Combining Quilting & Embroidery

I posted pictures of a quilt called A Mother’s Love last November, and have received many compliments on how beautiful it turned out to be…. but the real credit for this amazing quilt goes to a wonderful lady named Leslie Clarke. She spent countless hours piecing it, with applique and crystals in perfect proportion. She even added her own border to the entire edge that included more applique and crystals! This quilt was made with love for Leslie’s daughter Nicole, and it was truly a labor of love. I had named the quilt A Mother’s Love, but the actual name of the pattern is A Garden Party.

This past week, Leslie received word that she had won second place in a quilting contest for this quilt! Congratulations, Leslie! Here is part of the story that Leslie included with her entry:

“This quilt was my first quilting project on my new embroidery machine. When the instructor teaching the class on how to use the machine pattern became ill, I decided to forge ahead and also to really stretch and make the queen-size quilt. My daughter was moving to a new apartment, and — since her favorite color is red — it had to be for her!”

If you’re anything like me, the first thing you think of when you are this happy is the Snoopy Dance theme song — this music has been dancing around in my head ever since Leslie told me she won the prize!

There have been lots of requests for these placemats, and we have twelve colors to choose from! Just think of what you can do with these! You can use them unadorned, and embroider them when you have some free time. You can make a set for yourself, and your best friend at the same time. You can turn them into book covers, cake or bread baskets, tote bags or make-up bags — the possibilities are endless! See the close-up pictures below to appreciate the quality and the color choices!

Shown with a suggestion for embroidery

To place your order for these placemats, hurry over to the Embroidery Store and check out our new section for embroidery blanks!

The design that is embroidered on the peach placemat above is from A Design by Lyn and is called One by One. Thank you, Lyn!

This placemat features an adorable butterfly from Designs Sew Fine and is part of the Butterflies II collection.  A contrasting fabric was added to the edge of the placemat, and finished just like a small quilt. This is a great idea! You can make napkins to coordinate with your binding!

Make sure to join the newsletter on the lower left side of this page to be notified of the latest color additions!

I had so much fun doing the Christmas Mantel Scarf, and I wanted to use the pattern in a different way. The design is called Heirloom Lace. I turned the shapes sideways, and added some cross-hatching in the center section to highlight embroidery.

I used embroidery patterns from Carolyn Faulk at Embroidery Designs by Carolyn — they stitched out beautifully. You could make one of these for each season, or for everyday use.

After all of the embroidery was complete, I made a facing for the table runner to hide the embroidery on the back. Then I added a cluney lace to the edges. You can click on each picture twice to see the largest version.

Now available! These table runners are available in kit form, so you will be able to add your own embroidery and edging trims! Click here to order!

Lou Ann from Maryland had this to say about her Table Runner Kit: “It is every bit as beautiful as I had expected.  My weekend project will be to finish it and put it on my table.  Thank you so much for your beautiful work!  Now, do I want to add a monogram to the small area like you suggested ………. add something to the middle ………. to the ends of the middle so I can use my candelabra.  I have a lot of thinking to do as I loved your suggestions – all of them!!!”

When I saw the pattern for the popular White Chocolate Quilt, I just knew I had to make one. I had lots of scraps in the beige tones, but not enough for the larger squares, so I decided to modify the layout to use the fabrics I already had. By adding shades of green for the larger squares, I created my White Chocolate with Mint Quilt.

The first step was to piece lots of fabrics together on the longarm machine to create strips that could be cut into squares. Next, I placed fabrics right-sides together on the longarm, and used a digital pattern to sew lots of half-square triangles together. After all of the cutting and pressing was done, the blocks were assembled. It took a large surface to try a few layouts — arranging and rearranging until I found one that I liked. All of the large blocks and border were pieced, and then it was ready to quilt!

You can click on the pictures below to see the steps I used for assembly. Each picture will open to a larger size when you click on it again.

You can order the original White Chocolate Quilt pattern from McCall’s Magazine.

We’re currently adding the embroidery designs back to this site, and we are having a few growing pains. You can access the designs by clicking on the left side of the page where it says Embroidery store, or in the yellow box at the top of the page in the link that says The Embroidery Store is now open. When you arrive at the store, some of the individual designs are marked as Out of Stock. This is one of the growing pains that I mentioned, and our web master will be fixing this just as soon as he can. All of the designs are available for your shopping cart.

Another growing pain is on the Collections page. You can see the name of the collection, but none of the individual designs that are in the collection. I’ve decided to feature two of the collections here, because they have a Christmas theme, and they are on sale right now!

Here are two of the collections — the Christmas Train collection, and it’s adorable stitched on a mantel scarf, and the Christmas Candles are wonderful on towels, table linens — anywhere that you want a touch of applique and glitz:

Here is a great way to get an early start on your organizing projects in your sewing room!

My fabric stash was starting to have a life of it’s own — and threatening to fall off of the shelves and onto the floor! I could never find what I needed, and if I did find it, the fabric was a wrinkled mess. Here’s a picture:

Then I discovered that Linda of Putting You In Stitches has the perfect solution. She has fabric boards that are cut to just the right size to put my fabric on with ease. Some of my boards have less than a yard, and some of them have more than 4 yards on them! Check out what a difference it makes with organized fabric shelves!

