Combining Quilting & Embroidery

I just have to say that I love the little machine that I got for making single and double-fold bias tape. It’s made by Simplicity, and it will make 12 feet of bias tape in 60 seconds! The double-fold version is great for quilt bindings! I can cut my fabric 2 1/2 inches wide, OR 2 1/4 inches wide, and then have the machine do the folding and the pressing for me. Gotta love that!

I also bought “The Winder”. Being electric, it only take seconds to roll all of your bias tape onto a spindle. Then, you move the spindle over to the Bias Tape Maker machine, turn it on, and ***POOF*** — you’re done. Wow!

You can make your folded bias tape by feeding the fabric directly from The Winder spindle through the Tape Maker — or, and I just love this! — you can place The Winder on the other side of the Tape Maker and roll your new bias tape as onto a spindle as you are making it! That’s great if you are making a lot, and don’t want it to pool on the floor.

I made stems for appliqué flowers last night. I used the 3/8 inch bias tape tip (there are various sizes available for the machine as accessories) and they are perfect! It was a lot faster (and more fun!) than the old-fashioned way!

I just love new tools, especially when I can meet BOTH requirements — fun, and time-saving!

I have a love/hate relationship with Minkee — but mostly love! Leslie brought two quilts recently that both have Minkee involved. One of the quilts had a Minkee backing, and the other quilt featured Minkee on the front for applique fabrics.

Minkee can be tricky to work with on a longarm machine. Keeping the stretch parallel to the rollers will help to keep the stretchiness of a wild Minkee backing  tamed. Also, keeping the side clamps very loose —- so loose that you will think that the quilt top looks rather baggy —- will also help you to avoid having the backing shrink up when you remove the quilt from the machine. The most important tip I like to pass along is: REMEMBER NOT TO ROLL THE QUILT TOO TIGHTLY.  If that’s the only tip you remember, you will avoid a lot of headaches.

Backings pieced from Minkee should be avoided if possible. Because of the thickness of the Minkee, the seam on the backing can show through to the front of the quilt. Also, it’s a bit difficult to piece Minkee without having it slide around, causing a backing that looks square on the table to look like this on the machine:

If this backing had been pieced out of any other fabric but Minkee, I would have removed it from the machine and done the piecing over. As it was, I held my breath and let the extra fabric be absorbed by the dense snowflakes that would be quilted on it.

If you have any frustrations during the process of working with Minkee, just slide your hand across the wonderful fabric and you will be guaranteed to smile!

If you would like to experiment with a little touch of Minkee, but don’t want to use it for the entire quilt, consider using it for your appliqué fabric. Leslie brought over a quilt that had adorable elephants appliquéd on it, and she used various pieces of Minkee as the appliqué fabric. She used flat Minkee, striped, nubby… a little bit over everything. The elephants look so cute with the little bows on their heads!

Ellen brought this quilt in to me the other day, and she had the perfect vision of how she wanted it quilted! Her perfect piecing made my job pure pleasure. We used the stand-alone feature of Creative Studio software to plan out her vision, and then executed her ideas to reflect her wonderful choices!

I did a little research on the women of Gees Bend and found their web site, The Quilts of Gee’s Bend, Quilters Collective History, here.

According to the web site, “The women of the Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective all live in the area of Rehoboth and Boykin, Alabama.Throughout much of the twentieth century, making quilts was considered a domestic responsibility for women in Gee’s Bend. As young girls, many of the women trained or apprenticed in their craft with their mothers, female relatives, or friends; other quilters, however, have been virtually self-taught. Women with large families often made dozens upon dozens of quilts over the course of their lives.”

You can meet these amazing women here.

I look forward to seeing more of these quilts! Be sure to look at the various pictures so you can appreciate Ellen’s quilt!

Karen brought over a quilt top with a real “Go Green” theme to it.

She found the fabrics at Timeless Treasures, and I’m sure her daughter will love this one! The backing fabric needed to be pieced together, so I thought I would take pictures along the way so you could see how I used glue to make the process much easier! There were motifs and lettering on the backing fabric that had to match up perfectly, and the glue is the secret to doing this project. Here’s the process:

Fold one of your pieces of fabric under 1/2 inch, and press, being
careful not to stretch the folded area as you press. Set this piece on top of
your other fabric piece, matching the pattern on both sides.

