Cheeky Cognoscenti

Better Late Than Never: February 2012 FMQ Challenge Completed, Feathers With Diane Gaudynski

2013-06-16T22:57:00.005-04:00

Embroidery Disaster Saved by Free-Motion Quilting!

Remember the 2012 Free-Motion Quilting Challenge hosted by SewCalGal? Each month last year, a different free-motion quilting expert provided an online tutorial with a practice exercise. We were supposed to complete all twelve by the end of the year, but I didn't even find out about the challenge until June I only managed to complete seven by year's end. Although I was brand-new to free-motion quilting at the beginning of this challenge, I found that setting aside a couple of hours once a month to practice quilting motifs has made a HUGE difference -- like the difference between drawing with a pen in my hand versus trying to draw with a pen clasped between my toes. Well, SewCalGal recently announced a "second chance" for those of us who did not meet the goal in 2012, and I now have until October 31st to finish the remaining challenges.

So, back in April I spent something crazy like 6 hours embroidering this enormous Jacobean bird design, only to have it shrink up and pucker when I attempted to press the finished piece from the back side? (I have a theory about that, by the way -- I had layered a piece of unwashed muslin beneath the silk shantung prior to embroidering for extra stability, then trimmed away the excess when the embroidery was complete. I think the muslin backing shrank when I ironed it).

Ruined Embroidery Project, Ripe for FMQ Practice

I decided to use this ruined embroidery project for FMQ practice, to see whether I could quilt out those ugly puckers and ripples between the embroidered areas. I spent several hours yesterday and today working on Diane Gaudynski's February 2012 feather tutorial, and I could not be more thrilled with the results. I have admired Diane's machine quilting, and the machine quilting of her students, for years, and I own both of her wonderful books. Still, I've not felt up to the challenge of trying to quilt feathers until now. This is the first time for me just sitting down at the machine and quilting feathers over and over again. They're far from perfect up close, but much better than I ever thought I would be able to do. And, thanks to the FMQ challenge, I now know that my quilting skills WILL get better and better, the more I practice. If I can do this, ANYONE can learn!

So yes, I was able to quilt out all of the puckers in this embroidery design, and what's more, I managed to quilt some passable feathers and lumpy-but-acceptable pebble background quilting. I have long struggled with both of those designs and have been practice-doodling feathers on my iPad for months. Wahoo!

Can you believe this is the exact same project as the ugly wrinkled mess in the previous photo? I almost threw this away! Now I like it so much that I have to come up with something to do with it. The finished piece is 16" x 20." Any ideas? I suppose I could just square the edges, bind it, and call it a "mini wall quilt."

I'm Quilting Feathers!

I attempted several different feather styles, but even though the traditional, backtracked feathers are supposed to be the most difficult to quilt, those were the easiest for me -- probably because that's the way I've been doodling them. However, I was NOT doodling the stem correctly, so all of my stems are a bit wonky.

My fabric is a glitter-flecked silk shantung layered with Hobbs Tuscany Silk batting and muslin backing. I used #100 silk thread in the needle and 60/2 Mettler cotton embroidery thread in the bobbin, with a size 60 Microtex needle, tension reduced to 1.50, and BSR stitch length set to 1.5.

It even looks cool from the back, see?

Back View

So now that's one more down, and only four more to go.

Versace Must Be a Quilter, Or The Coolest Handbags That I Did NOT Buy

2013-06-13T18:45:00.002-04:00

At Versace, Stilettos + Free-Motion Quilting + Naked = Sexy!

Hello, Dahlings! Have you missed me? Here I was counting down the days until school ended, thinking summer would bring some relaxation our way, but so far the first week of the kids' summer vacation has been pretty hectic. The boys have had Vacation Bible School every morning this week, plus we had a new member orientation dinner at church last night, a couple of discouraging estimates for improving our wreck of a back yard, and a fender-bender for Bernie yesterday morning (not his fault). I've also been busy working on a project for a design client, and we're about to drive Lars to an audition for a summer teen production of Godspell. But I won't bore you with the details of any of that right now. Today, we're going to talk about Shopping, Fashion, Couture Handbags, and Free-Motion Quilting.

Sneaky Peaky from Versace -- Keep Reading!

A few weeks ago I spent several hours going through the entire South Park Mall, looking at every single handbag in just about every store, and (to the despair of many a defeated salesperson) I could not find a single bag that fit what I wanted for the summer. I didn't want the hassle of having to switch handbags depending on my outfit and my plans for the day; that doesn't work for me. I typically don't even know what I'm wearing until 5 minutes before I leave the house, and I'm lucky to make it out the door with shoes on my feet! So I wanted a handbag that was neutral or at least versatile, but not boring; something that straddled the fence between casual and dressier days, something that didn't have anyone's logo plastered all over it, and something fun and unique that I would not see tons of other women carrying around this summer. I wanted it to be big enough for my wallet, checkbook, keys, and clunky sunglasses case, but not so big that I could overload it to the point of throwing my back out. Now, is this too much to ask of a handbag?

Floral Python Bag from Jimmy Choo, $4,695

Apparently, yes it is. After coming up empty handed at the mall, I spent a couple more hours searching online, and EUREKA! I found several fabulous -- but not-so-affordable-- options, and I did not buy any of them. Instead, I'm going to share them with you so we can enjoy them together. Everything is connected to everything else where art, design, and fashion converge, so please indulge me even if you're not a handbag person.

This bag is my absolute favorite. It's the Biker Multi Floral Python from Jimmy Choo, yours for just $4,695... The floral print superimposed on natural python has a fun, fresh, contemporary feel -- I'm getting a very Parisian vibe here. I wear a lot of solid clothing rather than prints, so this would actually work with more of my wardrobe than you'd expect. Here's a closeup:

Fun Luxe from Jimmy Choo

As you've probably noticed, python is a Big Deal Trend right now, and every line seems to be using some of it. Not just in fashion, either -- interior designer Mary McDonald has a gorgeous python print linen fabric in her collection for F. Schumacher & Co.:

F. Schumacher Park Avenue Python in Greige, 100% Linen, $196 per yard

It's a heavier-weight linen fabric, suitable for draperies, light upholstery, or wall applications... And it would also be the perfect weight for a casual summer handbag.

After the Jimmy Choo, my second-favorite python bags are these lovelies from Gucci:

Gucci Multi Python Tote, $3,500

Multi Python Tote on Model -- Why Are These Bags So BIG?!

Gucci Jackie Malachite Green Python, $3,800 -- Pantone's Color of the Year

Gucci Jackie Warm Sand Python, $5,990 -- Love the Tassels

That last one is the most practical, from a "neutral color" perspective, anyway, and I love those big tassels. They remind me of drapery tassels.

Just in case you're thinking that these are outrageously expensive handbags, let's look at a REALLY expensive handbag next:

Gucci Soft Stirrup Bag in Crocodile, $29,900

Crocodile Bag with Model -- These Bags Are All TOO BIG!

Umm, that bag costs more than my first car... Granted, this is a rather large bag, and it's a gorgeous neutral that would work with just about anything, but I do like being married, so I think I'll pass.

What's with this supersized handbag thing, anyway? Is it a purse, or a giant diaper bag?

If you're looking for something smaller than a bowling bag, check out this lovely from Fendi:

Fendi Embroidered Leather Baguette, $2,450

Don't you just love the embroidery on the Fendi Embroidered Leather Baguette? The size is much more sensible, and you know I love ANY color, as long as it's red... This bag really got me thinking. If Fendi can embroider on leather, why can't I? Just google "how to embroider leather" and a whole slew of tutorials and videos will pop up. The possibilities are endless!

Meanwhile, last but certainly not least, the folks at Versace have obviously been snooping around at the quilt shows:

Versace Vanitas Soft Quilted Tote, $2,295

It looks like someone has been practicing free-motion quilting designs on the Vanitas Soft Quilted Tote, doesn't it? Chanel has been doing quilted leather forever (along with scores of imitators), but I've never seen THIS kind of quilting on a handbag before! Hmmm... I don't think I know anyone who does free-motion quilting on leather. It would have to be really lightweight, smooth glove leather, NOT the upholstery stuff, and I'd need to work out the right needle and stitch length to get good definition for the quilting designs without perforating the leather... I've never felt the urge to sew a handbag before, but this would be a really fun idea to play with.

Versace's Inspiration: Free-Motion Quilt Doodling by Rebecca

Oryany Whitney Bag, $325

So, what did I end up with after all that? Sadly, I had to settle. I bought this Oryany (I've never heard of them before, either) Whitney Colorblock handbag online from Nieman Marcus. I don't love it, but I haven't seen anyone else with it, it works with just about any color, and it was inexpensive enough that I didn't HAVE to love it. It's way too big, for one thing, a little less structured than I would prefer, and I'm annoyed by and had hoped to avoid the ubiquitous brass-plated hardware fad. The best thing about this bag is the fun lining fabric:

It's not as exciting as the Versace or the Jimmy Choo, but the much lower price point doesn't cut into my fabric shopping budget!

Applique By Machine and By Hand: The Verdict!

2013-05-31T19:48:00.000-04:00

Hand Applique at Left, Invisible Machine Applique at Right

I was so excited about taking Harriet Hargrave's Invisible Machine Applique class at the North Carolina Quilt Symposium last weekend. I have owned Harriet's Heirloom Machine Quilting and her Mastering Machine Applique books for about 10 years, and although I relied on her machine quilting book extensively with my first few quilts, I had never attempted machine applique until this class. Since I had just started my very first hand applique project this year, I thought it would be great to try Harriet's methods for achieving similar results by machine to see which construction method I preferred.

Bernina 750 QE Packed in a Tutto 1XL Machine On Wheels Bag

I lugged my Bernina 750 QE to class in a spiffy red Tutto trolley case purchased 'specially for this occasion. I was very happy with how well my machine fit in this case and how easy it was to transport this way -- but then, when I walked into the classroom and saw the itty bitty, TV-tray-sized "tables" that were each supposed to accommodate TWO students and TWO machines, I found myself wishing I had brought a smaller machine!

For those of you who are also 750 owners, I can tell you that Harriet recommended using Stitch #3, the Vari Overlock stitch, instead of the Narrow Blind Hem stitch built into the machine's quilting menu, because there are fewer straight stitches between the V-shaped bites on the Vari Overlock stitch and she feels that Stitch #3 creates a much more attractive invisible applique. She had me MIRROR IMAGE Stitch #3, reduce the length to 0.9, reduce the width to 0.4, and reduce the needle tension to 3.0 (with monofilament .004 nylon thread in the needle and 60/2 Mettler cotton embroidery thread in the bobbin -- no adjustments needed to bobbin tension). After making those adjustments to the stitch, I also had to press that button on the leftmost side of the second row to put the needle back in center position, otherwise the stitch would form so close to the left toe of my #20C Open Applique presser foot that I couldn't see what I was doing.

Stitch #3, Length 0.9, Width 0.4, Catching 2 Threads of Applique Fabric

With those settings, I was able to get beautiful tension for machine applique and the left swing of the needle caught only two threads of the applique fabric. With the Open Toe Applique foot and the super-bright LED lighting on my 750 'Nina machine, I had excellent visibility for this technique. But, did I ENJOY it?

Well, compared to the hand applique that I've been working on lately, I have to say that I found machine applique to be incredibly stressful. In order for the machine stitching to be invisible, you need that skinny little 60/8 needle to rub right against the folded applique fabric edge for the straight stitches, pivoting carefully around every curve, and the left swing "bite" part of the stitch is supposed to catch just two threads of the applique fabric and then land precisely against the fold on the background fabric. I found myself holding my breath as I stitched, tensing my shoulders, and muttering curses under my breath every time the needle didn't land exactly where I wanted it to. Hand applique is slower, but it's so much more relaxing and every single stitch goes exactly where I want it. If a hand needle pokes through in the wrong spot, I just back it out and adjust it to where it needs to go. It's easy to pull out a single hand stitch just by unthreading and rethreading the needle. The stitch length for this invisible machine applique is SO tiny that the stitches are like a string of knots, virtually impossible to remove.

"Invisible" Machine Applique? Well, Not On Batiks...

About those tiny stitches, though... My applique shapes were all cut from densely-woven batik fabrics, which I thought would be fun and "painterly" for an applique exercise, and my background fabric was a "regular" cotton quilting print. Even though I was using .004 monofilament nylon thread in a 60/8 needle, the smallest machine needle available, the needle holes are really obvious in the batik fabrics. In the photo above, you can see every one of the needle holes on that line between the blue and pink hearts, even though the needle landed right where it was supposed to every time (on that little bit, at least!). Where I was appliqueing the green batik stem and leaves to the "normal" weave of the background print, the stitches are much more invisible, but not so much with those batiks. This photo was taken prior to cutting away the backing fabric and pulling out the freezer paper templates, which helps to turn that applique edge a little and helps to hide those straight stitches between "bites," and it's possible that the needle holes on the shapes themselves might close up and look less obvious after washing the finished quilt, but still -- I think I'll avoid batik fabrics next time I'm planning to do invisible machine applique.

My Machine-Appliqued Tulip Block Sample from Harriet Hargrave's Class

I know this was a new method for me, and this was only my first try -- in unfamiliar surroundings, with distractions and pressure to finish so the class could move on, etc. I'm sure it will get easier to machine applique with practice, and even running the sewing machine at a snail's pace is faster than stitching the applique pieces down by hand with a milliner's needle. The verdict? I think I might use machine applique for a project with large, simple applique shapes, for something I need to get done quickly for a gift, or something like that. But I really like having a portable hand stitching project to carry around with me, and I love the way the little applique shapes puff up as I stitch them by hand.

