Thanks, and New Bird Blocks

I forgot to post this bird block a few weeks ago and today I made another new one:

Both of these should end up as digitized machine embroidery designs, but more on that later.

This has been a rough week on a number of levels, but one thing that has really helped is the incredible support from our wonderful quilting community. I received so many kind and understanding notes that it truly warmed my soul. I also heard from many people who had quilts meet far worse peril than mine…like floods and fires. Kinda puts my situation in perspective, you know? So thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for all your compassion and empathy and caring. It’s hard to feel alone with all of you special folks out there!

And now it’s time to get back to quilting! I’m working on fine-tuning what I am affectionately calling “Bird Block 1;” how’s that for a catchy name?! I guess I need to come up with something that sounds a little more snazzy. In the meantime, here’s what the machine embroidered version looks like:

To put it into perspective and see how much MEA can add to a quilt block, here is a photo of the non-embroidered prototype I made for bird Block 1:

Now to really whet your appetite, here are some closeups. This first one shows the tail feathers:

…and here’s what the tulip triad at the base of the block looks like. I’m especially fond of how the stem came out:

And last but not least, the whole bird section:

This will be available in the store once I’ve made some more headway on Bird Block 2 and also once I’ve had time to shoot a tutorial about it. That was planned for this week, but life got in the way…

Filed under Appli-K-Kutz Fabric Cutting Dies, Machine Embroidered Applique, Sizzix . 11 Comments

Life Interrupted

We had the misfortune of having our car broken into while we were traveling and a lot of stuff was stolen that meant a lot to me.  Things like an embroidery machine can be replaced, but quilts (whether completed or in progress) into which you’ve poured time, effort, and heart cannot.   Remember this quilt?

Gone. Stolen…most likely in a dumpster or ditch somewhere, covered with mud or garbage, because the person who stole it had no use for it. Can’t really buy drugs with a quilt, so what good are they?

I enjoyed every minute of working on this quilt so I’m grateful for that. For me, quilting is really about the process of making the quilt instead of the final product, but my time with this quilt was cut short. It sounds silly, but I have been quilting this quilt for about 4 months now, stretching it waaayy out and only doing a bit at a time, only because I did not want that creative process…my intimate engagement with this quilt, to draw to an end. I know some of you understand what I’m saying. There’s a sadness once a quilt is completely done and I was putting that off. Oh well.

Also gone. It didn’t look like this anymore…I had added a border to it a couple months ago and was in the process of fusing up flowers/leaves/swirls that would go in the border with a few that would cross into the main body of the quilt. This quilt had loads of trapunto work as well as free motion embroidery; I am guessing that I started working on it at least 8 months ago…

All those wreaths from a recent post…

…will never make it into a quilt. Or the many, many blocks I have been working on. Dang, I had just embroidered several really incredible blocks that I haven’t shown on the blog yet and I was going to wow you with a quilt made from them! Too bad there are no pictures of the blocks since the quilts won’t ever be “born.” Tomorrow is new day and there will be time to birth some new stuff. Please pardon my whining; I’ll be back to my old self in a couple of days.

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What’s on the Design Wall and a New Video Tutorial

I’ve been playing around with different machine embroidered wreath designs and I thought that doing my experiments in blues and yellows would work well since I wasn’t making them for any particular project and blue and yellow always work together.  I’m still playing and making more, but I threw these up on my wall to get a sense of how they might go together.  Here are some closer shots of individual ones:

I’m not quite as fond of wreath #2 below. It’s a machine-embroidered applique version of asymmetric hyperquilting (no internal thread work on the outer plumes), but I feel like it’s missing something. I’m thinking of going back in and stitching a different freehand motif inside those outer plumes.