Working in small areas, use a small line of Elmer’s School Glue on the folded portion of your fabric. Squeeze a line of glue approx. 10-12 inches long on your folded seam allowance, then set the fabric in place on top of the flat area. Press with a warm iron (no steam). This will set the glue, and keep things from sliding around. When you are sure that the glue is dry, you can turn back the edge of the fabric to check on everything. It should look like this:

If you used a little too much glue, some may have leaked through to other
layers.

Don’t worry! It’s easy to run your finger along the area, and gently pull the
glue apart.

If your seam is long, you may want to add a few pins along the area before
you carry your fabrics to the sewing machine. The glue is fairly strong, but
not enough to support a lot of weight.

After stitching the entire seam line, run your finger along the glued area to
open the seam.

As you can see, the glue did a great job of holding the layers together.

Press the seam open.

The selvage edges must be removed from both pieces of the backing fabric
before putting the quilt backing on the machine. You can do one side at a
time with a rotary cutter, or just use scissors.

Turn the backing over to the right side, and press.

The glue really helps with the process!

Square both ends of the backing, and you’re ready to quilt!

I was lucky to receive this quilt done by Lyn Christian of A Design by Lyn. The colors are amazing, and the flowers are gorgeous! She is truly and artist! If you have a chance to go to Lexington, Kentucky to take a class taught by Lyn, you will never forget it! I’m going to let her tell her story here about her thoughts and experiences making this quilt.

“This is Wildflowers by Smith Street ……

I will be teaching this class at my local shop “Q is for Quilting”, here in Lexington, Kentucky. When I was asked to teach this class, I thought WOW…this should be fun!  I looked at the pattern and I immediately remembered being a child growing up in Wisconsin. The forest floor had wonderful spots of sunlight and there were bursts of colors from the amazing
flowers and ferns.

Excitedly, I researched the flower names and what the colors would be.  The trillium was the first one I researched.  I know wild trilliums to be WHITE with just a tiny touch of pink as they start to fade.  You can look into the Wisconsin woods on a spring day and think there is fresh snow on the ground because the trilliums truly carpet the forest floor.

The colors on the quilt pattern were deep orangey reds and such.  I decided to use a bit of creative license — I wanted my version of this quilt to have what I remembered for colors of these flowers as I walked with my mom and dad.  After all, there are no quilt police that will take my pattern away if I don’t follow it word by word and color by color and fabric by fabric!  So off I went on a new adventure — choosing fabrics!

This pattern is a great one to let you bring lots of YOU into it.  I can visualize this quilt done in colors of the sky (with blues and pastels), to colors of the earth and forest (like I have done), to calico patchworks of the fields.  Let your imagination be your guide as you choose your fabrics.  In this quilt, many of the borders and sashes are different…as are the trees, and plants and foundations of the forest floor — but I think it would be as beautiful done simply, with just a few choice fabrics that are well loved. It would feel like a planned garden, peaceful and serene.

There is a method for doing applique included with the pattern. I use an alternate method for all of my applique designs, and I was certain that my method would work for these designs too. I wrote to the designer, and asked for permission to rework the designs so I could teach my method of applique to my students.The designer was great and gave me permission to do just that.  I changed the steps for marking and tack down, and this has really simplified the process for the applique.

Making small changes can really have a big impact in your quilts! This alternate applique method has brought those blooms right off the fabric!  I also took away some of the secondary fabrics on the centers and chose embroidery threads that would add dimension.  My next step is to add some very tiny crystals in matching colors –  I want it to seem as if drops of dew have formed in a few places to catch a fracture of light and draw the eye to the quilt.  I added dimension to some of the flowers using specialty fabrics like ultra suede  and dimensional fabrics for stamens and such to bring it off the flat background.

This was a fun project to do, and it really gave me the opportunity to think outside the box. This pattern is available directly from Smith Street Designs, and includes directions for multiple sizes. And if you are near the Lexington, Kentucky area stop into the shop and take a class — I guarantee you will have fun!”