Applique By Hand: Completed Jingle BOM Applique Block #2

I was able to finish up my Jingle Applique Block #2 (a Block-of-the-Month pattern designed by the faboo Erin Russek of One Piece At a Time) this morning, stitching the berries in place while I was watching Anders perform in his school talent show. I couldn't have brought my sewing machine into the auditorium, that's for sure!

See My Lumpy, Misshapen Berries?

I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with the smallest applique shapes, and I haven't mastered those sharp points without fraying. My little padded berries, all made with the same 3/8" diameter circle templates, are ending up misshapen and unevenly sized by the time I stitch them down. If I master the berry circles later on in this project, I might go back and redo the worst berries on the earliest blocks. For now, however, I have one more applique block plus a pieced block that was just posted today before I am caught up... As well as that big center applique medallion. The applique stitch itself is easy, and although Erin's starch and press method for preparing the applique shapes for stitching takes some time up front, it's nice to not be obligated to cut the backing up so freezer paper can be removed after all the stitching is complete. I love how the hand applique stitches just disappear into the applique fabric when the thread color is a good match.

I'm so glad I decided to give this project a try! Next, I think I'll prep the applique shapes for the 3rd applique block so that's ready to tote around. As for the next pieced block -- maybe that would be a good first project for Judy the Featherweight?

There are only FIVE days of school left before summer vacation, including Field Day, final exams in math and Chinese for both boys, and a science project that Lars and a partner are finishing up this weekend. I have some Room Parent duties (such as creating an end-of-year Signup Genius for next week's party) to wrap up and I'm in the early stages of a client's nursery project as well. Perfect timing, really.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Hand-Stitched Favorites from the 2013 North Carolina Quilt Symposium

2013-05-29T20:41:00.000-04:00

Detail of a Quilt by Anne Francis

Anne Francis had some beautiful work in the North Carolina Quilt Symposium show, last weekend in Fayetteville, including the penguin quilt shown here. This quilt is covered with hundreds and hundreds of hand stitched French knot "snowflakes" that also secure the three layers of the quilt in lieu of traditional quilting stitches. Spectacular! I'm afraid I could not find a label near this one, so I don't know the title.

Another of Anne Francis's quilts that I enjoyed was A Harry Potter Story, made with the author's permission. I made sure to get lots of pictures of this one for my Harry Potter aficionado sons.

A Harry Potter Story, by Anne Francis

Look at the detail on Harry, with his embroidered lightning bolt scar, "Nimbus 2000" inscribed on his broomstick, and the fancifully hand embroidered Golden Snitch!

Detail of A Harry Potter Story, Entirely Handmade by Anne Francis

Harry Potter, Voldemort, Dumbledore, Hagrid, and the Hogwarts Castle were all carefully rendered by hand in applique and embroidery on this hand-pieced quilt. Not a single machine stitch in the entire quilt.

Dumbledore Detail from A Harry Potter Story, by Anne Francis

Isn't that amazing? I was surprised to see so much hand work in this show, since most of the classes offered at this year's Symposium were geared toward machine quilting. On the show floor, I saw quilt after quilt that had been hand pieced, appliqued, and hand quilted, in every style from traditional to contemporary to whimsical. It's so interesting to see how artists working in the same medium (textiles and thread) and using the same techniques can create such completely different quilts. I suppose I was mostly drawn to the appliqued quilts this time around since I'm immersed in my own first applique project.

Detail of Papa's Album, by Sandra Russell

Look at the detail of hand applique with hand embroidered details and thousands of tiny, perfect hand quilting stitches in the Baltimore Album quilt pictured at left, which won first place for Best Hand Quilting. Just marking the straight, parallel lines for the diagonal grid quilting would have been a challenge for me!

Papa's Album, by Sandra Russell

There were some beautiful machine quilts as well, and I'll show those to you tomorrow. Or the next day. Or when I get around to it... ;-)

Only SEVEN more days of school before summer vacation!

Of Birds, Berries, and Grads: Jingle BOM Applique Block One is FINISHED and So Is College For Amanda!

2013-05-20T14:17:00.003-04:00

Jingle BOM Applique Block One FINISHED!

I stitched the last berries to my Jingle BOM Applique Block #1 in the Hartford International Airport last night while waiting for our (much delayed) flight to bring us back from my niece's college graduation. My little 3/8" diameter berries came out better than I'd hoped for, considering that this is my first-ever attempt at applique. I think I cut my seam allowances a little too wide, which created a lot of bulk under the smaller pieces, but I'll try to do better on the next block.

My niece and former flower girl graduated with an Engineering Science degree from Smith College in Northampton, MA yesterday. I still can't believe she's all grown up now.

Bernie and Me with Newly-Graduated Amanda!

It was a beautiful graduation ceremony, the culmination of a weekend full of hundred-year-old traditions and a chance to catch up with my husband's side of the family. Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post delivered one of the best -- and funniest -- commencement speeches that I have ever heard:

Now that I'm finally home (and properly caffeinated, thank you), I've got some unpacking, laundry, and grocery shopping to attend to. Lars and Anders have only three weeks left of school, and next weekend my mom and I are taking a machine applique class with Harriet Hargrave at the North Carolina Quilt Symposium. Now that I've tried a little hand applique, it will be interesting to try Hargrave's invisible machine applique method to see which I prefer.

Have a great week, everyone!

Chopin Meets Suzuki and Alfred Hitchcock: 2013 Spring Music Recitals for Lars and Anders

2013-05-15T21:07:00.004-04:00

It has been a busy spring for my boys this year, with their Willy Wonka Jr. performances at school followed immediately by Anders' Suzuki violin recital, followed the next weekend by both boys' piano recital. For your viewing pleasure, I will share both recitals today.

This was their first recital with their new piano teacher through the Community School of the Arts. They both have been taking piano lessons for three years.

Here's my 12-year-old son, Lars, playing Chopin's Prelude in C Minor, Op. 28 No. 20:

...and here's my 9-year-old son, Anders, playing Gounod's Funeral March of a Marionette (which will sound familiar to Alfred Hitchcock fans): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCAJiBF9jVU. (for some reason I was able to embed Lars's YouTube video but not Anders.' Please let me know whether or not you are able to view the video when you click the link!)

Last but not least, here's Anders playing a Suzuki Etude at his Spring violin recital. He has just completed his first year of violin lessons -- and of course I can't figure out why this YouTube video won't embed in my blog post, but here's a direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLJYSrp-ZAw&feature=youtube_gdata

They both did a fine job, don't you think?

The Fierce Art of Applique: Why Real Quilters Don't Have Fingerprints

2013-05-13T12:18:00.001-04:00

Finally Stitching the First Applique Block!

After spending the last few days preparing applique shapes for stitching, pressing tiny seam allowances with starch and a big, hot iron, I no longer have fingerprints. I have a deeper appreciation for those who craft masterpiece quilts with thousands of itty bitty applique pieces, and if this quilting thing doesn't pan out, I'm all set to become a gangster. They can dust for prints all they want, but they'll never prove it was me... ;-) I'm working on Applique Block One of Erin Russek's Jingle BOM project, which you can find here.

Starch-and-Press Tools

This is my first attempt at hand applique (as opposed to fusible machine applique), and I'm using the starch-and-press method that Erin demonstrates in her blog tutorials. Her tutorial is fantastic, but it's definitely not as easy as it looks! I'm using Mary Ellen's Best Press in lieu of diluted liquid starch because I went to three different grocery stores near my home and NONE of them carry liquid starch. Plus Mary Ellen's Best Press comes in "aromatherapy" flavors, and the lavender kind smells yummy. So I put the Best Press liquid in an Avent baby bottle, thinking that the markings on the side would be useful if I needed to dilute the starch, the small opening at the top (where the nipple would go) is perfect for dipping the stencil brush, and the airtight cap seals it up nicely between pressing sessions -- you know, when I've gone off to slather my fingertips with burn cream...

It took me a long time to make all of the pieces for this block, and I just did it in batches of 5 or 6 pieces at a time. I will say that the first leaf was the hardest, and it did get easier after making more of them. Erin posted a special tutorial for making the cardinals, but I still don't think I did the face and beak parts correctly.

Bird Suffers from BBS, Bulky Beak Syndrome!

Because those pieces were so small, but I still needed a turn-under allowance all the way around, I had a ridiculous amount of fabric bulk and was not able to get the beak as tiny as the pattern specified. I was hoping that I could tighten it up along the edges when I stitched the birds to the background fabric, but that didn't work out, either. I probably should have trimmed away more of the black and red layers beneath the birds' faces, and maybe even slimmed down that turn-under allowance. I think that on the next bird block I will try running a gathering stitch along the turn-under allowance of the beak and see if I can get a smaller seam allowance and flatter finished beak that way. I have to think about this some more; maybe if I figure out how to do the beaks better on a subsequent block I'll be able to come back to this one and redo them.

Step One: Embroidered Stems

Step one for this block was embroidering the chain-stitched branches. Erin used two strands of embroidery floss for her branches, but I used perle cotton because that's what I had on hand in the right shade of green. This probably resulted in thicker stems or branches or whatever they're called, but I think it will be fine.

Birdie Eyeball: The "Black" Embroidery Floss that Turned Out to be Gray

Then, of course, I had to cut out all of my little shapes, press the raw fabric edges under with starch, and preassemble my little birdies. The pattern had tiny circles marked for the cardinals' eyes, but it didn't specify how you were supposed to make them. After looking at some images of cardinals online, I decided to satin stitch the eyes with black embroidery floss and then outline with a backstitch in gray. I had some variegated black and gray DMC embroidery floss, so I just unwound that and cut out the darkest section of floss for the eyeballs and a lighter gray section of the floss for the outline. After finishing the eye of the first bird I realized that the "black" section of the variegated embroidery floss was actually a very dark gray, but I decided it was fine. Maybe my Christmas cardinals have cataracts!

I opted to glue baste all of these pieces onto the block background prior to stitching anything down because I noticed that my shapes all finished slightly larger than the pattern pieces, probably because when I traced the shapes and cut them out I cut outside the line instead of inside the line, and then there's that little bit of bulk from the turn of cloth on top of that. So I thought I should make sure everything was going to fit nicely before I started stitching anything in place.

I positioned my fabric background over the paper pattern and used my light box to precisely place each bird and leaf, securing every piece with dots of Roxanne's Glue-Baste-It. I had a fleeting thought during this process: "Gee, this is going nicely! I'm surprised the fabric isn't shifting on the paper pattern more!" I ignored this thought, and when I had finished gluing down all the pieces I discovered that I had been so zealous in my gluing that I had glued the block to the paper pattern! Fortunately, I was able to tear away the pattern and remove the bits of stuck-on paper from the back of my block with a tweezers. I further secured my applique pieces with 1/2" applique pins for added insurance.

Back View of Applique In Progress

After all that drama, the actual applique stitch is easy-breezy. Since you can't see the stitches from the right side, here's what it looks like from the back (above photo). I'm not sure how close together the applique stitches are supposed to be, but since I'm using a very fine, 60 weight 2-ply cotton embroidery thread, I thought I should err on the side of stitches too close together rather than risk having the stitches too far apart.

I still haven't make the nine 3/8" diameter berries for this block yet, but I did mark their placement with a faint silver pencil. Looking over the directions, the little stuffed circles might actually not be that bad, since you gather the fabric allowance smoothly around the circle template with a running stitch before setting it with the iron. That means I don't need to stick my fingers under a hot iron to push the fabric edges into place as I'm pressing them!

I can't believe it's noon already. I have so much to do today! Happy Monday, everyone!

Ready-to-Wear Inspiration: Decorative Machine Stitches at Lucky Brand and Quilt Block Bodices at Anthropologie

2013-05-03T10:45:00.001-04:00

Riley Schiffli Shorts from Lucky Brand, $79.50

A couple of catalogs caught my eye yesterday as I was tossing them into the recycle bin. You know all those decorative stitches programmed into our sewing machines -- hundreds and hundreds of them? What to my wondering eyes should appear, but cutoff jean shorts at Lucky Brand Jeans that have been decorated with decorative machine stitches along the cut edge to look like eyelet. How cute is that?

Hmmm.. Somewhere I have a pair of beloved jeans with a ripped knee that I couldn't bear to throw away. Maybe I'll try to create a longer version of these shorts? The only thing that I haven't worked out in my head is that bulky double-felled side seam. I might have to completely open up that seam to do the embroidery stitches, then resew it with matching jeans thread, because I can't imagine decorative stitches would form properly if I tried to stitch them across that thick seam.

Sunburst Maxi Dress from Anthropologie, $228

The other interesting piece I saw was in an Anthropologie catalog. At first glance, I thought the bodice of this summer maxi dress was made from a paper-pieced quilt block. Closer inspection indicates that the starburst design is embroidered and beaded, but still -- why NOT make a dress bodice out of quilt blocks? I'm not sure I like the bib-like shape of this dress, but there's no reason any pattern for a woven fabric couldn't be cut from quilt blocks that were made just a bit larger than the pattern pieces. I think I'd line the bodice to make sure the raw edges of the seam allowances don't unravel and come apart as the dress was washed.

