Christmas Cheer

WOW! I’s been and still is a busy time, but I did manage to get a Christmas project finished. A small wall hanging (18″ x 23″), stitched on my Bernina 780 using different techniques.

The Christmas branches were sewn with Razzle Dazzle, a heavier than normal thread that had to be wound on the bobbin and therefore stitched from the back. Once that was done I turned it around and free motion  stippled the background from the front. The poinsettia petals and leaves were sewn separately and assembled into flowers and then  later attached to the background to give a 3-D effect. The gold curls are regular embroidery files and stitched directly on the background. The holly leaves were embroidered as free standing applique that were attached by stitching a very narrow satin stich over the center vein so they sort of float over the background as well.

A pattern with full instructions, templates, embroidery files and tips on placement  is available on my website at http://www.quiltersniche.com/Embr-Appliq-SVG/New-Embroidery.htm. It does require you to make some decisions on the exact placement of all the elements, but it should not be hard as you have the stitched Christmas branches as a guide. It does not require a large hoop as the branches are stitched on a regular sewing machine, but as they are sewn with a heavier thread you may have to lower the tension on your bobbin a bit or get a second bobbin you use only for bobbin work.

Merry Christmas,

Georgette.

Big embroidery ideas – small hoop.

When you like big designs, but only have a small hoop, there is a solution. This works for both free standing lace embroidery and applique designs. Just group several small designs together and treat them as applique.

Instead of stitching them on hooped fabric, stitch each design on water soluble stabilizer (WSS). Free standing lace and applique designs can be stitched in the normal way. Other lace designs may need an extra layer of either tule, organza, or a grid of cross-hatched stitched lines and defined edges so that that the design does not fall apart when the stabilizer is dissolved.

After the WSS is removed and the designs are dry arrange them on your quilt or quilt block. A bit of washable glue on the back will hold them in place. Use a regular sewing machine with monofilament thread or embroidery thread that matches the design. A straight stitch around the outside edge or a narrow zigzag stitch will do the trick and does not require hooping.

The advantage of this system is that you can fill a quilt block with embroidery and decide on the placement of the designs before they are attached. You could even make a whole wall hanging that way. Here is an example I made a couple of years ago:

Have fun everyone.

Georgette

 

More on the Silhouette Cameo

I like to applique and sometimes combine it with my embroidery software, but there are times the shapes are just too large for my hoops and I stitch them down with a zigzag stitch on a regular sewing machine. It takes just a little bit of practice, but it is not all that hard to do and the advantage is that I don’t have to worry about hooping and placement. As much as I like and admire handwork, I just do not have the time for it anymore so I usually fuse my shapes to the background. I often layer several pieces with small details or accent pieces on top of the main shapes or I add embroidered veins on leaves or petals. It is handy to know where to place these items exactly and the Cameo can help me with this.  Here is a simple example, a little toadstool. Now image that you want the white dots in the exact same spots as in this picture. In this example placement is not critical, but for some other pictures the correct placement may be important indeed. For example when placing eyes and a mouth on a face you would probably want them to end up in the right place unless, of course, you are aiming for a Picasso knock off.

Anyway, for something similar to the toadstool below you probably received a Studio or SVG file that looks like the picture on the right:

           

Normally you would now separate the shapes so you can cut them from different colored fabric. You can move the stem now, but if you want to draw the placement lines for the white shapes, copy and paste those shapes first and move them to the side as shown below:

Now replace your fabric blade in the Silhouette with a colored sketch pen. Choose a color that will show up on the red fabric.  Then select the white shapes on the cap only by drawing a box around them or selecting them one by one while holding down the shift key. Make sure nothing else is selected. After you have prepared your fabric in the usual way and placed it on your mat you are now ready to draw the shapes on your fabric

Next open the Cut Settings window and under Material Type scroll down and select Sketch Pen. Now click on Send to Silhouette and the placement lines for the white dots will be drawn on your fabric. Once that is done DO Not eject your mat. The silhouette will return to the start point. All you have to do is replace the sketch pen with the fabric blade and you can cut your shapes in the usual way. Just remember to select the shapes you want to cut and to enter your preferred cut settings.