You can order these fabric boards by contacting Linda via email at Linda@PuttingYouInStitches.com.  Check out her photo memory quilts while you are there! Enjoy!

Here’s a project I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time …. a Christmas mantel scarf.

Using a design called Heirloom Lace from One Song Needle Arts, I quilted six repeats of the design across a fabric panel that was 84 inches wide. The total height of the design is just a little bit over 18 inches. When the designs were complete, I put another layer across the top of the “quilt sandwich” while it was still on the machine.  Straight lines were sewn down the sides and across the bottom — leaving the top edge open for turning. I trimmed all of the excess fabric, clipped the points, and turned the facing inside out. Minimal pressing was required to smooth out the points, and the top edge was serged closed.

See below for more pictures. Don’t forget, you can click on the pictures to make them larger.

Have you ever seen quilts with wavy borders? The border pieces that you cut according to the charts included with these directions (and other patterns that you have purchased) could be a little bit too long
to be attached to the quilt center that you have completed. Everyone uses a slightly different size seam allowance — and when you multiply the effects of the difference across an entire quilt top, the differences can be significant. If you already have some long border pieces cut and ready to apply to a quilt top, that’s OK for now.  We want them to be a little bit too long to make it easier to use the following process.

You’re probably thinking “Why can’t I just sew a border along one side, and then cut off the excess when I get to the end?” The answer is that you will be stretching your border fabric as you attach it to the quilt top. All of the excess fabric will then end up being a wavy border, which makes it very hard for the person doing the actual quilting to get your borders to lie flat.

Here is a picture of the very bottom of a quilt that is almost finished:

You can see that the majority of this quilt is complete. As the excess fabric has accumulated down the sides of the quilt, it “has to go somewhere”. In other words, it all ends up at the bottom. In this case, pleats were needed to remove the excess fabric — and that’s never the best approach.

Please resist the urge to sit down and sew your borders onto your quilt top without taking a few simple measurements first! You will stretch the edges of your quilt top, and you will end up with wavy borders ,
guaranteed! When you have wavy borders, your quilt is much harder to quilt, it won’t lay flat on a bed or table, and it won’t look right hanging on a wall. Just a little bit of extra measuring at this stage will
save you a lot of frustration later.

We will be following that old advice “Measure twice, and cut once”. You don’t want to make any mistakes here. First, make sure your quilt center has been neatly pressed, and that all seam allowances are flat
on the back. Lay your quilt on a large flat surface (a floor comes in handy here, but a large table is even better!) and use a metal tape measure. Lay the tape measure on the quilt in the center, measuring from top to bottom. Make a note of this measurement. This is the number you will use to cut two of your side
strips to the proper length.

Use your tape measure to see how this center measurement differs from the measurement along the edge. You may be surprised to see the amount of difference between the two numbers!

Pin the two side strips to each side of the quilt, making sure the fabric is distributed evenly. Place a pin in the center, and one at each end. Then keep adding pins until you feel that all ease is distributed evenly. Sew the border strips in place. Press flat.

Now lay the tape measure in the opposite direction (going from side to side), but make sure it’s in the center of the quilt, not along the edge. Make a note of this measurement. You might want to check again to see how different this center measurement is than one taken at the edge!

Cut your two remaining borders to the proper measurement, and pin as directed above, easing in any fullness.

Repeat this process for the rest of your borders, if your quilt has additional pieces.The more borders you have on your quilt, the more you will love using this method after your project is complete! I’ve received countless phone calls after teaching this method, and everyone of them is from someone who is now confident when it comes to this final step.  Too often we are in a hurry by the time we get to the end of the piecing process, and just want to get it done. It’s worth a few extra minutes when it comes to the long life of your quilt!

No more wavy borders!

Just as I finished picking the last roses of the season from my garden, I received this beautiful quilt top from Priscilla Madsen. I opened the box to see many gorgeous embroidered roses, and instantly I knew how I wanted to quilt this! I had been wanting to use a collection called “Carmen’s Roses” from One Song Needle Arts, and this was the perfect time.

With lots of bias piecing, and tons of red roses, I considered using stippling or hand-quilting to tame any puffiness that may occur after quilting. As it turned out I decided to combine both! The hand stitching is right next to the embroidery, which makes the roses stay a little bit closer to the surface.

This quilt was done with a Gammill machine and a Statler Stitcher, allowing the roses to be trimmed where necessary to fit in with the blocks that only had room for certain segments of the designs. If you enjoy machine embroidery, these red roses can be purchased through the Stitchery Mall .  Having seen this embroidery, I have to say that it is exquisite!

The quilting designs can be purchased from One Song Needle Arts, and can be seen here:

I received this little video today from a very kind gentleman, and I just had to share it with you! Neither of us can find the originator of it, but it’s not from lack of trying….

This displays how a stitch is formed. You can see how the rotary hook spins around, capturing the thread from the needle, and actually forming the stitch. If your top tension is too tight, the rotary hook cannot form the stitch, and you will have skipped stitches throughout your quilt top.

The formation of stitches