Well, I'm in dire and desperate need of a haircut and my appointment is at noon. I have several errands to run beforehand, so I'd best step away from the computer and get on with the day. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Her Name Is Judy: My Featherweight Has an I.Q. of 172

2013-04-30T13:20:00.001-04:00

Judy Holliday in the film Born Yesterday, 1950

My Featherweight now has a name -- it's Judy, after comic actress Judy Holliday. Judy Holliday won the Oscar for Best Leading Lady in 1951 (the year my Featherweight was "born") for her performance in the film Born Yesterday -- and my little Featherweight hums along as if she was only "born yesterday," too!

Actress Judy Holliday, the Dumb Blonde with an I.Q. of 172

Furthermore, although Judy Holliday's fame was built upon her role as a "dumb blonde," she was actually a bookworm with an I.Q. of 172, which is pretty remarkable when you consider that only 0.4% of the population is estimated to have an I.Q. above 140. To further put this into perspective, consider that Bill Gates had an I.Q. of 160, Stephen Hawking has an I.Q. of 160, and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has an I.Q. of 170. This is also like Judy the Featherweight, whose diminutive size and cutesy appearance belies her reputation as one of the best engineered, most reliable, and most beloved sewing machines ever created. Maybe I should get an obnoxious bumper sticker for my car that reads, "My Featherweight is Smarter Than Your Honor Student?" It would look great with my Skull and Scissors Decal...

Judy the Featherweight: Judge Me By My Looks, Do You?

Judy the Featherweight has been set aside for the time being while we wait for her new electrical cord, foot pedal, and missing thread guide to arrive. I did talk to my Bernina dealer about her this morning, and he's going to service the machine for me once I get those parts -- which is wonderful news, because he takes great care of my Berninas and is only a few minutes away from where I live. That will give me the peace of mind of knowing that all the electrical parts are safe, but I also know that Berry (my dealer and service tech) will be able to make any timing or tension adjustments needed and help me keep her in top shape.

As you might imagine, I have accomplished ABSOLUTELY NOTHING today, except for naming a sewing machine and answering a couple of emails. Ahem. Back to work!

Score One for Habitat for Humanity, and Score One for Rebecca! This One IS Mine!

2013-04-29T14:14:00.000-04:00

1951 Singer Featherweight 221

She is stinky. She has dirty brown oily gook in her nooks and crannies, and she is not very shiny. Her toggle light switch is broken off, there is rust on her stitch plate where the chrome plating has worn away, and she is missing the last little thread guide that belongs just below the needle clamp. Her electrical plug is cracked and has a chunk of plastic (bakelight?) missing, exposing live wires (immediately covered with electrical tape by my horrified and ever-watchful husband). However, she has a gorgeous scrolled chrome face plate, she has a complete bobbin and bobbin case, and she runs and stitches beautifully -- (at least, she was stitching beautifully until I started monkeying with the needle tension dial...) But, most importantly, this Featherweight is MINE!

I bought this Singer Featherweight 221 sight unseen from a Habitat for Humanity ReStore located about an hour away from where I live. They had listed it on Craig's List for $200 with a 30-day guarantee, and I was afraid someone else might snatch it up before I was able to get up to Salisbury to take a look at the machine. My son Lars told me I should just buy it over the phone -- "Mom, if you don't like it, you can just sell it on eBay." And he was absolutely right.

1951 Singer Ad for My Exact Machine, the Same Year Mine Was Made

According to the Serial Number Chart on the Singer web site here, my Featherweight was manufactured in the U.K. in 1951, then sent to the Canadian Singer factory to be fitted with a 110-120 volt motor so it could be sold in the United States. She came to me with her original Type 3 black leatherette carrying case, which has one broken latch, an intact original handle, and no keys. The case smells like something died in there, like the something that died is still IN THERE, actually, rotting away... I'll deal with that later.

Unfortunately, the machine did not come with any accessories or with the instruction manual, but I was able to purchase a reproduction manual from an online Featherweight parts dealer -- and then I discovered that I could download the Featherweight owner's manual from the Singer web site for free, here. I printed it out so I can highlight and take notes. As for the original accessories, they would have added value if I wanted to sell the machine, but I don't need rufflers or hemmers for what I plan to do with this Featherweight. She's in great working condition, but cosmetically she's not up-to-snuff as a collector's item and she isn't one of those really rare iterations that would command a high price in any condition. The machine hasn't been abused, just used well over the years, as attested to by the finish wear and all the pin scratches on the flat bed of the machine. Did she sew children's clothing? Hem trousers? Someone's wedding gown, or treasured quilt? What stories could she tell if she could talk to me?

The original straight stitching presser foot is on the machine, and the various quarter inch patchwork feet that most quilters use on Featherweights are all after market parts, anyway.

Hmmm... Is That Nancy Drew with her Featherweight?

I have ordered a replacement foot pedal and electrical cord for safety, that missing thread guide, a reproduction stitch plate with seam width markings (the original plate has chrome worn away around the feed dogs and did not have the markings), a little spring that goes on the spool holder at the top of the machine, and some Singer sewing machine oil and motor lubricant. Most importantly, I've ordered a replacement for the wool felt liner inside the bottom of the machine, which is soaked with old oil and probably mold as well, and is the most likely culprit for my Featherweight's embarrassing body odor problem.

I'm in the process of learning how to clean out the gook and shine her up again. I have read that the factory clear coat finish on a Featherweight is a shellac that is very vulnerable to water and most contemporary cleaning products, as are the mostly intact gold decorative decals on my machine. Since she's not so shiny to begin with, I certainly don't want worsen that problem or accidentally remove any of the decals in my cleaning zeal!

Nancy Drew Again, or Is This Trixie Belden?

I don't know whether I really got a great deal by the time replacement parts and repairs are factored in, but if I did pay too much, at least it went to a great charity. Proceeds from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore directly fund Habitat for Humanity, helping them to fulfill their mission statement: "Habitat for Humanity believes that every man, woman and child should have a decent, safe and affordable place to live. We build and repair houses all over the world using volunteer labor and donations." So not only has my little Featherweight churned out countless sewing projects over the past 62 years; she is also helping to provide affordable housing for a family in need.

She's a cute little machine, an icon of an era when machinery was built to last a lifetime. She only sews forwards and backwards, but Featherweights are legendary for their perfect straight stitch and reliability. I will use this machine as it was intended, as a portable sewing machine that I could take on vacation or to a workshop, and it will also be convenient when I'm doing crazy quilting with bobbinwork decorative stitch embellishment on the seams, because I can stitch the seam on the Featherweight, flip it open, and then stitch the decorative stitch pattern on my snazzy Bernina 750 QE without having to change settings, rethread, and monkey with the bobbin tension after each and every seam. Sewing on this machine is like traveling backwards through time.

The Singer 221 Featherweight was a modern marvel of design and engineering when it was unveiled at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933, just like my Bernina is in 2013. But I don't think for a minute that anyone will want to sew on my Bernina 80 years from now. When it comes to sewing machines, they really don't make them like they used to!

This Is Not My Featherweight... But It Should Be!

2013-04-26T15:33:00.003-04:00

Quilty Joy: Someone Else's Featherweight

I got sucked down a black hole of Featherweight obsession this week, and I can't even remember what set it off. I found this gorgeous image on Pinterest (another time-sucking black hole of Internet temptation and delight), which sources back to a post on a blog entitled Anyone Can Quilt here. Look carefully at that picture, and what do you see? A modern, snazzy Bernina in the background. Which just proves that I'm not the only Thoroughly Modern Quilter who has been bitten by the Bewitching Featherweight Bug.

She was introduced at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933. She was one of the first truly portable sewing machines, weighing in at approximately 11 pounds due to the use of some aluminum instead of the cast iron of other sewing machines at that time. She was perfectly balanced, sewed a beautiful straight stitch and was sold until about 1970, when home sewers demanded zigzag machines and the built-to-last-generations Featherweight was no longer cost-effective to manufacture. Probably the single most popular sewing machine of all time, over 3 million Featherweights were sold between 1933 and 1970, and quite a few of them are still around, sewing just as beautifully as the day they were made. Quilters rediscovered this little gem of a machine in the 1990s -- they are perfect for piecing quilt tops, which only requires a straight stitch anyway, and the Featherweight is small and light enough to bring to classes, guild meetings or retreats. A Featherweight is quite the conversation piece, and they are just plain GORGEOUS.

Do I need one? Of course not. Do I want one? Duh... And am I going to get one? Oh, it's just a matter of time...

Immaculate Pre-War Featherweight with Scrolled Faceplate and Chrome Handwheel

I am in Research Mode right now. I downloaded the Kindle version of Featherweight 221: The Perfect Portable and its Stitches Across History, by Nancy Johnson-Srebro, from Amazon and have been reading it on my iPad. I've learned that nowhere on any of these machines does it actually SAY Featherweight. I've learned about the manufacturing changes over time, how to guesstimate the age of a machine and pin it down to a "birth year" by serial number, how to thread the machine, and how to trouble-shoot the most common problems. I've been trolling eBay and Craigslist to see what the machines are going for. But I'm torn -- I really love the craftsmanship of the pre-war Featherweights, like the one shown above, but I also like the no-nonsense mid-century appeal -- and the addition of seam width markings on the stitch plate -- that the mid-1950s Featherweights feature:

1955 Featherweight 221, for sale here

You know I really want one of each, don't you? So now that I know what I'm looking for, I'll just keep this in the back of my mind until the right machine turns up at the right price. I'm still learning the ins-and-outs of my new Bernina 750 QE sewing machine, which due to size, weight, and modern technology is the polar opposite of a Featherweight machine that pre-dates the zigzag! I also have some hand applique for my Jingle BOM that I've been avoiding starting for some ridiculous reason. After all, the worst that can happen is that the first attempt comes out ugly (do it over!) or that I stab myself with a needle (get a Band-Aid!).

I'll leave you with one last glimpse of another lovely Featherweight that doesn't belong to me:

Photo by Linzee McCray, read her Featherweight blog post on etsy here

Anders' Suzuki Violin recital is tomorrow morning and Lars is headed to a computer programming class at Central Piedmont Community College. Twenty-six kids between the ages of 10-13 will be learning how to program video games. You should have seen his eyes light up when I told him about it! I hope it's as much fun as he's expecting. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Jingle BOM Quilt Pieced Block No. 1 and School Musical Wrap-Up

2013-04-20T21:04:00.004-04:00

"Jingle" BOM Quilt Pieced Block #1 Completed!

I managed to finish my Jingle BOM Pieced Block No. 1 today after the kids' play wrapped up. Since I'm catching up on this BOM (Block of the Month), I'm doing the blocks out of order and have already completed Pieced Block No. 2. After this, I have the first two appliqued blocks to do and a big, scary, appliqued center medallion for the quilt, and then I'll be caught up. The pattern was designed by Erin Russek of One Piece at a Time, and you can visit her blog here to catch up if you'd like to join in.

I've never done one of these BOM things before, but I'm finding that there are some advantages to working this way. For instance, usually when I start a quilt, I pick out all of my fabrics and cut out every single piece before I start sewing anything together. This way, doing only one block at a time, I find that I'm not rushing as much because I don't have an intimidating stack of little squares and triangles waiting to be pieced together. I am doing a lot more frog stitching (Rip it! Rip it!), taking seams out and redoing them until they are perfect before moving on to the next unit. I can't stand when my crisp little triangle points get eaten in the seam, and I want those seam intersections to match up perfectly.

Well, this year's school musical officially wrapped up after the final matinee performance this afternoon. Dads disassembled the sets while moms sorted out costumes, and now the Willy Wonka Jr. production is just a memory. I thought I would be relieved, since the late night rehearsals (and even later nights fighting with small actors who think theatre should exempt them from other schoolwork) have been running me pretty ragged. Naturally I'm glad the let's-make-lederhosen experience is behind me (what was I thinking?!). I volunteered as a "child-wrangler" for two of the four performances, which entailed patrolling backstage and shushing actors who were not currently on stage. It turns out that I am a terrible child-wrangler -- since the kids were all quiet, I sat down in the hallway where I could intimidate them with my presence (hopefully) and control them with an occasional scowl or shush. I took out my iPad and stylus, opened the Paper by 53 drawing app, and started practicing quilting designs:

Before long, I had a flock of kids huddled around watching me draw, which I thought was great, because they were quiet, right? Except that some of them were so interested in my doodles that they missed their cues and did not appear on stage when they were supposed to. Oops. Don't tell the director -- I don't want to be the first parent volunteer ever to be fired!

I don't think the kids were as interested in my drawings as they were in the app I was using to draw them.

In any case, the show is done, the lederhosen is done, and the two pieced blocks for the Jingle quilt are behind me now. That makes next week a fresh page, perfect for starting something new -- like needle-turn applique! I may sneak in a little free-motion quilting on Monday, now, too. After all of that doodling, I feel like quilting some feathers!

Enjoy what's left of your weekend!

I Have a Design Wall!

2013-04-18T23:13:00.002-04:00

Design Wall Installed!

Yay -- I finally have a design wall in my sewing studio! See my lonely little block up there? I'm hoping to get more of those done next week, after the madness of the school theatre production wraps up this weekend.