Border panic? Quilting condition? Surprise hiccup?  Just what can you say when you approach a section of a wonderfully pieced quilt that has a tricky situation that you didn’t notice before mounting the quilt top on the machine? This quilt has lots of gorgeous fabrics in it, and the blocks and borders were nice and flat when I looked at the quilt laying flat on a table. After I had done a row or two, something on the left side caught my eye. What’s that?!?!?!  Oh my gosh, where did that come from? It was a pucker that appeared overnight when I wasn’t looking!

After rolling back and forth a couple of times, I noticed that there were a few of the sneaky little devils in this border. Funny thing, though…. every other border was perfect.

I decided to stabilize the entire area, because it was too late to take the quilt off of the machine and remove the borders. This is how it looked with a little stitch in the ditch to hold all of the layers in place:

Time to heat up the steam iron. It never ceases to amaze me how much excess I can remove with just a gentle shot of steam. (Hint ….. this works particularly well when the fabrics have not been steamed during the assembly process. I have been asking all of my customers if they used steam during piecing whenever I see an issue with their quilts.)After just two shots of steam, the fabric was already starting to behave better.

Since this border was on the side of the quilt, I decided to wait until the entire quilt was finished before I turned it to deal with this problem. Traveling through the rest of the quilt was easy, and I made sure that everything remained nice and square. After finishing, I turned the quilt and remounted it to work on this border. One more shot of steam now. I kept both hands near the needle as the design stitched, enabling any excess to be evenly distributed. The finished border was perfectly flat in the trouble area:

You can see that the problem did not migrate further down the border:

I would recommend this method for borders — or blocks — that are giving you trouble with puffiness!

This quilt was made with blocks chosen from Quilter’s Cache. You can see the Austin block here, and the layout for the quilt here.

I recently received a quilt top from Linda at Putting You In Stitches. I love her sense of humor! She had been working on these log cabin blocks in her spare time (what’s that? LOL!) and after making so many of them, she just wanted to be DONE ALREADY! Rather than face the idea that she would need to make twice as many as she already had finished for this large quilt, we decided to try an experiment.

Linda took very accurate measurements of her quilt top along the four sides, and most importantly, through the centers in each direction. She cut five inch wide borders in the same colors that she had used for the log cabin blocks, and added those wide borders to her pieced center area. The extra time that she took to do her measuring made this quilt top lay perfectly flat — and made it a joy to quilt!

The design in the center is a pattern from Anne Bright called Playful Paisley. This design has appeal to any age, and any gender. The four designs in the outer borders are also from various Anne Bright collections. Border number 1 (the blue border) has the coordinating Playful Paisley design, border 2 is called Swirling Double, border 3 is from the collection Bending In The Wind, and the white outer border is also from the Playful Paisley collection.

Enjoy the pictures! Note — if you click on a picture to open it, and then click on it again, you will be able to see all of the details!

There’s nothing better than having someone come to pick up her quilt, and having her give me a giant hug!  Karen worked hard on this adorable quilt for her little grand-daughter, and it was worth every minute.  Her piecing is perfect, the applique is precise and smooth, and the finished project is wonderful!

Karen wanted to have a quilting design that reflected something to go along with the puppy theme. We chose a design from Vickie Maleski that has small bones and paw prints. She requested that there be no quilting on the puppy appliques that surround the outer border.

All the quilting was done to surround the puppys, but not stitch over them. Karen is deciding if she would like to leave the puppys unquilted (as shown in the original pattern), or if she would like to add some hand quilting to them.  The quilt is adorable just as it is, but the nice thing about adding hand-quilting is that she can add it at a later date, even after the quilt has been laundered numerous times. Now that’s flexibility!

The Baby’s Bow Wow Blankie  pattern was created by Bonnie Sullivan of All Through the Night Folk Art Designs, and is available by clicking here.  Be sure to click on the pictures below to see more of Karen’s quilt project!

Everyday, people ask me “How do you do it?”

Since I have been using the Vitamix, I have lots of energy and I know that I am doing the best I can for my body every day. My joint pain is gone, and I can stand for 12 hours on a concrete floor without feeling any muscle pain! I’ve decided to endorse Vitamix, and become an affiliate for the company, because I feel very strongly about the nutritional benefits of the product and what it can do for people’s health.