The  same method can be used to draw placement lines on flowers and leaves that you can stitch over with your sewing machine.

It is my experience that the lines made with the sketch pens are not permanent, but disappear when they become wet, but there are some videos on YouTube showing how to use permanent markers.

 

Seen on The Quilt Show

Instructions for making a double oven mitt by Jennifer Bosworth of Shabby Fabrics.

Click on the YouTube link to watch the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfQ1ap8iw8A

Are you using the correct needle? Here is a link to a video by Schmetz needles to explain in all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPcjIn7gvig

The tent makers of Egypt. This is fascinating. With the most primitive tools they make beautiful works of art. There are quite a few videos on YouTube. Here is one of them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNzTXZiXN00

 

I hope you enjoy these videos.

Until next time,

Georgette.

Happy New Year

Just a quick note to wish you all a

I hope you have a healthy, happy year filled with creative projects.

Looking back over the past year, I am pretty pleased. No health issues, Quilters Niche, now in its 11th year, is still going strong, and this blog is slowly growing. A big thank you and welcome to all newcomers.

I just received a fun, end of year report from WordPress to show how this blog is doing. Apparently, my blog was viewed 4800 time in 2015 by people from 57 countries, while the busiest day was December 2nd and the most popular post that day was multi hooping. The report did not include the last few days and I wonder if today was perhaps even busier as there were quite a few new subscribers. I would love to see even more people sign up, so if you like what you see, please recommend it to your friends. To keep you interested, here are a few topics I plan to touch on in the near future:

Quilting on an embroidery machine
Machine embroidery on large projects without hooping
Choosing fabric and colors for a quilt
3-d and free standing embroidery

If you have suggestions, know of interesting videos, blogs, or links, please let me know.

Have a great new year.

Georgette

A fun morning at Cozy Creative Center

Yesterday I spent a fun morning at my daughter’s shop, Cozy Creative Center, demoing the Silhouette Cameo while the So.Cal Quilters Run was on. WOW, was it ever busy. Good thing that the shop is really spacious. Daniela, Rick and the crew always make these special events fun and decorate for the occasions. I could kick myself, but I got so busy that I forgot to take a couple of pictures. There was a nice table displaying samples made with the help of the Silhouette and lots of people were interested. I was glad that Daniela was there too to help answer all the questions. Quite a few samples of my work were on display, various applique blocks and my Golden Treasure wall hanging which I talked about in previous blogs. What probably got the most attention were a few luminarias I made from vinyl with battery operated lights instead of a candles. Here are two of them:

ghosts luminaria

floral tealight

They are so easy to make, no sewing or fabric involved, just some vinyl. I had so much fun making them that I made 4 different Halloween designs, bats, ghosts, witches, and spiders and I am working on some Christmas designs too. I hope to posts the floral and Halloween ones on my website tonight. I still have to write up the simple instructions and take a couple more pictures and that is better done when it is dark. The designs can also be stuck to windows. What a fun way to decorate for Halloween! Or how about making them from Heat Transfer Vinyl and applying them to some simple little fabric bags for the little ones when they go trick or treating or even regular vinyl applied to some sturdy paper gift bags. I may even write up some instructions for a bag.

Have a great day!

Georgette
www.quiltersniche.com
www.facebook.com/quiltersniche

Golden Treasure, a new applique pattern.

I  had planned on posting something a while back, but as usual time slipped past again. I have a good excuse, however.  I’ve been busy creating this new wall hanging. It is made from my daughter, Daniela’s, new line of fabric, Tonga Sunburst for Timeless Treasures. When I saw the fabric I loved it so much that I just had to do something with it and this wall hanging is the result. As you will see, it has pieced borders, but I found a technique that make them really easy. They just look complicated. The pattern is written, but before I release it, I want to have the borders tested and that is a problem at the moment. The lady who usually does that is not available for at least a month and I’d hate to wait that long so I am hoping there is a volunteer who might be willing to tackle this project. I only need the borders tested but I would send you the entire pattern. If you are interested please send me an email (georgette@quiltersniche.com). The pattern includes piecing instructions and full size drawings of the individual applique shapes, but also SVG files so that they could be cut on the Silhouette Cameo or a similar cutter. To sweeten the deal just a bit I can also send you a couple of quilting designs of your choice after I receive your comments.

