Adventure in simple multi-hoop embroidery!

I don't really have much of a chance to do machine embroidery. My sister who also works at the store part time has really hogged the embroidery machines since the beginning and hey who am I kidding I have all my time filled with quilting! But while my mom was away a lady came in and wanted to get a little embroidery made up for a group to which she belongs.

I marked the fabric with guide lines to keep my designs centred.

I then hooped just the stablizer. I always have a hard time keeping the stablizer and fabric centred in the hoop. I hoped to make a crease in the stablizer to keep it in place while I positioned the fabric. It sort of worked.

After that I hooped the fabric loosely in the hoop and used the grid template to line up the correct position of the fabric. That took a few tries to get right but after it was lined up I tightened the hoop and was set to embroider.

A close-up of the machine in action. After the first word was centered and stitched I followed the marking lines I had drawn and hooped again for the other words. It was a little fly by the seat in the multi-hoop department because I was relying on my markings and not markings made by the machine to line up the designs but I was very happy with the result.

I used the Bernina V.7 software and played with the text features. You can arc the text a few different ways and they font it self can be manipulated in many ways. At first I found digitizing designs, even something as simple as text, to be too intimidating. But I am now learning the ins and outs and I am loving it. Its has really got my design wheels turning! 

Post again soon!

Foundation Paper Piecing!

I am going to give a few quick tips for Foundation Paper Piecing. I love, love, love paper piecing. When I first started quilting and my 1/4 inch seam wasn't the stunning perfection it is today, Paper Piecing made it look perfect. You can use this technique for traditional pieced blocks too! A quick disclaimer though... If you are fabric stingy and hate waste you will need to get over that to do my way of Foundation Paper Piecing.

My colour palette inspiration!

Foundation Paper Piecing is a great way to use pieces that would otherwise be too small on quilting projects. But if you like a little more order and continuity to your quilts like I do you can find out what size pieces you need by measuring from the sewing line to the opposite side. You need to make sure you leave enough extra to account for human error and I like to leave 1/2 inch extra on all sides.

Some tools I find really useful for paper piecing at the add a 1/4 ruler, a fabric folding pen, sharp pointed tweezers, scotch tape and a small cutting mat! Plus all the other regular sewing tools.

I do a rough pre-cut of my fabric, some people make templates to make sure the size is right. I cut up one of the blocks for a template but I don't actually cut the fabric to the template size I just make sure the template fits on the fabric I have. To make sure that my rough cut will fit the size of the pieces I measure from the first line of sewing. When sewing piece 1 and 2 for example I measure from the line between section 1 and section 2 for both pieces. For piece 3 I measure from the sewing line between section 2 and 3.  I leave my pieces in rectangle form because well I just don't like to wast time cutting little pieces. (I save all my little cut off ends in scrap bags and we sell them in the store or if they are too small for most people to use some of our customers have started to save them to use in dog beds for the animal shelters! What a great way to use those little tiny bits.)

The important thing to remember with Foundation Paper Piecing is that you will be sewing from the wrong side. Your fabric will be on the bottom and the paper on the top.  To start sewing take piece 1 place it right side away from the paper making sure it covers the whole space and over laps into section 2 by at least a 1/4 inch. Use your scotch tape, I make sure to make it a little less sticky by putting in on and off the table a few times or off the back of my hand, tape the fabric to the paper. Don't put the tape in any of the  areas where you will be sewing or you will sew right through it. (Picking bits of tape off is not fun trust me!) Next take piece 2. Line it up along the edge of piece on with right sides together, I like to do a quick check to make sure when I sew it together it will in fact cover my next section. Slide the fabric along the edge of piece 1 until you are sure it will in fact cover the next section completely after sewing and tape to the paper.

Flip the paper and fabric over so you can see the printed pattern. Shorten your stitch length to 2. The smaller you stitch length the easier it will be to remove the paper later. Sew two or three stitches before the line and back stitch this will anchor your stitching, don't stitch more than that or you will cross into the next areas sewing space and it will cause issues, try to stay with in the coming seam allowance.