My design board is a 4' x 8' sheet of foam insulation board from Lowe's Home Improvement, and I decided to wrap it with English Bump drapery interlining because I had a partial bolt of it sitting around. English bump is 100% cotton, thick like table felt, but with more of a "bumpy" texture to it, so I knew it would be perfect for sticking blocks and fabric pieces even without pins. I like to use English Bump for all of my silk draperies because it creates a gorgeous drapery with substantial body and luxurious thickness, the interlining provides excellent UV protection for silk, and it's also a great insulator and sound muffler. I think it runs somewhere between $12-16 per yard, but like I said, I have a bolt of it on hand that I don't need for anything in the immediate future so it's free-to-me! For my design wall, I also love that the bump is so similar in color to my walls so it doesn't jump out at me. It's also so soft and smooth, like an expensive blanket, so you might catch me rubbing my face against the design wall like a kitty cat if I'm having a rough day... ;-)

Close-Up of Fuzzy English Bump on Design Wall

We used a permanent spray adhesive (outside!) to adhere the bump fabric to the foam insulation board. Then we wrapped the raw fabric edges to the back side, secured them with duct tape, and my husband used industrial-strength Velcro hook and loop tape to secure it to my wall. I wish it was wider but this is my only full height wall in the room that isn't broken up by windows, and as you can see, I can't go any wider because of the ceiling slope. I'm going to use a step stool to position things on the upper portion of the design wall when I need that space. Oh, and one more thing -- the design wall is opposite several windows, but I have ceramic UV film on all of them to protect my fabrics and furnishings from the sun without blocking out my natural daylight.

Several people have asked me about the UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) that I use for my computerized sewing machine, and I'm planning to put together a post about that soon. I just need to do a little research and fact-checking first to make sure I'm not contributing to the abundant misinformation already out there on the Internet.

What's next for my studio remodel? Well, now that I've got my design wall, we need to enlarge the cutting area, build in additional storage beneath, and find the perfect surface for the cutting table. One step at a time...

Lederhosen FINISHED!

2013-04-16T14:40:00.000-04:00

Final Lederhosen Fitting -- SUCCESS!!

...And they FIT! Which is fabulous, since I had NO backup plan in case they didn't fit and tomorrow is the first dress rehearsal. After the young actor tried them on, I took the lederhosen back to my studio to decorate them:

Finished, Decorated, DONE.

That's better, isn't it? I cut the fake welt pocket leaves out of felt and used 505 Temporary Spray Adhesive to position them next to the side seams. Same with the extra leaf that I added on the placket thingy. Then I used my BSR foot, stitch length 3.0, to free-motion the edge stitching to the lederhosen with jeans thread. I added the little swirly things around the placket leaf the same way. What did I learn? Well, I thought that free-motion quilting was challenging with a flatbed setup, but it's MUCH more difficult to FMQ when you have to use the free arm because the pants are already assembled -- if I had this to do over, I'd have done the "decorating" before sewing the side seams together. I did it this way because I didn't want to waste my time embellishing something that didn't fit and had to be scrapped.

Could I add more decorative swirlies around the faux pocket decorations? Would the lederhosen look more authentic with a little knife pocket on the side seam? Absolutely -- but this is a costume for a school play, that will only be worn for three performances, and I have put plenty of time into it already. So I'm calling it Good Enough! Back to my Jingle BOM!

A Puppy Portrait Plea and a Lederhosen Update

2013-04-15T11:24:00.000-04:00

Proposed Formal Portrait of Otto

Now, how funny is that? Bernie took some really great photos of our Rottweiler puppies the other day, and I just couldn't help myself... I found some photos of oil portraits from my trip to the Louvre and used my design software to stick my puppies' heads in place of the people.

Proposed Formal Portrait of Lulu

This one is Lulu, my Puppy Princess Extraordinaire. I think the hands would need to be replaced with paws, and the background might need to be lightened up a little so she doesn't blend into it and disappear.

My mother does some oil painting, and she painted a fantastic portrait of my sister's dog once from a photo. If she loves me as much as she loves Janice, don't you think she should whip up these paintings of my sweet doggies as well? After all, they are her grandpuppies.

I think it would be hysterical to hang large oil paintings of my dogs like this, in matching ornate frames, in my living room. Did you hear that, Mother? I would hang them in a PLACE OF HONOR IN MY HOME, where everyone would see them and marvel at your mastery. Please please please please please...

And now, back to the lederhosen, which are almost actually finished. I just need to sew on seven buttons and three buttonholes. If I have time, I'll add that little knife pocket to the right side seam and maybe some decorations to make them extra-snazzy. But even at this point, they are wearable with safety pins. I think that all the top stitching with jeans thread helps to make them look more like leather, don't you?

Lederhosen Costume In Progress

These need to be finished TODAY, in time for rehearsal at 3:30 PM. And they had just better fit the boy, because I can't really make any adjustments at this point and there isn't enough time to start over. I used a strip of drapery buckram, trimmed to 2" wide, to stiffen the waistband, and I found some jute ribbon at Michael's to simulate the leather lacings at the sides. I have some red and green felt that I'm thinking of using to recreate the effect of the oak leaf pocket design on Bernie's authentic lederhosen, as well:

Bernie's Real Lederhosen

We need to use the real lederhosen straps with our costume, and they are a hunter green embossed leather with red leather trim, like the decorative pockets, so I think that adding those red and green leaf pockets would help to make our brown lederhosen coordinate with the straps better.

Of course, nothing is getting done AT ALL as long as I sit at the computer, clickety-clacking away...

Lederhosen Procrastination and Fabric Auditions

2013-04-12T23:40:00.001-04:00

This is Not Lederhosen...

The first dress rehearsal for the school play is Tuesday, just three days away. You would think that I'd have finished that lederhosen costume by now, wouldn't you, or that I'd at least be putting the finishing touches on it? Nope -- I played with fabric and cut out all the pieces for the next pieced block in the Jingle Block of the Month quilt instead. Do you like how I fussy-cut the little corner squares? You would not believe how much time I spent mulling over fabrics and auditioning them together, and trying to decide which snippet of this glorious Christmas print should be featured on the corner squares of the block. I can't wait to sew this block together -- but NO! I have to make a lederhosen costume. Ah, regret soaked in procrastination...

Some helpful folks on the Yahoo Bernina groups alerted me to Burda's lederhosen patterns, but unfortunately the children's pattern does not go large enough for this actor, who wears a size 12 husky in ready-to-wear, but the men's pattern is way too large. Also I have waited until the last minute, and now there is no time to order a pattern anyway. My husband has been making helpful comments like "why don't you just buy a pair of brown shorts?" He does not understand that I TOLD PEOPLE I could MAKE them out of fabric that I already own. If I just went out and bought a pair of shorts, that would be like Bernie hiring someone else to fix a hole in the dry wall or put up crown moulding. Plus, the little button flap front of the lederhosen is what makes them look authentic, and they do NOT sell any shorts that look like this at Gap Kids!

So I turned Bernie's old lederhosen inside-out and carefully traced off a muslin pattern along the seam lines.

Since this is just a costume, I'm ignoring the pockets. I carefully added an inch or so all the way around, trued up the seam lines so the pieces would match up and fit together properly, and then added seam allowances to that. I basted the muslin pieces together and brought them to play practice for the little boy to try on.

Well, somehow I goofed because the legs flared out like an A-line skirt, but the waist was WAY too tiny and the boy couldn't close it! I think I forgot to add back in the bulk of the darts in the back pieces or something. Now that I look of that picture of my pattern piece for the back of the shorts, it's obvious that it's all goofed up. I mean, LOOK at it! So, do you think I went right back into my sewing room to fix the problem on the muslin and get busy on the real costume? Of course not! My ego was bruised, and I needed to do something that I'm good at to restore my confidence.

I'm good at picking out fabric. ;-)

I cut a 1 1/2" square out of an index card to create a little window for selecting which part of this big, busy print I could feature on the corners of my block:

Isn't that fun? It's called Florentine Something-Or-Other and I've had it in my stash for years, just haven't found the right project for it yet. The hardest part was finding a motif that fit into a 1 1/2 inch square, and the next hardest part was finding one that I liked that had the right colors and value, and that I had four repeats of in this piece of fabric.

Anyway, back to the wretched lederhosen, which I have decided NOT to embroider. This is a costume that will be worn only three times, and it isn't even for my own child to wear. It would be crazy for me to slave away over this too much. Especially since just making a pair of shorts that are shaped somewhat like a human being is proving to be such a challenge!

So I made the legs narrower, made the waist wider, and cut the pieces out of the microsuede yesterday. I started sewing them together today, and now I'm working on the button flap thingy for the front. Tomorrow is a busy day -- Anders has a friend sleeping over tonight, then Lars has Chinese tutoring in the morning and they both have piano lessons in the afternoon, but I hope I manage to drag myself back into the sewing room to finish the lederhosen costume. My quilt block pieces will be flirting with me from across the room the whole time...

As Ye Sew, So Shall Ye RIP! Jingle Quilt BOM, Pieced Block No. 2

2013-04-08T17:06:00.002-04:00

Jingle BOM Pieced Block #2, Finally!

Sometimes, I think I'm really good at something, and then I discover that I'm really NOT. Does this ever happen to you? Well, it happened to me this weekend. Erin Russek of One Piece At A Time is doing a Christmas themed Block of the Month (BOM) quilt this year called Jingle, and I'm determined to make this quilt. Erin designs and sews the most beautiful appliqued quilt patterns, and her extensive needle-turn applique instructions on her blog tutorial have encouraged me to let 2013 be the year I finally learn to do hand applique. I've admired others' applique work forever, but it's kind of scary to think about going Old School without my fancy schmancy Bernina technology to make me look better than I am.

Erin Russek's Jingle Quilt BOM, patterns and instructions available here

Erin's pattern for the central poinsettia applique medallion for this quilt is available for $10.00 here. The remaining blocks, 8 applique and 8 pieced, will be posted one at a time as free downloads on Erin's blog, One Piece At A Time, between now and November, and so far she has posted two applique blocks and two pieced blocks. I'm a little behind already, but if I focus on just one block at a time, I should have a beautiful new quilt just in time for holiday decorating. It's kind of fun not knowing what the whole quilt will look like until the end, too. I love flowers, birds, Christmas, and red and green color schemes, so I know I'll really enjoy this project.

So far I have purchased the center medallion pattern and downloaded the four block patterns that have been released so far, and I finally picked out all of my fabrics and collected all of the supplies I'll need for the applique work, so it's time for me to catch up! Naturally I am too chicken to start out with the huge 27" square center medallion for my first-ever applique, and even the smaller cardinal and floral applique blocks look kind of intimidating. But the pieced blocks? I've done plenty of pieced blocks before. I'm good at pieced blocks. Piece of cake, right? WRONG!

Pieced Block #2

I chose Pieced Block #2 to start with, because the 3" center square is perfect for fussy-cutting my red poinsettia print fabric. After auditioning scraps of fabric for about an hour (seriously!) I finally settled on the ones I wanted to use for this block, carefully cut out my squares, half square triangles, and quarter square triangles, and started piecing this block together on my Bernina 750 QE sewing machine with my #37D Dual Feed Quarter Inch Patchwork foot, dual feed engaged. I started from the center square, first adding the gold triangles and then the green print triangles after that. It was a disaster -- since the long side of the triangles (hypotenuse) was longer than the side of the square piece they were sewn to, I had trouble lining the pieces up correctly and the sides of the resulting square did not match up accurately -- easy to tell, because the sides of the square did not meet up at all. So I ripped those stitches out and sewed the seams again, and the second time, my yellow square with a red square inside was actually a square. So I sewed the green triangles on next, had more jagged sides, and had to rip those seams out and redo them. I was so careful to get perfect little points on each and every triangle and I was delighted with how my block was coming along... Until I MEASURED it.

First Try, After Ripping and Restitching Twice, Still a Failure!

This block is supposed to finish at 9" square. That means that the portion of the block that I'd sewn so far should measure exactly 6 1/2" square (6" plus a 1/4" seam allowance on all four sides). As you can see in this photo, a combination of factors had combined to cause my block to finish too small and not even square. And that's when I realized that I have never attempted to piece a block with this many pieces before. I've done a strip-pieced Roman Square quilt, a double 9-patch quilt (also using the strip technique for the 9-patch units), a maple leaf pieced quilt with squares and HST (half square triangle) units, and the Drunkard's Path quilt that I finished most recently introduced the challenge of a curved seam but there were still only two pieces to each block. The more pieces in a quilt block, the more seams, and the more seams, the more imperative it is that each and every one of those seams is EXACTLY 1/4" or else the pieces won't fit together properly and the blocks won't end up the correct size. So all this time I thought I had mastered that perfect 1/4" seam, and apparently I just couldn't tell I was off because the blocks I was piecing were so easy that I was "close enough."

Well, when I get stumped, I go to my books to find solutions from people who actually DO know what they are doing. This time, the expert advice I turned to came from Sally Collins' book, The Art of Machine Piecing, available from Amazon here. Collins specializes in piecing on a very small scale, reducing traditional quilt blocks down to just 3" blocks, which requires fanatically accurate piecing skills.

The biggest light bulb for me was Collins' recommendation that you determine the grid for each block and from there, calculate the size of each and every unit of that block including the seam allowance. Collins measures her block units after sewing every single seam, so that if something is off she discovers the problem immediately and knows that it had to be the last seam she stitched. Why didn't I think of that? The block I was attempting was a 3x3 grid, and my pieces were all supposed to finish 3", 6", or 1 1/2" (plus 1/2" seam allowances).

Chalk Lines for Positioning Triangles

So the next day, I cut all new pieces of fabric, this time using my Kaye England Cut for the Cure specialty rulers so that I could cut everything from 2" strips instead of doing the traditional but convoluted "add 7/8" and cut the square diagonally" method of cutting that I'd done the first go-'round. I was REALLY careful to cut my pieces to exactly the right size -- after all, if each piece was too small by even a 32nd of an inch, by the time you multiply that by all 41 pieces in this block it would add up to a significant error no matter how perfect my quarter inch seam was. Then, for the triangles that needed to be sewn to the straight sides of the red square, I decided to mark the center with a chalk X to help me position the triangle points more precisely. That made a HUGE difference!

