The diffusers generally have to fit into the decor of our living spaces so a variety of material and subject matter works well.

Of course, I had to upgrade mine as well. The purple string one is for lavender on my bed shelf for sleeping.  The blue and yellow one is for my Bergamot and Grapefruit scent for when I am exercise inside.

Just loving these!

Sewing Project - Quilt 6 - Green Squares in Tan

I have completed another quilt for donation.  This project morphed from the original materials I had selected.  I chose black for the sashing but decided the fabrics were too dark to have dark sashing. 

Finished Size: 42.50" x 55.25"

Front: Green patterned fabric cut into 10" squares

Backing: Hunter Green Flannelette

Batting: Cotton Sheet



Sashing: Caramel dual texture fabric cut 4 inches wide

Binding: Caramel dual texture fabric cut to 2 5/8 inches wide  You can check out the Fool Proof Quilt Binding video for details.

Thread: Dark Green cotton thread  

Binding stitching: Stitch in the ditch.  I pinned very closely and had perfect capture of the folded edge on the back. Excellent.

Quilting: One quarter inch around each square on the square with green thread keeps the caramel intact and matched well with the green back. I remembered to add the next row of sashing before quilting so I have a good edge to follow.  A quarter inch foot helps a lot! Great investment.


The thread spool was taller than my regular spools and was dancing around on my spindle.  I added a straw on the spindle that fit into the hole of the spool. Perfect solution.

Lessons Learned: 
Measure twice cut once - on the rows of sashing I cut them 42 inches after doing some math (not my strongest skill) thinking that would give me extra but the row of squares was 43" wide when it came to quilting.  I did have enough fabric to re-cut the 5 rows of sashing to 45" to leave me some extra.

It worked out in the end because the too short sashing was turned into the binding.  I did have to add about a foot to have enough.  I was going to use black for binding but since I had what I needed I went ahead with the caramel.

It is getting easier as I improve with each one.

Made several green scraps disappear as well!