Next up is wreath #3:

…and then wreath #4:

Notice that wreath #4 is the opposite version of asymmetric hyperquilting since there is thread work inside the outer plumes but not in the inner plumes. I like this version of asymmetric thread work better. Next is wreath #5:

…which is the larger size of wreath (11.5 in diameter wreath) without any internal thread work. I think it has a nice “classic” look. Then there’s wreath #6:

…and wreath #7:

…and wreath #8, which is the smaller wreath (10.5 in diameter) with no internal stitching:

I’m going to make a few more and put them all together into a large sampler quilt that shows different sizes/designs for different wreaths. It’s going to be awhile, though, because I have 2 other quilts I’m putting together now and I want to quilt those first.  I’m having trouble keeping up with my machine quilting…ARGHHH!

These wreaths have been really fun to play with and I’ve only scratched the surface of what could be done with them.  We just made them available in our online store and if you’ve ever wondered how you’d machine embroider the applique of a block this large, here’s a video tutorial that shows just how easily it is done:

Filed under Appli-K-Kutz Fabric Cutting Dies, Machine Embroidered Applique, Sizzix . 11 Comments

New Bird Blocks and a Wonderful Resource for Quilters

I had the chance to work on designing some new quilt blocks over the last couple of days and I’d forgotten how much I enjoy it. I could play with this stuff for days on end, but unfortunately, life kind of gets in the way. Here’s another one:

…and this next one is meant to have a mirror image block that will be to the left of it on “real quilt:”

…and this last one is for a different quilt entirely:

Can you tell that I’m having a love affair with these birds and all things “plumey?!” All of these will look so much better once machine embroidery has been added but I have so many projects going on right now that it’s gonna be awhile! I’ll post pictures once that part of the project is added.

On another note, I wanted to let folks know about a great resource for quilters interested in making quilts using fabric cutting dies. If you haven’t been to Ebony Love’s “Blocks to Die For” website, take some time to check it out! There’s a lot going on at that site. Ebony is a piecer who has spent loads of time cutting geometric shapes using Accuquilt products, both the Studio cutter and the Go cutters. She has very generously shared all kinds of tips and tricks that she’s learned along the way, and this is valuable information! She’s posted many, many, wonderful video tutorials. I haven’t watched them all, but my 2 favorite videos are the tutorial that shows how to lay out fabric on a strip die to use fabric most efficiently, and I also loved the tutorial that showed how to convert fabric scraps into useful strips. I don’t own any strip dies so as I watched these videos, all the info was new to me and I was struck by just how wonderful it is to have a site that is truly devoted to the fabric die-cutting community. While her site is loaded with lots of free information, she also has a digital magazine that’s available by subscription. This magazine is designed specifically for the die-cutting enthusiast, containing even more tips and tricks as well as patterns based on specific dies. If you’re reading this blog entry and have never played with a fabric die cutter, you honestly don’t know what you’re missing. I was very resistant to this form of fabric cutting myself and it has revolutionized my life! If there is any part of you thinking of taking the plunge, watch a few of Ebony’s videos and that may make your decision for you!

Filed under Appli-K-Kutz Fabric Cutting Dies, Free Motion Embroidery, Machine Embroidered Applique, Sizzix . 7 Comments

Fun Day in the Sewing Room

Recognize this block?  It’s the machine embroidered version of this block I made earlier this summer:

Other than the feather color changes and a different central flower, they look the same from a distance.  When you look at them close-up, though, the ME version has a lot of added interest due to the thread work.  My favorite is the embroidery on the stems:

…and I also love that rope-like embroidery on the tulip edges.  The center flower is nice as well:

The best part, though, is what happens when you quilt these machine-embroidered applique quilt blocks.  They take on a wonderful 3-dimensional character that I just can’t capture with a still camera.  While the embroidery machine was stitching this block today, I was quilting an earlier stitchout of this block and it was soooo exciting to see that 3rd dimension come to life!  I’ll post pics once the quilting is completed, but it was way cool!!

Filed under Appli-K-Kutz Fabric Cutting Dies, Machine Embroidered Applique, Sizzix . 5 Comments