Perfect this time! No "Squaring Up" Trimming!

I was REALLY careful with the seam allowances today, too, watching the right side of the presser foot to make sure the fabric edge was aligned exactly with the edge of the foot, without even a thread of fabric sticking out to the right.

Measuring Each Unit As It's Sewn: A Perfect 1 1/2" HST Unit

I know a lot of quilters say you shouldn't press during block construction or that you shouldn't press with steam because of the potential for distortion, but I suspected that I might be losing some of my block by not pressing my seams flat enough before sewing the next piece on top of them, so I pressed my little units as flat as little pancakes. I found a Husqvarna Viking padded ironing surface with a 1/2" grid in my sewing room that I've had forever and never used (it came in some kind of Quilting or Home Dec kit, I think). This made it really easy to check my units for size and squareness at the same time, and allowed me to use some steam with my iron without worry of distortion. Why did I never use this before? It's fabulous!

#57 Quarter Inch Patchwork Foot with Guide

I experimented with different presser feet today, too. I decided that the #37 D Dual Feed Patchwork Foot might be nice for piecing long strips together without shifting or bowing, but that I wanted more support for my fabric at the back of the presser foot because some of my tiny triangles were getting "eaten" and pulled down into the stitch plate when I was using the dual feed. I switched to my #57 Quarter Inch Patchwork Foot with Seam Guide, which was nice because it has a barrier at the right side of the foot that prevents you from sewing your seam allowance too wide. However, once I was sewing different pieced units together, I discovered that you can't sew over pins with the #57 foot because the pins cannot pass under that guide plate, and I NEED to pin whenever seams need to meet up precisely. At that point I switched to my #37 Quarter Inch Patchwork Foot, the plain one without dual feed or a seam guide, and that worked best for me for assembling the block units. I always use a straight stitch plate on my 9 mm machine when I'm piecing, and for this block I followed Collins' recommendation to piece with a Schmetz 70/11 Microtex needle. I used Aurifil Mako 50 weight 2-ply cotton thread.

And finally, after three days, I have finished the block AND it measures 9 1/2" x 9 1/2" just as it should. Yay!

Finished! Perfect Triangle Points! Perfectly Square, AND 9 1/2" x 9 1/2"!

Hopefully the next blocks will go together easier, now that I've worked out my kinks. There are so many different methods for cutting and piecing these units; if one method doesn't work for you, just try another one.

Before I can move on to the next block of my Jingle quilt, I'm going to have to get back to that lederhosen costume I promised to make for the school play. In fact, I need to head to school right now to pick up my kids from rehearsal and hopefully get Augustus Gloop to try on the muslin shorts I whipped up over the weekend. They are enormous, but the plan is to have him try them on inside out, pin the side seams and mark the muslin, and then use that for my pattern when I cut into the microsuede. I'm reconsidering the embroidery, though -- this is a costume that will be worn for 3 performances, so it doesn't make sense to slave over them and make myself crazier than I already am!

Let's Sew Embroidered Lederhosen! Or, The One Where Rebecca has Lost her Mind

2013-04-05T07:30:00.000-04:00

Strange Men in Lederhosen, photo courtesy of Google ;-)

So my kids' school is doing a production of Willy Wonka Jr. in a few weeks, and they sent an email out to parents with a list of props and costume items they were hoping someone could donate or loan for use in the production. One of those items was lederhosen for Augustus Gloop. We have a pair of lederhosen that belonged to Bernie when he was a child, so I brought them in... Alas, our Augustus Gloop is bigger than Bernie was when he fit into these leather shorts. Then, because I am that rare combination of an insane person who is also a showoff, I heard these words coming out of my mouth: "I'll bet I could make him a pair of lederhosen out of some brown microsuede fabric that I have sitting around in my sewing room." There were witnesses to this lunacy, and now I am officially responsible for costuming Augustus Gloop. In lederhosen. With no pattern, and no experience sewing any kind of shorts or pants, EVER.

Bernie's lederhosen weren't embroidered; they were just decorated with leaf-shaped leather appliques, but my internet search for photo inspirations turned up quite a few embroidered versions. Embroidering microsuede is sure to be a nightmare, which is right up my alley. Fun, fun fun!

Here's the plan: I'm going to attempt to make a muslin pattern from the existing lederhosen by turning them inside out and tracing along the seamlines. Then I'll add an inch or two to the length and width, sew the muslin together, and have the Augustus actor try them on for fit. If the muslin fits, it's my pattern. If not, I tweak it until it does fit. I'm going to raise the waistband a bit, like the lederhosen dude on the right, so I can use the straps from Bernie's real lederhosen instead of having to mess with buckles etc. I just have to put buttons on my shorts that fit the buttonholes on the lederhosen straps.

My microsuede fabric is soft and drapey, not stiff like the leather lederhosen, so I'm going to try to interface it with some Pellon stuff. Can you fuse interfacing to microsuede? I don't know -- but I'm going to find out! The embroidery will be the fun part... Here are some of the things I found online:

I am NOT going to attempt to put pockets on my lederhosen, but the shoe lace ties on the green pair might be fun...

Pernicious Puckers and Detestable Thread Loopies: Trouble-Shooting in Machine Embroidery

2013-04-03T12:16:00.000-04:00

Okay, so remember the Big, Bodacious Birdie that I spent the better part of two days embroidering for the Machine Embroidery Blog Hop a couple of weeks ago? I promised I would do a follow up about some of my trouble-shooting, and here it is.

I really need to do a huge disclaimer here first to let you all know that I am NOT a very experienced machine embroiderer. I have embroidered monogrammed gifts here and there, a quilt label or two, and a couple of Bob the Builder designs on tiny little sweatshirts, and I have done some outline quilting with my embroidery module, but that's about it. Now that I've invested in a new machine with superior embroidery capabilities and a great, big Jumbo Hoop to go with it, I'm determined to do more embroidery than I did in the past, and I'm hell-bent on solving the most irksome problems that have plagued my machine embroidery projects from the very beginning: Pernicious Puckering and DetestableThread Loopies of Doom!

Puckering with Organ Titanium 80/12BP Embroidery Needle

So, for the ME Blog Hop, I tried to follow the Anita Goodesign directions to the letter, but the directions were specifically written for the applique block designs and I was embroidering an individual, NON-applique motif that I had enlarged by about 10-12% in my Bernina embroidery software. I noticed some puckering around the fill stitching with the very first thread color, but I didn't stop and start over because I honestly didn't know what to change and I had to get the design stitched out and the post written up for my blog hop deadline. I decided to use this as a learning opportunity, knowing that I could use the finished design for free-motion quilting practice if it turned out really awful and unusable. So I stitched away...

I take a scientific approach to these kinds of problems. Step one was the research phase, where I read several books on machine embroidery and compared advice from different authors. (See my book reviews here). As soon as I noticed that my birdie design was puckering, I got the books out again and started hunting through them for ideas. I had learned that puckering is usually a symptom of stretching the fabric when you're hooping it, but that puckering can also be caused by insufficient stabilizing or by using a ball point needle when a sharp needle would have been more appropriate for your fabric. Since my silk fabric had been interfaced with Pellon Ultra Weft, then spray-basted with 505 to a piece of muslin that was spray-basted to a piece of midweight tearaway embroidery stabilizer, I thought for sure I had the stabilizing part of the equation under control. With all four layers sandwiched together and then starched, it felt like I was hooping a piece of card stock instead of fabric.

The first color in this design was a dense fill stitch for the top bird, but most of the subsequent colors were satin stitched elements, and lordy, how the Loopies of Doom reared their ugly heads!

Behold, the Detestable Thread Loopies of Doom!

I knew I could fix these ugly upper thread loops after the design was finished (I'll show you how later in the post), but there were SO many of them and honestly, I knew I must be doing something wrong and I was determined to figure out what it was. These upper thread loops have plagued my embroidery projects from the very beginning, when I tried just cutting them off (bad idea -- it makes your whole design unravel!). My preliminary internet research revealed that many people think this problem is just inherent to domestic embroidery machines, or that it's more of a problem with certain machine brands than others. Not so! These upper thread loops, which are most common with satin stitches, indicate that there is an issue with the upper thread misbehaving as your needle passes down into your fabric to form a stitch. Our variables are the needle, the thread, and the fabric. So I experimented with changing one variable at a time, taking notes about what I had tried and what results I noticed, before changing a different variable. The first suspect is the needle, so I started changing them out after each color change and taking notes on what I had tried so far and what results I was getting.

H80/12TBP = 80/12 Titanium BALL POINT!

I had started out with one of what I thought was the best embroidery needles in my drawer, an 80/12 Organ Titanium Coated Embroidery Needle. Titanium coated needles last 5-7x as long as chrome plated needles, so they are worth the higher price point. But what did this give me? Thread loopies! I put in a new needle of the same type, brand and size, in case the first needle had a burr or defect. Still thread loopies. That was when I noticed that my package said BALLPOINT embroidery needles. One of my books had explained that most of the flat shank embroidery needles sold for domestic (non-commercial) embroidery machines had a ballpoint tip, whereas the round shank embroidery needles for commercial machines came in a much greater variety to suit a wider range of fabrics.

90/14 SHARP Embroidery Needles

Aha! I dug around in my drawer (it helps to have a stockpile of lots of different needles) and tried a size 90/14 Organ Sharp Embroidery Needle. Guess what? Once I had switched from a ballpoint needle to a sharp point needle, I saw no more puckering with this design, even when the second bird stitched out with the same dense fill stitch that caused puckering right out of the gate. I still was seeing thread loopies, but fewer than before.

I consulted my book again, the one about embroidering on "difficult materials," and saw that the author recommended using a MICROTEX needle instead of an embroidery needle when embroidering a densely woven silk fabric like mine. More digging in the needle drawer yielded a pack of 70/10 Schmetz Microtex needles. DISASTER! Uber thread loops! Eek! The size 70 needle made a hole that was much too small for the 40 weight Isacord embroidery thread to pass through smoothly.

The Winner!!!

Finally, I put in a larger 90/14 Schmetz Microtex Needle, and my thread loopies were almost completely eliminated. If you think about it, this makes sense. Microtex needles are designed with a very slim, acute point, for precise stitching through densely woven microfibre, silk (like my silk shantung!), satins, and artificial leather, and the larger 90/14 size was better suited to my thread.

I said that the 90/14 Microtex needle ALMOST eliminated all of the thread loopies. I eventually figured out that the remaining loops resulted from the way the slippery embroidery thread was falling off the spool too rapidly, reducing the tension on the upper thread even though it was properly threaded through the tension disks. I had started out with my embroidery thread on the horizontal spool pin, then tried it on the machine's vertical spool pin (I didn't like how the larger embroidery spool wobbled around there) and finally put it on a free-standing cone thread stand next to my machine to facilitate speedy color changes (this was before I got the adapter to attach my Multiple Spool Holder to my new 750 QE machine). I was using the thread net thingy with the first couple of colors on the horizontal spool holder to keep the thread from unwinding too fast and getting caught, but I stopped using the net when I went vertical with the thread because it was slowing down my color changes, I was lazy, and didn't believe the thread net was doing anything anyway. Wrong!

No Thread Net

See how slack the red embroidery thread is in the photo above, how it drapes between thread guides on its way to the tension disks? Somewhere I read that these ugly thread loopies can be caused by upper thread tension that is too loose, but I couldn't believe that the default embroidery tension on my fancy-schmancy new machine would need to be adjusted for plain old Isacord thread.

Thread Net to the Rescue!

Noticing the slack in my embroidery thread as it fed to the machine, I decided to try putting the silly little net thing on the thread (it reminds me of the hair nets worn by lunch ladies in school cafeterias). Believe it or not, this silly little fishnet stocking thing immediately corrected the upper thread tension, eliminating the remaining thread loops. Who knew?!

This is how the thread looks at the back of the machine when I have a thread net on the spool:

Thread Delivery is Taut When Using Thread Net on Embroidery Spool

See how nice and taut it is, with no loose slack between the thread guides? So finally, after 3+ hours of embroidery, testing out four different kinds of needles and several different setups for upper thread delivery, I finally figured out that Microtex 90/14 needle + Thread Net = No Puckering or Thread Loops on Silk Shantung!

Here's that finished design again, still in the hoop. You can see the initial puckering and horizontal wrinkling that I had with the first ballpoint embroidery needle around the body and tail of the top bird. All of my thread loopies are still in the design at this point as well.

Remember that ugly thread loopy photo I showed you at the beginning of this post? Here it is again:

And here is that same portion of the embroidery design, after I pulled the thread loops to the back of the design with a simple sweater pull repair tool that cost less than $2:

Thread Loopies Gone!

Essential Embroidery Tools: Hemostat, Curved Scissors, and Snag Repair Tool for Thread Loopies

These are the three most important embroidery tools that did NOT come with your machine. The curved scissors at the top of this photo is perfect for trimming jump stitches while your design is stitching out. The snag repair tool at right gets inserted into your completed embroidery design from the right side, right next to a thread loop. You simply twist the tool slightly as you pull it through the embroidery design, and it catches the thread loop and pulls it to the back side of your work.

So, what's the other tool in that photo, at bottom left? It's a hemostat. It looks like a scissor/tweezers but it has serrated edges that tightly grip as little as a single slippery embroidery thread when the handles lock together.