The Department of Health suggests 9 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. Sure, you could have a V-8 ….. but why not go with a more natural and healthful approach? I wanted to escape the preservatives that are found in so many foods these days, but I don’t have time (or patience!) to nibble on carrots and lettuce. Diets like that remind me of eating rabbit food, and no one tends to have the discipline necessary to stick with that type of food for very long.

Did you know that all of those itty-bitty seeds on the outside of a strawberry contain pytochemicals? That’s where all the nutrition is hiding. Just chewing a strawberry doesn’t release those phytochemicals into your system because your teeth just aren’t powerful enough to break apart all of those tiny seeds — but the Vitamix has the power to do it! My goal is to squeeze all of the healthy ingredients out of my food, and to be able to do it quickly. Oh — and I want it to taste good too!

I like to start my day with an Emerald Green Smoothie. It has pineapple, grapes, oranges, and spinach in it — yum! And the preparation is easier than you would expect. One slice of fresh pineapple is all you need, and you don’t even need to remove the core! (There’s nutition hiding in that core, just like inside of the strawberry seeds!) Toss in handful of grapes, and don’t even worry about using seedless ones — starting to see the nutritional value AND the convenience? Just remove most of the outer peel on the orange, but don’t get rid of all of the white portion — yes, there’s more nutrtion there too! Toss in a handful of fresh spinach leaves and a few ice cubes and flip the switch. Breakfast is ready in 30 seconds, and you can take it in the car with you. Or, another fast breakfast idea is too put cereal, fruit, milk, and yogurt into the Vitamix! That’s much faster than eating a bowl of cereal and a container of yogurt, and it’s healthy too! If you use fish oil, garlic pills, daily aspirin, or any other daily supplements, just throw them in the Vitamix with your breakfast and you’ll never notice the taste!

At lunch time, you’ll find me making quick soup with the Vitamix. I warm a cup of chicken broth in the microwave, then pour it into the Vitamix. Then I add tomatoes, celery, carrots, peppers, mushrooms — anything I find in the fridge! Sometimes I add left-over chicken from last night’s dinner! Two minutes later, I have steaming hot soup — and I didn’t even have to dirty any pots or pans!

You can create the most healthy baby food possible, quickly and easily. With the rise of childhood diabetes, we all need to be creative in making healthy foods for our children. You can grind whole wheat berries, and knead dough for bread, all in the same container! You can also grind coffee beans, make your own peanut butter, make gravies and sauces without any lumps, and whip up a wonderful salsa in seconds flat! Check out the recipes — they’re amazing!

And clean up time? I add a speck of dishwashing liquid and some warm water to my Vitamix, and then flip in on for about ten seconds. Rinse and done. That’s all there is to it. Really!

Talk about talent! No other kitchen appliance can give you the performance, speed, power, durability, reliability—not to mention health-enhancing benefits—that you get with the Vitamix 5200. This extraordinary machine does the work of 10 kitchen appliances with no attachments! It takes on over 50 “food feats”, including four unique processes that no other single kitchen appliance can handle. The Vitamix 5200 makes juice from whole foods in a minute, cooks soup from scratch without a stove, makes delicious, healthy ice-cream in 30 seconds and even grinds grain and kneads the dough for you in one five-minute operation. And that’s just for starters. Check this page to see all of the “food feats”.

With a thirty day no risk in-home trial, you can be assured of your satisfaction.

And with a 7 year warranty, you will have peace of mind for a long time.

The Vitamix website has lots of testimonials from folks who had health issues, and are now feeling great! You can even read up on weight loss! Be sure to use my affiliate code to buy this machine so you can get FREE SHIPPING in the United States or Canada!

Nine elegant designs, combining the best of applique and embroidery. There are so many possibilities with these designs! Table cloths, napkins, placemats, sweatshirts, quilts, sweaters, cookie tins, gift boxes and tags, pillows…….. These designs were featured in the November/December 2006 issue of Designs in Machine Embroidery Magazine. To order these designs as a collection, click here.  Each design is available as a single, and you can order  here.

Below are actual stitch-outs of the designs — you click click on each image to see a larger picture.