After you have sewn piece 1 and 2 along the line leave the fabric right sides together, you will now need to go to your cutting board. Fold the paper along the line between 1 and 2. Take your Add a 1/4 ruler and trim the fabric to 1/4 inch. This is your seam allowance, you should only need to do this step for piece 1 and 2.  Next fold the paper back flat, take your fabric folding pen and apply it to the sewn line and fold piece 2 over so right sides are out. Let this dry.

Next fold the paper along the line between section 2 and 3. Take your add a 1/4 ruler, butt it against the fold and trim the excess fabric. Once you have trimmed this you will then have an accurate edge to place piece 3. Fold the paper back to flat. Line piece 3 along the cut line, make sure it will cover the next area and tape to the paper. Sew along the line anchoring the stitches at the start and end. Repeat until all the pieces are add.

Trimming down along the line between 2 and 3!

Adding piece 3!

Once all the pieces are added to the paper. Take it to your ironing board and give it a final heated press. After everything is laying flat, sew 1/2 away from the outer edge of the design with a basting stitch. This will keep everything tidy while you sew the rest of the parts together. Trim off any further excessive fabric or paper.

Sew the pieces together in numerical and alphabetical order. You will now need to remove the paper, the larger pieces should come off fairly easy. The seam allowance papers will be tougher tweezers will help get the paper out.

Come back and check out the final finish soon!

Brother Fashionista NQ3500D Review

Hi Everyone. So I may or may not have said before that at my mom's quilt shop JoyQuilts we are a Brother Dealer. Brother had a new line come out that we haven't seen before and they let us borrow one for a week to check out the features of the new line.

One of the things I love about Brother is that it is accessible and user friendly for the novice to the experienced quilter. Every machine from Brother that I have had the chance to check out has an amazing user manual and well label pictograph icons making it easy to reference and remember each function.

Plus if you are a Disney fan Brother has exclusive 35 Disney Designs built-in.

 Included with the machine two embroidery hoops 5 x 7 inches and 6 x 10 inches and 138 non-Disney Designs . This machine also has 360 degree sewing  sideways motion stitches

The above hoop is 6 by 10 inches! It has lots of room to stitch your designs.

The is the 5 by 7 inch hoop. Great for making those all important quilt labels. 

 The seasons were built-in designs Fall and Summer were in there too!

I did a little basic sewing, experimented with sideways motion stitches, and a few embroidery designs. I loved the ease of use. I found winding a bobbin and threading to be a breeze and the needle threader works faster than you can snap your fingers.

 The above is a decorative stitch I designed right on the machine. This is a neat feature from Brother.

These two pics are the sideways motion stitches built in to the machine. Add decorative stitches to you quilt sashing or any other project you have on the go!

I really feel if you are a novice you can get great results for your sewing or embroidery. If you haven't started embroidery and are looking to get into the embroidery world this would be a good place to start. Fashionista NQ3500D

Post again soon.
Adrian


p.s. These are my opinions. I have not been paid for this review I just wanted to share the fun I had this week trying out this machine!

Seminole Table Runner Finish

So I have finally finished quilting the Seminole Table Runner I showed in my last post. I am a little later posting than planned. Its been a rough couple weeks schedule wise around here but it is finally finished.

I really love quilting and trying new techniques together with tried and true methods. For me the tried and true method is FMQ with my BSR. New to me is walking foot quilting. I have used my walking foot in the past but I never quite got the results.

First things first I pin basted my layers together.

 To finish off this runner I used 100% cotton batting and a thermal fabric backing that way it can stay on the table during dinner and will take the place of trivets and pot holders. I grew up in a large family but we only have one stove top and sometimes a dual oven but to get the meal on the table and keep it hot we were rotating things in and out of the oven and always looking for pot holders to protect the table cloth and table. I used my dual feed foot (built in walking foot) to stitch in the ditch around the center patchwork. When doing stitch in the ditch I usually use my BSR, that way if my seams aren't quite straight or laying flat I can make the stitching fit at the ditch.

When I do use my walking/dual feed foot I do a finessing to make sure my stitch ends at the points. By using the hand wheel on my machine I can make the stitch a little longer or shorter to make it end where I need it.