Because I hate to waste bobbin thread, I keep sewing until my bobbin completely runs out, and I end up with 5-7 satin stitches of white bobbin thread on the top of my design that I have to remove before I can back the machine up and continue embroidering my design. I use my curved scissors to clip through the center of those satin stitches from the right side of my design (without severing the top embroidery thread), still in the hoop, and then I can grab one side of the clipped satin stitches with my hemostat tool and pull them all out with one tug. Easy-peasy! Then I just back the machine up those few stitches and continue embroidering the design.

Lest you think that I have finally solved all of the mysteries of machine embroidery, let me show you what happened when I unhooped this design:

This excess fabric and puffiness in between embroidered areas is a different kind of puckering from what was happening with the ballpoint needle around the top bird. I think the slippery silk fabric slipped loose at the edges of my hoop, and I think this because my "embroidering difficult fabrics" book advised wrapping the inner hoop with self-adhesive VetRap to prevent this problem with silks.

Remember how I said that I tried to follow the Anita Goodesign instructions as much as possible, but their directions were for an applique block? They were having you hoop only your muslin and stabilizer, and then overlay your silk fabrics as applique pieces that would be secured individually as part of the embroidered applique process, so their silk wasn't in the hoop at all. Although I had four layers sandwiched together for this design, I noticed upon completion that the Pellon Ultra Weft interfacing was pulling away from the silk in places and that the 505 spray had not prevented my silk fabric from separating and moving away from the muslin and tearaway stabilizer that it was hooped with.

Since I had spent over four hours stitching out this design, I tried to "fix" this problem by ironing the completed design from the back side, face down over a terry cloth towel, as I have heard many people recommend. Hmmm...

After Ironing!!! :-(

I am NEVER GOING TO DO THIS, EVER AGAIN!!!! Surely you heard my lunatic screaming reverberating around the planet? Apparently, I don't know how to iron, either! Soon after this picture was taken, my darling husband spilled COFFEE on this design, too. So this stitch out is destined for free-motion quilting practice after all. It will be interesting to see whether I can quilt out all that excess waviness in the design with close echoing or pebbling or something, and I can practice other designs around the embroidery. But I have NOT given up on this.

I'm going to try this design again, using the 90/14 Microtex needle, but next time I'm going to:

Wrap my inner hoop with self-adhesive bandage tape to better grip the slippery silk
Engage my machine's basting function to secure all layers around the hoop's perimeter prior to stitching the design
Try a different fusible interfacing for my silk fabric. I brought home two different options from Sew Much Fun the other day, products specifically designed to support dense embroidery designs on lightweight fabrics without changing the hand of the fabric

I'll let you know how that works out!

UPDATED 6/17/2013: I was able to save this project with free-motion quilting! You can read about that in this post.

Princess Petunia Likes her Dresden Plates!

2013-04-01T10:52:00.001-04:00

My Niece with her New Quilt

My sister finally sent pictures of the little princess with her new "covers!" I don't know whether she'll give up the raggedy, disintegrating baby quilt, but at least she likes the new Dresden plate quilt that I made for her. Who could resist that big, happy smile? You can find posts about the process for this quilt here.

It also fits the toddler bed well, although I didn't plan it that way, and the colors look great in her bedroom.

So, next project on the horizon? Well, I have a few things in the works. I agreed to make a costume for Augustus Gloop in our school's upcoming performance of Willy Wonka Jr. I'll be working on that this week while the kids are out of school for Spring Break. Then, I'm dying to get started on this "Jingle" Christmas themed applique Block of the Month using Erin Russek's patterns and instructions for needle-turn applique:

"Jingle" BOM by Erin Russek of One Piece At a Time, 76" x 76"

I've always admired hand appliqued quilts, but have never attempted one myself before. Erin's designs are so beautiful, and her tutorials are so thorough, that I have decided this is the right time and the right project to take the plunge. Somehow, the BOM (Block of the Month) format is less intimidating, too, because when you see a whole quilt full of applique it looks intimidating. But, one little block? Surely I can do one little block... and then hopefully another little block... You can find Erin's free block pattern downloads and instructions each month on her blog, One Piece at a Time, here. The 37" square "Miss Kringle" poinsettia, pomegranate and tulip center medallion pattern is available as a PDF download from Erin's Pattern Spot store here for just $10.00, and the project is rated for beginners so you have no excuse not to give it a try!

I wanted to keep with the Christmas theme and color scheme of this quilt, especially since I don't know what most of the blocks will look like ahead of time, but I had more difficulty than anticipated sourcing Christmas fabrics at my LQS in March. Over the weekend, I was delighted to find the perfect fabrics ON SALE from an online quilt shop, Quiltable Fabrics. This green swirly fabric is going to be used for my large setting triangles and border:

Winter Wonderland Scrolls in Green from Windham Fabrics

And this FABULOUS poinsettia print is going to be for my smaller setting triangles around each block:

Winter Magic Poinsettia in Scarlett from Hoffman Fabrics

I also got this gold berry print to use for some of the yellow applique and block pieces:

Holiday Splendor Berries in Gold from Hoffman Fabrics

I just hope these fabrics work well together in person; sometimes the computer monitor can be a bit off. Anyway, my plan is to cut or reserve enough fabric for the setting triangles and borders, and then start with the four applique and pieced blocks that have been released so far. I've already purchased and printed out the center medallion pattern, but I'm going to start small and work my way up to that one. I should receive the fabrics for Jingle by the end of this week, which gives me added incentive to get that costume sewn up quickly!

I also have a Storm at Sea quilt in purples, blues and grays that I'm planning to start once I'm caught up on the Jingle BOM. I purchased all of the fabrics for that one months ago, and then got sidetracked on other projects. Stay tuned!

New Sewing Goodies & Studio Remodeling Update

2013-03-29T17:25:00.001-04:00

I'm not usually one for broadcasting personal information about myself via car decals. In fact, I only put the kids' school magnet on my car because they give these out when you contribute to the capital fundraising campaign, and I wanted to show support for the school and encourage other parents to contribute as well. The little star on the other side of my license plate is from the police benevolent fund, another cause that I support. However, you will never see stick figure families, monogram decals, or magnets advertising where we go on vacation, which sports teams we support, or which activities the kids participate in emblazoned all over the back of my car. I was firmly anti-decal... Until I saw this at a quilt shop yesterday:

Decorated: Quilt or Die!

Look what I got for my car!! Isn't that hysterical? Skull and crossbones from a distance, but when you get closer you see that it's a skull-shaped pin cushion with button eyes, a bow on its head, and an open scissors instead of bones. I love it! My boys got a kick out of it, too. My mother is the only one who doesn't like it; she thinks it's "weird." Bernie put it on for me, and assured me that he can get it off later if I ever get tired of it.

I found this at the 2nd closest Bernina dealer to me, Sew Much Fun in Lowell, NC. I bought my machine from the Bernina dealer 5 minutes from where I live, but he's more of a sew-and-vac shop, whereas Sew Much Fun is a full-on quilt shop with lots and lots of beautiful fabric, specialty notions and threads, embroidery stabilizers, etc. Sew Much Fun is only about 30 minutes away from me as long as I time the trip to avoid rush hour, and I went there yesterday armed with a list of fabrics and hand applique supplies for Erin Russek's Jingle Block of the Month quilt.

I was disappointed that Sew Much Fun didn't have many Christmas fabrics left to choose from for my Jingle project, but I did find most of the applique supplies I needed as well as several different interfacing and stabilizing options for my silk machine embroidery project. To my delight, they did have the Bernina Deco 330 Adapter in stock that I needed for attaching my Multiple Spool Holder to my new 750 QE sewing machine. She also had the little rubber gripper part to retrofit my #18 Button Sew On presser foot (this part comes standard on the new #18 feet as shown at left, and it prevents the button from sliding out of position while you're sewing it on by machine). I have saved my favorite purchase of the day for last: a lovely new sewing throne:

It's the Bernina sewing chair, and honestly, I had to have it because it's red. Even if it wasn't extremely comfortable and more fully adjustable than any other sewing chair I've tried, its redness alone would have ensured that one of these chairs eventually made it home to my studio. The teal one I had previously looked terrible with my red cabinet, and I had considered reupholstering or slipcovering it. A slipcover might slide around and annoy me on a sewing chair and really, reupholstering would cost more than a new chair. Bernie had been complaining about sitting on a hard plastic folding chair in my studio, so I moved the teal chair over to the workstation shared by my serger and laptop, where my husband camps out with his iPad while I'm sewing. Perfect solution!

While we're on that topic, here's what my studio looks like today:

Stalled Studio Remodeling Project :-(

...And here's what still needs to happen before I can stop nagging my husband about it:

As you can see, I have already attached the Multiple Spool Holder with the adapter bracket. Yippee! The next thing that needs to happen is the building of the permanent cutting table. Right now I have a temporary setup with a kitchen drawer base between metal wire mesh drawer units, with an old Pottery Barn dining table top for the surface. The surface is too small, and although I like the wire mesh bins for fabric storage, I don't like the way they slide off the rails to the back and front and land on the floor. I'd rather have them in sturdy wood or MDF cubbies, sized to fit, with additional storage built in all the way around the new, larger cutting table surface. I've decided on masonite for the cutting table surface, which is what the existing sewing cabinet surface is made of, and I think it needs to be about 48" x 76". I find the masontie not quite slippery enough for free-motion quilting, but it would be perfect on the cutting table to prevent my cutting mats from slipping.

Once the permanent cutting table has been built, I'll be able to determine whether my sewing cabinet can move any closer to the cutting table without it getting too cramped. Bernie can install a floor outlet for cords beneath the sewing cabinet once we're sure that's where it's going to stay. I hate that plastic folding table behind my cabinet, but I need the extra surface area to support large quilts and for staging and planning purposes. What I dislike about the plastic table is its ugliness and wasted space beneath, where I pile all sorts of supplies and equipment that has no other home -- creating a lot of visual clutter. So the sewing cabinet will be expanded to the back with additional built in storage for my embroidery module and other items built in. The new sewing cabinet surface will NOT be masonite as I indicated on my rendering; that was a typo. I think it will be MDF with some kind of Formica laminate top, and I want it to have breadboard-style pullouts on the front, to the left and right of the sewing machine, that can be used as mini cut and press stations for paper piecing projects. I also want to go back to the airlift I was using before with my Artista 200/730E. With the old machine, I had to lean on top of the machine in order to get the lift to move from one position to another, but I think it will work better with the heavier, 30 pound 750 QE machine. In any case, the new electric lift we installed is driving me nuts because it doesn't have the capability to program stop positions. So it lifts the machine shelf too high, then too low, then too high...

We'll try to get as much storage as we can beneath the sewing cabinet and cutting table, and then address any leftover storage needs that remain. The wooden unit that you see to the left of the cutting table now needs to go. The shelves are not useful sizes for storing the items that I need to find homes for, and the length of this bookshelf extends too far to the left, getting in the way of the large design wall that I want on that wall. It's the only wall where I can do a design wall because of the steeply sloped ceiling and the window on the opposite wall. Pegboard will go on the wall to the right and/or to the left of the cutting table for ruler storage, and hooks will go on one side of my sewing cabinet for hanging my embroidery hoops.

Scalamandre Stravagante in Color 01, a 24-screen print, $399 per yard

I'm kidding about the Scalamandre drapery valance. Probably. Well, we'll see. I do love that fabric -- the colors and details are so gloriously vivid, and look at that vase! -- but the price point is way out of whack, even for me, considering this is the sewing room... If I did use this fabric in my sewing room, I'd do a different kind of window treatment so the fabric could be applied flat instead of gathered into swags. That way I would need just a yard or two, and the gorgeous print would be much better appreciated on a flat fabric treatment as opposed to gathering it up in swags. In any event, we're a LONG way from window treatments for this room -- I just couldn't bear to leave the window naked in my little design picture.

We're off to church for Good Friday soon. Lars is the acolyte, so we can't be late -- and that means I'd better figure out what I'M going to be wearing, as opposed to what my windows will be wearing!

Happy Easter, Happy Passover, and Happy Spring, everyone!

And the Winner of the Free Anita Goodesign Special Edition Design Pack Is...

2013-03-26T14:32:00.003-04:00

Congratulations, quiltin cntrygrl! You're my winner in last week's Machine Embroidery Blog Hop, sponsored by Anita Goodesign. This Quiltin' Country Girl is the lucky winner of any gorgeous Special Editions Design Collection of her choice from Anita Goodesign, available here. Thank you all so much for participating in the hop and for all of your wonderful comments. I enjoyed reading each and every one of them.

My follow-up post with tips, tricks, and trouble-shooting related to my blog hop project will have to wait a couple more days. My sons both have big tests tomorrow, and I am busy playing evil taskmaster/jail warden to two little boys who would rather do ANYTHING than study!

MY TURN: Machine Embroidery Blog Hop and GIVEAWAY with Anita Goodesign Fantasy Birds

2013-03-21T01:34:00.002-04:00

Happy Blog Hop, my fellow machine embroiderers! Today it's MY turn to strut my feathers in the week-long Spring Machine Embroidery Blog Hop hosted by SewCalGal and I Have a Notion, and sponsored by the embroidery digitizing gurus of Anita Goodesign.

I suggest that you get up right now and go to the bathroom, and then get situated with a cup of coffee and maybe even some snacks. This is going to be one of those blog posts that rivals Tolstoy's War and Peace (in length and wordiness, if not in literary genius), but unlike War and Peace, my lengthy post will at least be broken up with lots and lots of PICTURES.

