RJ Ward Design

Forward. I've thought about what I want this year to be and what I want to do with my little blog (that I've neglected), my little company and my life. Last time I wrote I was rediscovering my sewing skills and venturing into what I had called Sew.Rip.Repeat. That was 5 years ago!! Now I go by RJ Ward Design and I've ventured from sewing to painting personalized signs, etching stainless steel and glass, using heat transfer vinyl to apply designs to clothing and also adding embroidery to shirts, towels, totes and other items.  There's still sewing and quilting going on but lately not quite as much as I would like. Let's go back to Forward. I've survived the death of my oldest daughter, Shelby, a year ago and when thinking of words that I wanted to focus on for my little company and my life I knew what I didn't want. For not having a word for 2018 I used quite a few. Words that come to mind are Healing, Recovery, Bravery, Strong, Courage, Prayer, He...

Happy Valentine's Day! What a day it's going to be to be working in a kindergarten classroom today. Twenty-six children are so excited to pass out their valentines and have a party with their new friends. Here at the home front we'll be celebrating low key with a nice dinner out. We'll also be celebrating the start of our winter break and definitely wishing our record breaking snow will start to melt! It will be nice to be home next week and work on some more of my Swoon blocks. Today I'm showing lots of little 1-1/2" HST's to make-up this heart lap quilt. There are three 9" blocks plus I added sashing all the way around to make it 30" square. I used 4 different shades of reds and pinks that I had in my stash.   V and Co. made a quilt last year with her ombre fabric line. I loved it! I needed to make my own but with only a small amount of fabric in my stash I had to make a smaller version. My goal was a table topper but it just didn'...

Wow a year has passed since I've written anything on this little old blog of mine. Not to say I haven't been sewing, just not with as much gusto! I'm now a permanent Paraprofessional working with elementary children with disabilities so blogging and sewing has taken a backseat. Here's just a highlight of only a handful of items I have sewn.   Starting in the top left corner and moving to the right. Last spring I was back making costumes for my son's school, this time it was Indian costumes for Peter Pan. My son was the lead as Peter Pan and it was such a treat! The 3rd photo is a WIP, Amy Butler Weekend Bag. I'm doing the quilt-as-you-go method and I just need to start assembling the bag. The pillows were Christmas presents for my girls. I loved Vanessa Christenson's Wonky Star Quilt & Pillow so I just did my own version with a 9-patch. I've made almost a dozen of  Noodlehead's Gathered Clutches . I added a strap and passed them out as g...

When I decided that my February finish was going to be my longest Work in Progress I knew that I was going to be treading waters I've never done before. I put on my Walking Foot or what mine is referred to as a Dual Feed Foot and decided diagonals would be the way to go. I'd show you a close up but it's quite scary how stitching in the ditch was really to the left or right of a seam. I used my invisible marker and drew the lines so I'd have some sort of direction but even the best laid plans veer off the beaten path. I also followed Lori's Binding Tutorial since I've never done that before either. I will say one thing that these finishes have me learning and doing things I've never done before. The binding went on quite smoothly. My corners aren't quite the picture perfect seam but I've accomplished something that really makes me proud.   And then the back . . .     I'm so happy with my end result.   I've been so tempte...

Many (not a few) years ago - let's just say it - 18 years ago a pattern came out on the Internet from McCall's Quilting. The pattern was "Christmas Wreath" and it was November, 1995. In 2001 (from the date stamp on my printed sheet) I came across this pattern. The wreath was made up of lots of half square triangles in an assortment of greens and reds. In true fashion I looked at it and dove right in. I didn't have a clue to what I was doing. I doubt very much any of these seams were true 1/4" seams. I winged it with fat quarter bundles I got from my local Jo Ann's.     Looking at this WIP brings me back to when my children were young and in some sort of school program. I had hours to myself that I had not seen in awhile so I jumped into those itsy-bitsy HST's with enthusiasm that I've never had before.   I was an extreme amateur tackling something that truly only someone who's actually done this before would do. My points aren...

