Tag Archives: Embroidery

Butterflies

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I’ve written before about my grandma and how she was a longtime quilter but, now that she’s in her 90s, unfortunately her eyes don’t allow her to quilt any more.  She still does a little bit of embroidery, but quilting for her is done and instead she’s happy to know that I like to quilt.

The good news is that before her eyesight became too poor to quilt, she finished a handful of quilt tops that have been stored away in a box in my parents’ house.   I finished one of those quilt tops back in 2013 (you can read about it here), and when I was home visiting my parents over the holidays I pulled out another one of the quilt tops to work on this year.  This one is appliqued butterflies.

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I don’t have a full picture of the quilt because this one is large and in charge.  It measures approximately 78” x 86”.  Whoa!  I will have to clear some major floor space just to get this one basted.

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My grandma liked to do a lot of applique but I’ve never made an applique quilt myself.  I have a couple of ideas for some modern applique designs I would like to try, but for now they’re just that…ideas.  I have too many other quilts I want to make that aren’t applique and they are my priority, so instead I’ll just finish this applique quilt my grandma made.

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As someone who doesn’t applique, I’m a bit stumped right now on how to quilt this one.  There’s quite a bit of white space on the quilt that needs to be taken into consideration, but also what to do with those butterflies?  I think I’ll be doing a bit of research before I start in on quilting it.

Any applique quilters out there that want to weigh in on quilting it?  I’m taking suggestions!

Mom’s Quilt – Finished

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I’m adding another quilt to the finished pile this week with my mom’s embroidered quilt.

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My mom, who retired last year, recently decided to take up embroidery.  Yes, it was a shock to everyone.  Mom has never exactly been a sewer, knitter, embroiderer, etc.  I would say she’s more of a gardener, but she seems to really enjoy embroidering, especially during the winter when gardening isn’t really possible in the Midwest where she lives.

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It started because she had to finish some embroidery blocks for my grandma and that somehow triggered her inner embroiderer self.  I say good for her!  So she went to her local craft store and picked up quilt blocks to embroider, like my grandma likes to do.   Once she started, she got on a roll and finished them in pretty good time.  That’s when I came in and put them together to make a quilt.

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When my mom visited last month, we went to The City Quilter so she could pick out the fabric for the back and the binding.  It is Clothworks Everything Blue collection by Marsha McCloskey.  She wanted something blue and floral to complement the blue in the quilt blocks and the Everything Blue collection fit the bill.  The solid blue border between the blocks is Kona Cotton in Windsor.

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For the quilting on this one, I went with navy blue rather than white thread, which I tend to gravitate towards on much of my quilting.  I really thought the blue would add something to the blocks and mom agreed.  I’m so glad I went with the blue quilting.  It really does make the blocks look better.

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Now that this is done I have to pack it up and send it to my mom so she can admire her embroidery work.

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By the way, word on the street is that she’s working on some new quilt blocks.  We’ll see what she comes up with next.

Mom’s Quilt

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Happy Sunday!  What are you working on today?  I plan to spend time outside and also work on this little project.

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I hinted about it earlier this month and it is now officially in progress.  My mom recently took up embroidery and embroidered some quilt blocks.  She finished her part and now I have to actually make them into a quilt.

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I’m working on putting it all together and hope to have it done soon.  I’ve done one of these embroidered quilts before and they are a pretty quick project to complete.  Yea for that!

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Hope you have a great Sunday!

Something Different

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Today’s finished quilt was something new for me and had me saying whaaaa?

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I’ve written before about my grandma and mentioned she can no longer quilt but she does do some embroidery.  To keep her busy with fun projects, my mom buys her old timey embroidery panels that when finished can be sewn into a quilt.  I say old timey because does anyone even do these anymore?  I must confess I had never heard of such thing, but I’m also not that familiar with embroidery so it’s not surprising this was new to me.

In the mail one day arrived this stack of finished embroidered quilt blocks my grandma had completed.

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After wrapping my head around exactly what they were and how they work, I discovered
that six blocks come to a package, but that really doesn’t make a lot of sense to me because you need 12 blocks to make decent sized quilt.  Why not put 12 in a package?  I digress.

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When my mom bought these for my grandma, the store only had one package of each pattern so she had to buy two packages of different but coordinating embroidery panels.  I think it ended up working out for the best and actually makes the quilt more interesting.

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The nice thing about these embroidery panels is how fast a quilt top comes together.   There was really very little work I had to do!  I did decide to add a border around the panels because I thought it needed something.

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For the binding, I found Denyse Schmidt’s Greenfield Hill Ladies League in Cranberry and the color and design worked perfectly with the quilt top.

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I have to say that this is not the typical type or look of a quilt that I normally like, but that isn’t really the point of it.  It’s a joint project between my grandma and me.  Although I think I could see this at the end of a bed in my future country home that I own one day!

From Quilting to Embroidering

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Last weekend I attended another Crafternoon event at the New York Public Library.  You may remember when I wrote about my first Crafternoon experience here.  The Crafternoons are quickly becoming my new favorite activity to do around NYC.

This month, the Crafternoon event featured Jessica Marquez, author of Stitched Gifts and embroidery guru.  I’ve never tried embroidery before but I thought I would give it a go.  How hard could it be?

Jessica brought templates from her book so we could hand stitch holiday cards and gift tags.  I jumped right in thinking I would knock these tags and holiday cards out in no time.  How wrong I was.  In two hours I was only able to accomplish four gift tags!

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(Note: I still have to hole punch the tags and run a ribbon through them.)

Regardless of my slow progress, it was super fun to learn about embroidery and I can see why so many people enjoy it.  But I think it’s safe to say I won’t be taking up this craft anytime soon.  I have the templates and may attempt the holiday card yet, but that’s still TBD.  I think for now I’ll stick to quilting.