My Cozy Village Blog Tour Kickoff!
Posted by Felicia T. Brenoe on Mar 7th 2016
I am stoked to be starting off the My Cozy Village Blog Tour here on the C&T blog!
Every spring I get this urge to work with pastels and flowers, and this year I am channeling that into a rather tiny project. I am making egg cozies with the flowers from the block borders in My Cozy Village!
I know many Americans aren’t in the habit of having soft-boiled eggs for breakfast, but growing up in Norway, no Easter breakfast (or really any Sunday breakfast) seemed complete without an egg, boiled to perfection and hidden under an egg cozy next to my milk glass. Thick runny yellow yolk, and absolutely no nasty runny egg white. Cap off the top, drizzle with a little sea salt, dig in with a teaspoon, and yum!
For Easter, we would put onion skins in the egg water for boiling, and the eggs shells would be dyed a rich yellow.
To make my egg cozies I am using the flower template for the block borders in My Cozy Village. I drafted up an oval egg cozy template that you can also download here.
Also, I wanted to share with you how much easier it is to do hand appliqué when using the Wash-Away Appliqué Sheets from C&T. Fusing the appliqué fabric onto an appliqué sheet that has been cut to the correct shape makes the appliqué pieces much more stable than in traditional needle-turn. I personally love that the appliqué gets a little extra lift from the added volume.
More exact directions for using the appliqué sheets and the Kurumi buttons that make up the flower center can be found in the My Cozy Village pattern pack.
This tiny project is a GREAT way to use up small-but-precious pieces of fabric. I am using some of my beloved Liberty florals for the flowers.
1. For each egg cozy you want to make, trace 6 petals of the border flower onto a Wash-Away Appliqué Sheet. (Lucky me, I used my original design files on my computer and fed the appliqué sheet through my home printer. You will have to trace yours onto the appliqué sheet with a pencil, but the end result is the same.)
2. Cut the flower petals out of the appliqué sheet. Go get a fresh cup of tea, then negotiate with the cat that has inevitably decided to take a nap on your project.
3. With a hot and dry iron, fuse the appliqué sheet petals, shiny side down, to the wrong side of your flower petal fabric. Leave about ½” between the petals.
4. Cut the petals out around the fused appliqué sheet templates, leaving a narrow ¼” seam allowance. Put a narrow strip of basting glue along the edge and use your fingers to press the seam allowance to the back side along the edge of the appliqué sheet. Your appliqué pieces are now very stable, and all edges are already turned! No fussing around with needle-turn and freezer-paper templates necessary.
5. Use the downloadable PDF to trace the outline of the egg cozy. Seam allowances are accounted for in the template, so trace and cut on the line. I will wait to cut out my egg cozy on the line until after I am done with the appliqué. For now, I am leaving a bit of fabric on all sides.
6. Use a bit of basting glue or small appliqué pins to secure the petals on top of your traced flower outline. Appliqué in place.
Have fun visiting all the great blogs and websites of the My Cozy Village blog tour this week. Make sure to stick around until the final stop of the tour on March 15 th at www.feliciasworld.com for the remaining instructions and the last giveaway of the My Cozy Village pattern pack.
3/10 Quilter's Dream Batting (additional giveaway of batting at this stop!)
3/11 Quilty Folk
3/12 Live Originally
3/14 Generation Q
3/15 Felicia's World
Enter for a chance to win a free copy of the My Cozy Village pattern pack and a pack of Wash-Away Appliqué Sheets here: a Rafflecopter giveaway!
Congratulations to Melody L., winner of this giveaway!
Happy Stitching!
Felicia