NOTE: Those of you who soldier through this entire post will be rewarded with multiple chances to win the Special Edition design collection of your choice, valued at $99.95, from our generous sponsor, Anita Goodesign. I am not going to tell you how to enter the giveaway until the end, though -- I'm gonna make you work for it! ;-)

Tutorial Photo of Appliqued Quilt Block Technique

I was delighted when I was invited to participate in this hop even before I knew who the sponsor was, but when I found out it was Anita Goodesign, I was delighted! I attended an all-day embroidery seminar with Anita Goodesign at my local Bernina dealer's shop several years ago, and not only was I wowed by their beautiful, high-quality designs (yep, I spent lots of $$ that day), but I was also impressed by the extent to which these folks work to make their designs and projects as accessible and hassle-free to home embroiderers as they possibly can. In fact, despite how ornate and elaborate many of their projects and designs appear, Anita Goodesign is actually one of the best digitizers for those who are brand new to machine embroidery. These collections are all designed with projects in mind, thoroughly tested so the designs work perfectly in the project application, and each collection comes with thorough instructions. My Fantasy Birds collection came with a 72-page, full color PDF tutorial that thoroughly explains all aspects of the project from stabilizing your fabric all the way through assembly and the final binding stitches. The tutorial PDF includes scores of full color photographs like the one above to guide you every step of the way. All the guesswork and confusion is eliminated, and even beginners can easily achieve professional results. I have not seen any other company do this, and it's a huge value add.

48" x 48" Fantasy Birds Tiled Quilt Project in Silk Dupioni

I chose to showcase Anita Goodesign's Fantasy Birds Special Edition Collection because this tiled quilt project is a perfect example of an embroidery project that looks impressive and intimidating, but is actually easy to create if you read through the tutorial PDF and follow the instructions. Always keeping novices in mind, Anita Goodesign includes three different sizes of each design as well as mirror images of each design, so you don't need to have embroidery software in order to create the project, and there is a version of every design that will fit the hoop of any home embroidery machine without resizing. (However, just in case a customer who doesn't own software wishes to tweak the size of these designs, Anita Goodesign includes a resizing program on the CD as an extra bonus). This collection allows even embroiderers with smaller hoops to achieve impressive, large scale designs by splitting the larger rectangular designs into two separate appliqued quilt block designs that fit together perfectly when seamed together. How cool is that?

Not only do I love the concept behind this design collection; I also really love the way these designs combine very realistically digitized birds with fanciful, stylized Jacobean floral and botanical motifs, amost as if a real bird flew in the window and alighted on an embroidered fabric branch. I knew I would have fun playing around with that. This time I'm using brighter jewel tones for the Jacobean floral motifs, but next time it would be fun to do the birds in full color but do the Jacobean motifs in grayscale.

The original project I had planned for this blog hop was a 16" x 78" quilted table runner using all four of the large rectangular bird designs as well as four smaller square bird designs, with the blocks laid out as you see them in the image at left. Except, as great as I think the split bird block designs are for making the designs accessible to every home embroiderer, I'm not every home embroiderer -- I'm a home embroiderer who recently spent a good chunk of change on a fancy Bernina 750QE machine and a snazzy Jumbo Hoop to go with it, primarily because I have always longed to be able to embroider large, beautiful embroideries all in one hooping. I am also a home embroiderer who has invested in the v6 Bernina Designer Plus Embroidery Software, and I almost NEVER stitch out a stock embroidery design without tweaking it in my software first. No way was my first big embroidery project with the new machine going to have seams running right through the middle of the birdies!

So my grand plan was to stitch the square birdie blocks at the ends the way they were digitized, as applique blocks, but to sew out the larger bird designs seamlessly in my Jumbo Hoop. In addition to the 25 quilt block designs in 3 sizes that are appliqued and embroidered in the hoop, Anita Goodesign also includes 48 individual embrodery designs from those blocks with the collection, each in 3 different sizes -- and including the four large bird and flower designs WITHOUT the split, in 3 different sizes, as shown below:

Individual Blue Jay Design from Fantasy Birds Collection

The largest size of these individual designs is 6.75" x 11.75", so I planned to enlarge them in my Bernina software to fill the sewing field of my Jumbo Hoop, which is a little over 8" x 15" on a 7 Series machine (you can sew a design up to 10 1/4" x 15" on a Bernina 830 with the Jumbo Hoop due to the longer free arm on that machine).

Here's what this design looked like when I opened it up in my Bernina software, after enlarging it but making no other changes:

My Fantasy Birds look pretty ugly, don't they? That's because I imported the design in the commercial format EXP, which doesn't contain any information about thread colors so the software assigns colors randomly. Bernina software will save an EXP design with an additional two files -- one contains the thread color information, and the other is an image file of the embroidery, like an icon. If this was a simple two or three color monogram, I'd leave the design the way it was and disregard the colors shown at the machine during stitchout, but with a design of this complexity it's very easy to get confused about which color is going where and which portion of the design is stitching next -- I wanted to work out the colors ahead of time and have the correct color numbers displayed on my sewing machine's screen for each color change.

So my next order of business was to go through the thread chart for this design in my software and individually assign each of the Madeira rayon embroidery thread colors specified by Anita Goodesign for this design. There are only 13 thread colors in the design, but there are 34 color changes in order for each component of the embroidery to stitch out in the correct sequence. Although Anita Goodesign specifies Madeira thread, I already own almost every color Isacord makes and I wanted to use what I had on hand. So, once I had manually entered the Madeira colors, I simply chose "Isacord 40 Numerical" from the drop-down menu, clicked "Match and Assign All" and, in seconds, all of my thread colors had converted automatically to the equivalent thread colors in Isacord polyester embroidery thread. No need to hunt down a thread color conversion chart online or try to match up the colors manually!

I still wasn't finished with the software stage yet -- I spent another hour or so playing around with different thread colors for the Jacobean floral portions of the design. I left the blue jays alone because I loved how realistic they looked and didn't want to mess that up, but I wanted to do something brighter and more vibrant with the "fantasy" part of the design, so the flowers wouldn't blend into the background as much and so the design would coordinate better with the assortment of silk remnants in my fabric stash. This is what I finally came up with:

By this point, I was really getting really excited about the project! I put my son Lars, the best 12-year-old embroidery assistant ever, to work digging through five large bins of embroidery thread until he had located all of the appropriate thread colors and lined them up for me in stitch order. (This task was assigned to him as penance for falling asleep with silly putty in his bed a few nights ago. Laundry will be EXTRA fun this week!)

So I was ready to start embroidering, and I was going to start with this blue jay design! I knew it would take awhile to stitch out, and I figured I could use that time to enlarge and edit stitch colors for the subsequent designs. I had assembled all of my supplies and notions, cut out Jumbo Hoop sized pieces of silk fabrics, and prepared my fabric pieces as per Anita Goodesign's tutorial instructions.

Silk Dupioni (above), My Kravet Glittered Silk Shantung (below)

My base fabric is a gorgeous, very unusual glitter-embellished 100% silk shantung drapery remnant from Kravet -- the pattern is called Sparkle, the colorway is Ivory, and it retails for a sickening $121 per yard. I have several odd-sized scrap pieces of this fabric that were left over from one of my interior design clients' projects several years ago, and I have been saving them just for a special project like this!

Silk shantung is a lightweight, flimsy silk that is similar to the silk dupioni that Anita Goodesign used for their quilt samples, except that it's a bit more refined, with a smoother surface, a tighter weave, and a much less pronounced slubbed texture than what is characteristic of silk dupioni, as you can see in the photo above. So I thought it best to follow Anita Goodesign's recommendations for stabilizing my silk for these dense designs. I fused Pellon Ultra Weft interfacing to the reverse side of my silk first. Then I cut a piece of plain cotton muslin large enough to fit comfortably in my Jumbo Hoop, and adhered a piece of Pacesetter Midweight Tearaway embroidery stabilizer to the back of the muslin with my 505 spray adhesive. I then sprayed the top of the muslin with 505 and adhered that to my interfaced silk. Finally, I spray-starched the right side of my silk with Niagara Original spray starch. My fabric sandwich was as crisp as cardstock when I hooped all of my layers. I intended to use my sewing machine's hoop basting feature to secure all four layers around the perimeter of the hoop prior to stitching, but alas, I could not find the screen with that option, and I was impatient about getting started...

Well, I plugged that USB stick into my sewbaby, opened up my design, attached my hoop, and pressed the start button -- and almost fell on my ass when I saw that the estimated stitching time was 220 minutes. I grabbed a calculator to check my math -- yep, this baby was going to take almost four HOURS to sew out, not counting the additional time involved in rethreading and trimming jump stitches between color changes, or the time I'd spend removing stabilizer and cleaning up the completed embroidery design once it had finished. Eek!

My enlarged design was 13 1/4" x 7 3/4", had 69,639 stitches, and was going to burn through an estimated 161 meters of bobbin thread and 4-6 hours of my time. And, considering that it was already 5 PM on Tuesday evening when I made this discovery, I realized that not only would I be unable to complete my entire table runner project for this post, I wasn't even going to be able to sew out the entire first design in one evening. Dinner and bed time stories with my children trump sewing projects any day in the week. So I embroidered about half of the design after I put the kids to bed on Tuesday night, and when I stopped at 11 PM I put my sewing machine in Eco Mode to conserve power while ensuring I could pick up right where I left off on Wednesday morning.

Finally, around 2 PM yesterday, my blue jay design had finally finished stitching:

Ta Da!

Well, I now truly appreciate the value of owning a machine that can embroider up to 1,000 stitches per minute. Even if my old Artista 200E/730E could have embroidered a design this size (which it couldn't), at its maximum embroidery speed of 680 stitches per minute it would have taken approximately FIVE hours and forty minutes to stitch this design. (I've been practicing Pre Algebra with Lars -- this would make a good word problem for him!) Uff da! Clearly, a large, densely-embroidered quilt project like this is a major time commitment, not the quilt-in-a-day scenario I had envisioned. After all, other than embroidered quilt labels, occasional monogram projects, and quilting "in the hoop" with speedy outline quilting designs, I really don't have much embroidery experience, and I've certainly never tackled any designs of this size before.

I really love how beautifully this design stitched out, and I'm looking forward to continuing my project. Above are some of the other silk fabrics I'm considering for borders and/or for the appliqued fabric strips on the smaller blocks. Wouldn't it be fun to cut out the big butterfly from that silk Robert Allen print and fuse it into this design as an applique, secured by satin stitching?

After unhooping the design, I carefully tore away most of the tearaway stabilizer. Then I sat down with a bright Ott light and tweezers and painstakingly removed the stabilizer from all of the nooks and crannies. Next, with a duck-billed applique scissors for safety and holding my breath the entire time, I trimmed away most of the cotton muslin fabric from the back of the design, as though the muslin was a cutaway stabilizer. I really wanted to restore the soft hand and drape of the silk now that the embroidery process was complete. When I was finished, the back of my design looked like this:

Back of Design, Tearaway Removed and Muslin Cut Away

Now that I've stitched out this design, I keep thinking of other applications besides table runners, quilts, or pillows. Wouldn't this design be gorgeous on the flat sections of a box pleated or pelmet-style window valance?

Can You Imagine These Designs on a Window Treatment?

Of course, as soon as I got that idea, I had to import the photo of my completed embroidery design into my interior design software to try it out. Why do I suggest embroidery for the valance, but not for the drapery panels? Well, with a top treatment, you wouldn't have to embroider 15 yards of continuous fabric and drive yourself nuts trying to space the designs with an accurate pattern repeat like you'd have to do for a pair of drapery panels. You would just overcut each flat section, embroider the design, and then trim the piece to the appropriate size afterwards. If you're really ambitious, you could even use some of the other standalone designs in this collection, maybe some of the Jacobean floral elements, to embroider banding for the lead (inside vertical) edges of your drapery panels in place of the solid brown banding in my rendering.

You know, embroidered silk drapery fabrics that look like this go for hundreds of dollars per yard, yet you're limited to the thread colors chosen by the mills. By embroidering your own silk base fabric, you can have your dream fabric with embroidery thread colors custom selected to match your oriental carpet, your other fabrics, or anything else that tickles your fancy. Just add English bump interlining, a heavy cotton sateen drapery lining, and you'll have a gorgeous custom window treatment unlike anyone else's, anywhere.

It's probably a good thing I didn't finish my table runner project, because I've been going on forever and I still have dozens of photos and three more pages of notes that I had planned to include in this blog post, just from sewing out the first design. So, expect a follow-up post within the next few days where I will share the Trouble-Shooting Journey to Eliminate Thread Loops with an Unusual Needle, my Three Favorite Embroidery Tools that Don't Come With Your Machine, and My Final Verdict on the Final Steam Pressing of Embroidery Designs. In all honesty, I probably won't finish my project until several months from now, considering that it was just last week that I finished the project I began for the Fall Machine Embroidery Blog Hop I participated in back in November!

So, have I lost everyone, or are you still with me? Because I did promise a giveaway! Anita Goodesigns is giving away FREE Special Edition design collections worth $99.95 each (winners choose which of the 15 Special Edition collections they want to win).

For the Cheeky Cognoscenti giveaway, you can earn ONE chance to win by visiting Anita Goodesign's website here, drooling all over your keyboard at their gorgeous designs, and then commenting on this post to tell me which Special Edition design collection you would choose if you won and what ideas you have for using those designs in your own project.

You can earn a SECOND chance to win by following Cheeky Cognoscenti via either Networked Blogs or Google Friend Connect (on the side bar at the right side of this page, scroll up) and then leaving a second comment telling me that you're following. Important: If you are a "No Reply" blogger or an Anonymous commenter, be sure to leave your email address [eg. Sally(at)hotmail(dot)com] in your comment so that I can contact you if you're the winner!