Next I used my BSR to add detail quilting in the centre four patches. In the black square I added a triple petals and in the gray I did a side to side wave.  I moved across the centre of the quilt from end to end for the swirl and then added the triple petals after.

After the center four patch was done I put my 1/4 inch dual feed foot back on and stitched point to point  in the background fabric. I then also stitched a 1/4 inch on either side of the first stitch line.

When I got to the outside on the centre patch work I used my Hera Marker from Clover to mark the straight lines. I no longer had a point to shoot for with the stitching and adding the crease line from the Hera Marker made it easier to stay on the straight in relation to the rest of the lines.

Instead of cutting my thread when I reached and end point I back stitched/stitched in place to knot my thread and did a jump stitch. I usually do this when a jump stitch will waste less thread than cutting the thread and starting it again. If you use this method make sure you get a good knot in your thread otherwise you will lose your stitching and have to do it all over again. After I was done stitching I went back and clipped all the jump stitches.

After the middle of the runner was complete I used the dual feed foot and stitched in the ditch around the borders. Finally the runner was done, except for the binding, aka my least favorite part.

Thanks for stopping by!

Adrian

Table Runner

While my mom has been away in Alberta visiting my brothers, I have been busy working on store samples and getting ready for some late summer and fall classes. This post is for the Atkinson Designs Seminole Table Runner.

My first step was fabric selection...

Right now I really love using the Artisan Spirit Shimmer Collection from Northcott Fabrics. I chose a Black, Grey and Red palette.

I just love this whole line.  On to the pattern. I find patterns from this company really quite awesome. For this pattern the diagrams were great and the cutting instructions fantastic. My only complaints were the pressing instructions, some reverse sewing and the left over fabric (but who can't use extra fabric).

They have you start by making four patches. Sew the two strips together, Press to the background fabric. Sub-cut the strip set into smaller pieces then sew them back together. Voila! Four patch! 

When making multiple strip sets for a project I match the same ends together to help insure the same number of sub-cut pieces.  I make sure when piecing that I keep the fabric from peaking out from under my 1/4 inch foot and I use the markings on my stitch plate and the bed of the sewing machine to keep my sewing straight.

Then the pattern has you sew another strip set together. Which gets sub-cut and then added to either side of the four patch. When sewing long strips together even from the same collection the width of the fabric can vary. The directions at this point have you start pressing one strip set one way and one the other. By pressing in opposite directions you can't but the seams together for this step however. 

At this point in construction I pressed toward the red and in the four patch I kept the pressing to the background. I used the iron for the preliminary press but then finger pressed and pinned to get the seams to but against each other. 

For the next step you make another strip set of background and Red. Sew the strips together then sub-cut and add them to either side of all but two pieces, only add them to one of the sides on those two. Once this is done they want on two more the full pieces for you to remove the background from one side of the piece.

Leave the four odd men out until the last step and piece the rest together matching the two contrasting colours, in my table runner it is the black and dark grey. They will form the centre of this runner

.

When the full pieces are together you can now add the odd men out. 

Its a little weird you need to continue the off setting of the pieces and then we will trim them down.

We now add two strips to each side of the ends, add some more background grey to the centre of the runner. The directions say to lay it as flat as possible, lay the strip next to the spot on the runner and sew it together, trim off the excess. I really hate doing it that way so I measure the side and cut the strip to fit. I did this for both sides and both ends of the runner.

Next you trim off the jagged sides. Pay close attention to this because we are now making this a biased edge runner.

We now get to add the narrow inner border, I chose the black!

Next up trimming of the ends to make the angle and adding then end pieces. This is done for the inner narrow border and the outer border ( I missed taking photos of that step in black but I have it in red!)

Again when adding these pieces the directions show sewing them on without measuring and cutting them to length after. I didn't do this I measured, sewed and trimmed off to make the angles.

The runner is now complete!

This is me pinning it to the 100% cotton batting and Thermal Fabric backing! Come back next week to see the quilted finish!

Thanks for stopping by!

Adrian