This quilt top has been a long time coming - a year to be exact! I've learned so much and I have to thank Craftsy for sponsoring a year long Block of the Month. Amy at Stitchery Dickory Dock provided me with a visual and printable handouts to be able to go at my own pace and learn new techniques that I've never even thought of doing before.   The one thing I definitely learned is I will not be making anything that has to do with hexagons! I hated the hand sewing to make the hexi's and the attachment of them on the block. Hand sewing is just not my thing!   I also learned on the curved piecing that I do need to use spray starch on one of the pieces. This picture is actually my second block of the same thing. The first one was so crooked and out of shape it was quite embarrassing. By starching the curved piece and keeping the top piece flexible I was able to handle the curves much better and get an accurate measurement. I've said it before and I thi...

  The Craftsy 2012 Block of the Month just might be a finish by the end of the month. When I signed up for Shanna's "A Lovely Year of Finishes" I honestly didn't think that I would get all those blocks done. Out of 20 blocks I only had 6 (3 months) done!     I now have 10 more done! Yeah! I have 4 more to go and of course I have saved the Hexi's blocks for the last. I've also cut out the pieces for the curved piecing blocks so I can get to those ASAP. You can see all of the blocks over in my Flickr page.   It's funny how once you take a picture you see things that you definitely would do different in a block. There are a few blocks that I have done that I've made a mistake on or the color combination is terrible. I'll be ripping one block out that is upside down and redoing it (if you see it don't point it out, I already see it), and one of my original blocks I have to re-do because the background is totally different. ...

  I kept going back and forth over to Shanna's blog Fiber Of All Sorts to decide whether I wanted to join her new group and be accountable to all my unfinished UFO's. Then she sent me a message to join their flickr group called "A Lovely Year of Finishes". I have quite a few but the one that I jumped into last January with both feet because I wanted to learn to quilt has appeared to be a project that I got tired of. I joined the Craftsy Block of the Month 2012 and stopped when she got to April. I'll be honest I love to cross stitch but I really hate hand sewing. Hexi's to me is hand sewing and I just stopped because I don't like to hand sew. I just received a new email that 2013's BOM is out so I really need to finish this top.     This was the Balkan Puzzle Block from February that I never talked about. Luckily I have done a few more months in the past year and on Saturday sewed June and July's blocks. To finish this UFO I have to...

  I finally tried my hand at making a Cathedral Window Pillow. I've wanted to make my mom something for a long time and with Christmas right around the corner it was the best time to do it. I followed along with this tutorial from Moda Bake Shop by Angela Nash of My Three Sons . The only thing I didn't do was the binding. To be honest I've never done binding before and I didn't want to add to my stress level of getting this pillow done. (The first two pictures are from my phone.) As you can see from the picture above I went with the "Lake View" pillow.   The hardest part and most time consuming is all the folding of the fabric. Since this was my first try at making such a time consuming project on such short notice my corners certainly are not as precise as they should be.   I looked all over Flickr to see what I could do about all the corners of the blocks. Some corners looked pretty good (not perfect) and some I could see right thro...

I was featured on Craft Gossip ! My first love of crafting has to be counted cross-stitch. I started doing cross-stitch right out of high school. 14 count Aida was the cloth of choice! Using those counts and cloths didn't last long when I came across all the different colors of linens, thread counts and patterns. I subscribed to Better Homes & Gardens Cross-Stitch & Country Crafts Magazine many years ago and when I saw the beautiful counted cross-stitch patterns of different stockings I knew I wanted to do it. I didn't even have children yet when these patterns came out so I saved them. Once I started to have children I set out to make each one of them their very own unique stocking. There is alot of back stitch in these stockings because of all the details so I would put the stockings aside when I grew tired of doing them. I dug them out of a box a few years ago along with their patterns and went through them line by line to find where I had not finished them. On...