Talking about quilting designs, I just posted a bunch of new digital designs for long arms on my website at www.quiltersniche.com/quilting/new.htm. If you have a computerized quilting system, please have a look to see if there is something you can use.

That is all for now. I hope all of you are doing well and keep busy creating.

Talk to you next time.

Georgette.

Floral Fantasy

I’ve been on a roll these last few weeks and had fun designing 5 applique patterns that can be cut on the Silhouette or just the old fashioned way, with regular scissors.

C-26 Purple Flowers

C-27 Pansies

C-28 Orange-Yellow flowers

C-29 Tulips

C-30 Spotted flowers

Aren’t they pretty? I am very pleased with them. Now I have to decide what to do with them. How about  this layout? With some nice borders and some pretty quilting in the empty blocks it would make a nice wall hanging or table topper.

The applique blocks will need a bit of quilting as well. Perhaps some small stippling?  Looking at the blocks now, I just realize that the photos changed the background color. I used the same pale yellow background fabric for all five blocks, but 4 of them are showing up as blue. Guess I am not a very good photographer. Oh well!

The appliques were designed for a class I’ll be teaching in the near future at Cozy Creative Center. They are available on my website as the downloadable set, Floral Fantasy, and include SVG files and templates for other applique methods plus instructions.They can be found under the SVG-PDF tab while the quilted designs are under the Quilting tab.

Next on my list are a series of downloadable quilting templates for the Silhouette and, as requested, also some quilting designs that can be stitched out with an embroidery machine. So stay tuned.

Until next time,

Georgette

One design – many possibilities

Some designs, especially floral designs,  lend themselves particularly well to some manipulation. Often you can pull the pieces apart, duplicate them and rearrange them. Take one of my latest designs, C-25 Floral branch, for example:

This design basically consists of three parts: the main flower and two buds, while even the leaves can be rearranged:

              

These smaller designs could certainly be used by themselves, but another possibility is to make a copy of the larger bud and to arrange the two together with the small bud:

Or take 4 copies of the larger bud and make  a block design:

Or perhaps a wreath better suits your needs.

And last but not least how about a nice big design:

These are just a few examples of what can be done with a design if you cut a few extra copies. And cutting fabric is a snap on the Silhouette Cameo. Designs can be even further manipulated in the Silhouette Cameo, but I keep that for next time. I do want to add, however, that all the designs can be easily reduced or enlarged without any problem.

My designs are available on my website, quiltersniche.com/SVG-Applique/SVG-Flower-Designs.htm and include the following formats:

SVG – recognized by the Silhouette and other cutting machines
Studio3 – the native Silhouette format
WMF – a vector file that can be imported by Bernina Designer Plus and Creative Drawing and some other embroidery software programs
PDF – that can also be used by Bernina Designer Plus for embroidery digitizing and possibly also by other embroidery programs.

If you know which other embroidery program can use WMF or PDF files for digitizing please let me know and I’ll add them to the list.

Heat transfer and other vinyl

So far I’ve been cutting mostly fabric with my Silhouette Cameo.  To tell the truth, I was a bit confused about vinyl as there seem to be so many different types. So it was time for some research and what better place to do that then on the Web. It seems we can find just about anything there. True enough, I found a terrific explanation at www.expressionsvinyl.com/specs.html. It is too long to copy it all here and I don’t want to bore you. Just click on the link if you are interested in learning about different types of vinyl. They also have a chart with the specific settings they use with their cutting machines. They do warn to use those settings as a starting point only and to always do a test cut first as there may be minor variations in machines and batches of vinyl.  There are charts for the Silhouette Cameo, Silhouette SD, Silhouette Cameo v3, and Cricut. Below is the one for the Cameo v3; the other charts can be found at www.expressionsvinyl.com/machine-settings.html . Silhouette Cameo – Software Version 3 Hope this helps someone else as much as it helped me understanding the different types of vinyl. Happy crafting, Georgette