My Sewful Retirement

A Quilting Journey

Archive for the month “August, 2019”

30 Aug 2019
17 Comments

Sharing Techniques

Happy Friday!

Life in our small town here in Florida has been quite feverish with the anticipation of Hurricane Dorian! I haven’t gotten nervous yet….

Our embroidery/quilt club meeting focused on techniques this week. The ladies wanted to know how I design my quilt projects using embroidery.

I am self taught so I’m sure there are better ways of designing quilt projects incorporating machine embroidery but I was happy to share my techniques with the group.

I brought in a few smaller quilt samples. I gave each member graph paper, pencils and crayons to follow along as we discussed each sample. I talked about:

  • should you create the quilt first
  • should you do the the embroidery first
  • simple quilt math
  • stabilizing the fabric before embroidery
  • using heavy weight rayon threads
  • Centering designs
  • the importance/value of printing embroidery templates when designing quilt projects

Samples I displayed:

  • fall mini quilt
    fall mini quilt
  • wonky spider churn dash
    wonky spider churn dash
  • QAYG fall pillow
    fall pillow
  • fall mini quilt
    fall mini quilt
  • Flying geese mini quilt autumn
    Autumn mini quilt

It was a good class, the two hours went by quickly — we had fun and I really could tell they were absorbing what I had to say — they asked excellent questions!

The “homework” assignment was to create the wall hanging almost a log cabin using their own designs similar to the layout I used below.

Log cabin mini
Log cabin mini

Hope you have a wonderful weekend — be safe!

Posted in New Projects and tagged ,
26 Aug 2019
10 Comments

Scattered sunflowers

Happy Monday!

I got a new toy last week, a Brother ScanNCut DX. I spent the weekend learning how to use it.

I love applique and spend a lot of my crafting time doing applique with my embroidery machine. I chose the Brother ScanNCut primarily because it works with my embroidery files easily and it’s super easy to scan images for other applique projects I want to make.

After practicing the basics I decided to make a project using both the quilting and applique features.

Brother ScanNCut Quilt Applique
sunflower tumbler
ScanNCut Quilt Applique
sunflower tumbler

I used the ScanNCut to cut the tumbler shapes for the background – once the image was scanned in I was able to add in the seam allowance in the editing mode. The fabrics for the sunflower applique pieces were cut to size so I didn’t need to stop my embroidery machine to do any trimming — that alone is worth every penny I spent on the machine!

You can also scan in hand drawn images – which is what I did for the placemats.

Brother ScanNCut Project
hand drawn sunflower

The machine is quiet and user friendly. My husband will need to make a table for it — I have it set up in my office which is a little inconvenient right now, other than that I’m quite happy with the purchase!

Happy Sewing!

Posted in New Projects and tagged ,
19 Aug 2019
12 Comments

Fall Will Be Here Soon!

Happy Monday!

Its been awhile since I last posted. I’ve been busy creating fall projects for the embroidery/quilting club I’m a member of.

Fall is my favorite time of year and was more than happy to volunteer to lead our group for a few weeks.

Pumpkins seem to be the universal symbol of fall and my brain has been swimming with ideas! Our group tends to focus on budget friendly small quilting projects that can be made quickly.

Inspiration for this project came from a refrigerator magnet I saw at Cracker Barrel! As soon as I saw it I was hooked and couldn’t wait to bring it to life with fabric.

For the quilt top I used (8) 2.5 x WOF strips of Kona Cotton in fall colors, 1/2 yard of a cream tonal print and a scrap of brown fabric measuring 2.5 x 4.5.

Using my Fons & Porter Quarter/Half Square triangle ruler I cut the needed triangles – 44 quarter triangles and 6 half square triangles. If you don’t have the Fons and Porter ruler, the easy angle and companion ruler work also. Or any other quarter triangle ruler that uses strips for cutting.

I laid out 32 quarter triangles into 8 hourglass blocks and stitched them together with a quarter inch seam. The hour glass blocks are 4.5 x 4.5 inches unfinished.

The remaining 12 quarter triangles were stitched together with the 6 half square triangles creating the leaf and corner blocks which also measured 4.5 x 4.5 inches unfinished.

To create the stem I used the stitch and flip method using a 2.5 x 2.5 inch square of background fabric with the brown 2.5 x 4.5 rectangle.

I arrange the assembled blocks into the pumpkin shape, added a 4.5 x 6.5 rectangle of background fabric to the left of the stem and sewed all the rows together.

Finally I added a 3.5 inch border all around. I then quilted the pumpkin – I prefer to do my quilting before adding the embroidery.

Pumpkin Mini Quilt
Pumpkin Mini Quilt

I chose 4 embroidery designs from Embroidery Library to use for this project. The members of the group aren’t required to use the same designs. I did give the members heads up on what I was planning because the designs were on sale when I created this project.

After quilting I added the embroidery designs. To attach the backing I used mono-filament thread on top to stitch in the ditch around the pumpkin, stem and leaves. I used the remaining pieces of the 2.5 strips to create a scrappy binding.

The mini quilt measures 22 x 22 inches and I’m looking forward to hanging it in my office.

Pumpkin Mini Quilt
Pumpkin Mini Quilt w embroidery

The shading on the leaf designs is awesome!

fall mini quilt
leaf shading

Happy Sewing!

Posted in New Projects and tagged , , ,

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