Chenille Poncho Samples

Yippee!! I finished my sample garments for my classes at the Martha Pullen School of Art Fashion! The school is the first week in February, and I will be teaching pre-day classes for the first time. However, I have been a teacher’s assistant for over five years and absolutely love it!  On Monday of the school, I will be teaching students how to make my Chenille Poncho (pattern #104):

I received my fabrics just before Thanksgiving. But with the Holidays, Christmas shopping, and working on my new appliqués, I wasn’t able to start working on these two ponchos until after Christmas.  Nonetheless, I still had them completed by New Year's Eve!

I always love the surprise of seeing what the ponchos look like after they have been washed and dried – sometimes I’m astonished at how different they can be.  To show you what I mean, here are samples of the “before” fabrics for the two ponchos:

Appliqué Construction

Hi!

I really enjoyed having my sister (and her cat, Dusty) visit with me last weekend. Our cat, Ella, wasn't too thrilled about having another cat invade her territory, however. There were some growls and hisses, but they eventually learned to peacefully coexist (for the most part)!

While my sister was here, she helped me make 300 new Ready·Set·Appliqués! When I make these appliqués, I hand-pick the fabric and color combinations, add the fusible web to the fabrics, cut out all of the shapes, lay out the pieces, and then fuse these cute appliqués together for you. All you do is peel the appliqué off of the sheet, place it where you want it, iron it to your appliqué surface, and stitch around the edges.

Jo'D Marie the Pig and Mortimer the Monkey will soon be joining the rest of my Ready·Set·Appliqués on my website.