That's right -- not only am I giving away a free Anita Goodesign Special Edition design collection, but each of the other eight bloggers in the hop is also giving away a free Special Edition design collection this week as well. If you haven't done so already, be sure to stop by each of the other blogs before the end of the week so you can see more beautiful embroidery projects, pick up more embroidery tips and tricks, and collect even more chances to win. Each blogger sets their own rules for when they will choose a winner, so if you missed any of the blogs from Monday through Wednesday you might not be too late to enter!

I plan to select a random winner from all comments on this post on Monday the 25th.

Here's the lineup with links, one last time:

Monday, March 18th:

Kelly - I Have A Notion
SewCalGal

Tuesday, March 19th:

Cindy - Sew Cindy
Trish - AllThingsCrafty.com

Wednesday, March 20th:

Marjorie's Quilting Bee
Margaret - The Average Quilter

Thursday, March 21st:

ME! ME! ME! ;-)

Rebecca Grace - Cheeky Cognoscenti

Fri., March 22nd

Gene Black - Alabama Artist
SewCalGal

Once again, I want to extend a HUGE thank-you to SewCalGal and I Have A Notion for organizing this hop and for inviting me to participate, and an even bigger thank-you to Anita Goodesign for graciously agreeing to sponser the event, for supplying the designs featured in all of our blog hop projects, and for donating such generous prizes for our lucky winners.

Well, folks, I had glorious plans of not only finishing the entire table runner yesterday, but I also planned to complete this blog post before my kids got home from school and schedule it to publish automatically at 7 AM. Since it is now after 2 AM on Thursday morning. I'm going to do one thing AHEAD of schedule -- I'm going to go ahead and publish it right now and then head straight to bed. Happy Thursday, everyone, and good luck in the giveaways! May the best stitcher win. ;-)

UPDATED 6/17/2013: I didn't make this into a table runner, but I did finally layer it with batting and quilted the piece, and it came out so beautifully that I was doing a happy dance all over the sewing room! You can see those results in this post.

Finished: Dresden Plate Minky Quilt for Princess Petunia!

2013-03-16T20:10:00.000-04:00

Dresden Plates for Princess Petunia, 47" x 47", 2013

Sarah's Dresden Plate quilt is finally finished! A week late, but better than never! I hope my little princess likes it. This is a replacement for the Minky quilt/blanket I made when she was born 5 years ago, which has been "THE" blanky, known as "her covers," ever since.

Sarah's Original "Covers," as it looked new in 2007

This quilt became the blanky she wouldn't sleep without, the one she snuggled under to watch cartoons, and the one that served as dress up cape/cloak as the need arose. The quilt top has disintegrated, the batting is coming through and washing away in the laundry, the once-pink Minky backing fabric is now an ugly grayish-beige, and the ruffled satin ribbon trim is looking pretty ratty. It no longer looks anything like this picture.

So my mission with the new quilt was to create something roughly the same size, same weight, textures and feel, but with a big girl color palette. Hopefully Sarah will accept the "new covers" as a replacement for the raggedy old ones! I had toyed with the idea of embellishing this quilt with some hot fix Swarovski crystals to give it some bling, but after washing it I knew that was all wrong for this quilt. It's much too soft and casual -- I'll save those sparklies for another project instead.

New Dresden Plate "Covers"

This is the second time I've bound a Minky-backed baby quilt (baby size this time, even though it's for a Big Girl!) with prepackaged 2" satin binding, and I really like the results. I do use a lightweight batting in these quilts, with minimal quilting to secure the layers, so the quilt has a nice blanket weight, drapes beautifully, and is really snuggly. Little ones love to rub the satin binding on their noses.

So, how do I attach the satin binding? So glad you asked! First, when I'm doing the initial horizontal and vertical quilting "in the ditch" between blocks to stabilize the quilt layers, I add a row of quilting stitches about 1/4" to 1/2" in from the edge of the quilt top, using my walking foot to prevent the Minky from slipping or stretching. Then, once all quilting is complete, I trim away my excess batting and backing fabric to within about 1/4" of the edge of my quilt top. Next, I trim away that extra batting and backing by serging along the edges of the quilt with a 3-thread overlock on my serger. *IMPORTANT: Be sure to test your serger settings on scraps of your cotton fabric, batting, and Minky backing before you serge your actual quilt. I found that I needed to adjust the dual feed on my serger in order to prevent getting a wavy edge.

Pinning Satin Binding to Quilt Edges

Wright's 2" Satin Blanket Binding comes prepackaged in lengths of 4 3/4 yards. I needed two packages to bind the edges of my 47" x 47" quilt. Join the lengths together before you begin pinning it to your quilt. The satin binding will be creased in half down the center, with one edge sticking out slightly farther than the other. You want that wider side on the BOTTOM of your quilt. Carefully pin the satin binding to your quilt edges, mitering the corners and leaving about 5-8" loose ends at the beginning and the end. The thicker your quilt, the more difficult it will be to line up the edges of the satin binding on the top and bottom of your quilt sandwich. With a thick quilt like this one, you may want to baste the binding in place with water-soluble basting thread before stitching it down permanently -- that way, if you're a little off in some places, you can make adjustments.

Overlap your loose ends, and cut them with a 1/2" overlap. Then, take the pinned quilt to your sewing machine, carefully pulling the unpinned satin binding ends away from the quilt, and stitch the ends together using a 1/2" seam allowance. Now the loose part of your satin binding should fit your quilt perfectly, and can be pinned in place.

I stitch my satin binding to my quilt with a three-step zigzag, width 6.0 and length 1.25. On my Bernina 750 QE, this is Stitch #7. I used my 1D foot with Dual Feed engaged, but a walking foot would be a good alternative. Actually, I would have had better visibility to precisely place my zigzag stitches at the edge of the satin binding if I had used my 20D Open Embroidery foot or my walking foot with the open toe sole attached. You want the point of the left "zig" in the zigzag stitch to be right at the edge of the satin binding. After securing the binding on all four sides of the quilt, I go back and zigzag down the folded miter of each of the four corners as well, so there are no loose loops for little fingers to poke around in.

The satin binding is kind of stiff right out of the package, but it softens up considerably in the very first washing. Satin binding trim is pretty durable and can withstand frequent machine washing, but since your quilt edges are serged inside the binding, they are protected and you could easily repair or replace the satin binding in the future if you needed to.

Now that I've finished this belated birthday present for my niece, I can turn my full attention to the Machine Embroidery Blog Hop project I'm working on for next week! It's actually very fitting that I finished the Dresden Plate quilt right before starting on another Blog Hop project, since I came up with the idea of using the machine embroidered applique flowers in the center of my Dresden plates last November, as part of another Blog Hop that I was participating in using Marjorie Busby's embroidery designs for GO! die cut shapes. My new project post won't go up until this Thursday, but there will be lots of other projects and tutorials for you to enjoy from various bloggers throughout the week, and at each blog post you'll have another chance to win a FREE embroidery design pack of your choosing from Anita Goodesign ! Here's the lineup:

Monday, March 18th:

Kelly - I Have A Notion
SewCalGal

Tuesday, March 19th:

Cindy - Sew Cindy
Trish - AllThingsCrafty.com

Wednesday, March 20th:

Marjorie's Quilting Bee
Margaret - The Average Quilter

Thursday, March 21st:

ME! ME! ME! ;-)

Rebecca Grace - Cheeky Cognoscenti

Fri., March 22nd

Gene Black - Alabama Artist
SewCalGal

Once again, I want to extend a HUGE thank-you to SewCalGal and I Have A Notion for organizing this hop, and an even bigger thank-you to Anita Goodesign for graciously agreeing to sponser the event and donate prizes for our winners.

Dresden Plate Quilting is COMPLETE! Now, To Bling or Not to Bling?

2013-03-15T11:23:00.001-04:00

Well, here we are, 5 days after the birthday, and finally the quilting on the Dresden Plate project is finished. I just quilted in the ditch along the sashing, border, outside of plates, around the red flower applique, and in between the plate wedges, using Aurifil Mako 50 weight cotton thread in the bobbin and invisible nylon monofilament thread in the needle, and I like how the "invisible" quilting gives each plate so much dimension. Trimming out the backing fabric behind each plate was a good call; even with my batting and minky backing, this quilt is still very "smooshy" and flexible, not stiff at all.

I did experiment with spray basting, using 505 temporary adhesive spray. I sprayed my batting rather than the quilt top or backing fabric, and found that the spray adhesive worked VERY well to adhere the cotton quilt top to the cotton batting, but was less effective adhering the slippery backside of the polyester Minky fabric to the cotton batting. Next time I do this, I think I'll lay the batting down, then spray and attach the Minky on top of the batting so I can make sure I got every little ripple smoothed away, and I'll spray both the batting AND the Minky. Then I'll flip the Minky/batting over and adhere the quilt top. I did pin baste as well, and although I had a little bit of slippage with the Minky it was nothing major.

This was the first time I used the new Stitch-in-the-Ditch sole plate for my walking foot. I like it -- see how that blade rides along right in the seam? I was able to quilt these long, boring lines between blocks much faster, without having to watch as closely to align my stitches right next to the seam allowance. However, when I got to the posts between sashing strips where the seam allowance was pressed the other direction, I found that the blade on this sole obstructed my view of the needle and that it did NOT "automatically" switch from one side to another well. You can see what I mean in the next picture, the first post I quilted with this foot:

On subsequent posts, I just slowed down as I approached the yellow square and stuck my face down there by the foot so I could carefully maneuvre around the post square, and then I increased my speed and went back to "cruise control" afterwards. That worked fine. Overall, the new walking foot sole did improve my ditch quilting considerably:

Quilting "In the Ditch," Stitches Disappearing Right Next to the Seam

I quilted all of the plates free-motion, with my BSR foot. Again, loving the invisible nylon thread for this. I used a 75/11 Quilting needle and reduced my upper thread tension considerably, and also reduced my presser foot pressure. I put the invisible thread on a separate cone thread stand behind and to the right of my machine to allow plenty of room for the thread to unwind and unkink itself. I still had the thread loop up and knot a couple of times -- the sound of stitching immediately changes and the stitches become instantly more visible because the top thread is so taut that it lies flat on top of the quilt instead of meeting the bobbin thread inside the quilt. So when that happened, I just stopped, found the place where the nylon was caught, fixed it, and continued. Maybe putting a thread net on the nylon thread would have helped -- it was an older spool, getting toward the end, so the thread was very "curly" from having been wound around the spool.

I love how the quilting stitches "carve" the plate design into the Minky backing, even though you can't see the actual quilting stitches due to the pile:

Quilting around Plates, Backing Side

But once all the plates had been quilted, I had to contend with that plateless center block. What to do there? I couldn't skip quilting it because it was a 13" block and my batting recommended quilting no more than 8" apart. Yet I didn't want the center block to be too obviously quilted when all of the other blocks were quilted invisibly along the plate seams. After mulling my options for a few hours, I finally decided that I had to just make a decision and go for it -- I no longer had the luxury of time to test out a bunch of different options. I switched to a red thread, since there were no seams for ditch quilting and I would only be quilting against the red background fabric, and I ended up tracing around a Dresden plate on template plastic to make myself a pattern. Then I drew that shape onto my center block with a white marking pen.

Marking a Dresden Plate Around the Embroidered Block

I tried to echo quilt around the embroidery, adding some loops and swirls, and then quilted a ghost of a Dresden plate around the outer edge. I'm not sure I 100% love it, but I didn't have any better ideas and this gift is already late!

Center Block Quilted

I wanted to do about the same amount of quilting on that center block as I did on the others, but the single line of quilting around the outside of the "plate" looks very puny all by itself like that. In retrospect, I wish I had appliqued a big circle onto this block for the monogram, maybe even a plate with tiny 1-2" wedges around the outside and a huge center circle for the embroidery. Then I could have quilted it in the ditch with the invisible thread just like the other blocks. Or maybe I should have used a contrasting thread to quilt this block, so it would stand out more? Anyway, it's done, and I'm really pleased with how the quilt as a whole is turning out. It's VERY soft and cuddly, with no stiffness whatsoever, and it will only get softer after I wash it -- I starched the quilt top before I layered and basted the quilt, so I'm definitely going to wash the quilt before I wrap it up and ship it.

Soft, Smooshy and Cuddly!

Today I need to trim away the excess batting and backing fabric along the quilt edges, which I'll do by serging along the border edge. Then I'll encase the edges of the quilt with dark pink 2" satin binding... and then, will it be finished, finally? Well...

I ordered a whole bunch of Jet Black Swarovski hot fix rhinestone crystals for this quilt, intending to put sequin-sized rhinestones at the outer point of each plate, and sprinke a few smaller black rhinestones across the yellow centers of each appliqued flower. My darling husband thinks I should not do this. Wise, sensible people have warned me that rhinestones can fall off in the wash, and that they are not snuggly -- but with this quilt, you're going to snuggle the Minky side against your skin, not the front of the quilt, and honestly, the crystals are so small and smooth that I can't imagine they would be a scratchy nuisance. They would be so FUN... Little girls love bling, right? Well, we'll see how I feel about it after the quilt is bound and washed. It's my quilt, and I'll bedazzle it if I feel like it! I'm a totalitarian quilter at heart. Just think of me as the Quilting Stalin, or the Quilting Mussolini. Those who object can face the firing squad, or learn to make their own quilts! ;-)