Embroidery Day!
Today I’m dragging out some old, old stuff. Many years ago I got interested in embroidery and went after it with my usual obsessiveness. I think I like it because it’s really the first crafty type of thing I ever did. I started this one embroidered bib when I was maybe 6 and finally finished it when I was about 22. I’ll find it sometime and show it to you.
I did these 3 embroidery pieces when I was 22 or 23 years old. Ever since then it’s just been stored, doing nothing. You will see I have a certain style - I like organic-ey, rounded shapes, kind of like vines. I love those shapes, it’s so very much fun to draw and sew!
This next blue/green piece is my favorite of all the pieces of embroidery I’ve done. Looping vines and 2 kinds of flowers. I don’t quite know what I’m going to do with it, but who knew I had enough patience to do the satin stitch on those petals!
This last is a foretaste of my last show-and-tell project today … I love the scrolled look of the embroidery. More curved shapes!
Finally, I had three pieces of Holiday embroidery in the pile that I’d apparently originally intended to be pillows. I decided they would be one of my projects to finally get done when I reorganized. I can’t remember the details of what I was going to do originally, so I got to make it up again.
So … here’s my Xmas pillows, in April! Don’t laugh!! It’s a 10-year old project finally done!! I think they turned out nicely, kind of like presents, even if I do have to put them away immediately.
Seriously, regardless of the theme & decoration here, I still faced some sewing fears! In this case, the red fabric is a really shiny satiny material, very slippery - festive! I usually avoid this kind of thin, slippery fabric, and this was a good opportunity to grit my teeth and sew with it anyway. I also avoid buttonholes like the plague, and I had to make buttonholes for the envelope closure, and because of the fabric I had to use stabilizer in it. But I prevailed.
Quilting Patterns
One of the major struggles I’ve had in upgrading my computer equipment is that I can’t abandon Mac OS 9. The trouble is that I used to use the glorious program WordPerfect until the evil empire Microsoft started turning everyone into software zombies. So now I have lots and lots of documents in WordPerfect, stuff I still use, that I can’t access if I upgrade. I’m working hard on moving them all to other formats, but some of it’s pretty difficult to move.
The BIG PROBLEM is that I used to design quilts in the old vector graphics program that was included wihth WordPerfect - it was actually quite good for piecing patterns. The limitations of the graphics program closely resembled the limitations of actual piecing. Helpful! So I probably have 40 quilt designs that are stuck in the WP graphics program.
Anyway, as I drag the designs kicking and screaming into this century, I’m going to start posting them here. I started creating these designs in maybe 1998, about 10 years ago. I might make a gallery of them, start using fabric swatches to flesh them out - I quite like these old designs I made. They’re almost all queen-size, I think, and I included one-foot-length measurement bars across the side and top for scale/sizing. I also often made a pillow design to go with it.
Amish-Style Quilt
This first design is a tribute to Amish quilts. Amish quilts have several hallmarks - dark, solid colors, extensive use of black/navy/brown as a unifying theme, very strong graphic elements. The designs are often simple and with non-repeating motif (like one big central red square on black). Amish quilting, like many things Amish, is meant to be simple and plain, and is made of strong, practical fabrics. This one that I designed is meant to focus on those elements, using only one brighter color - which in this case would be unbleached cotton, although it looks yellow in the design.
In fact, I think Amish quilts influenced my quilt design decisions a lot, thinking about the ones I have yet to recover. I see the simple large-central-diamond motif that’s common in Amish quilting in my designs. As time went on, many Amish quilts became brighter and more detailed, or just brighter in some cases. If you are interested, the Lancaster Quilt and Textile Museum has a lot of great resources, being sort of ground zero for this style of quilt.
Sewing Tools
When I was working on my bag the other night, I was kind of fascinated by all the tools I was using. Sewing, I have to say, is one of the most intensive tool-based crafts I do. And I have a lot of tools and gadgets, but there are so many more out there that you can buy that the array is just stunning. Sewing implements seems to be kind of a personal thing. People have definite preferences about what sorts of pins, irons, machines, needles, etc work for them best. Things they can’t live without.
Due to school, I took a five-year hiatus from crafting because my work/school schedule was so crap-tastic I didn’t have a choice. I missed it a lot. It’s actually been fun over the past months to get involved in machine sewing in particular again. I get to see what tools I used to prefer before I packed ‘em all away, and look at how my skills have changed and what I prefer these days.
I’ve realized I was either missing things because I avoided some part of sewing (hello, zippers?) or that my tools needed some care, updating and replacement. So I’ve been in the process of buying various new things. My next couple of buys will be new fabric scissors, but good scissors are not cheap! Plus my sewing machine is squeaking (horrid noise!) and it needs a tuneup as well. So here’s the tools I can’t live without, and for those of you without a machine sewing addiction, I’ll even tell you what the hell these things are. I’ve spend literally hours on websites and in craft stores figuring out what all the gadgets do. I don’t have nearly enough of them.
Top - Measuring things: Omnigrid ruler, curve ruler, my trusty retractable measuring tape from the Container store and my cutting mat that I found on sale for 75% off. Nice!
Right - Cutting implements: Rotary cutter with 2 settings for fabric thickness (needs new blade, maybe I should get a new daisy cutter?), one pair of nice scissors (not so nice now), a pair of stork embroidery scissors (very sharp, from Jeff’s grandmother) and one with one flat, blunt side from his grandma that I’m not exactly sure what it’s for except probably embroidery - if you have an idea, let me know! I also have a larger pair of shears and pinking shears, and some folding scissors (one pair of which I actually got on the plane with!).
Left Top - Marking, Pinning: 3 different pin holders, one for regular pins, the one with an M is what I made while trying out the Berninas at the Maker Faire and it holds big quilting pins, and the other wrist one is one I got because my mom always used one like this. It holds actual needles for sewing & embroidery. Plus I have chalk thing that has interchangeable colored chalk, the inevitable seam ripper for those times when you just have to piss yourself off, and a sewing gauge with slidable guide. That last one - I had to look up its real name just now, and I once believed a ruler was just as good, but - NO.
Left Bottom - Pins and Needles: I have buckets of pins and needles. Seems like every new project needs some sort of different flippin’ needle. I have actually read where people think you ought to change the needle with each new project - no way, Jose. I have to change the durn thing often enough anyway. I do like my different upholstery and special purpose needles, and I have plastic ones for yarn, too. I think I like quilting pins and embroidery needles the best - they’re Huge!
What I don’t have, and am apparently wanting to spend all my money on: good scissors of various sorts, and maybe a circle cutter, bias tape maker and loop turner, different sizes of the omnigrid ruler (mostly a bigger one), fabric grips, a yardstick, and some sort of thing that’s reasonable for basting quilts. Oh, and I need about a metric ton more bobbins. I’m sure there’s more stuff I want, gadgets are the awesomest.
When not in use, the majority gets dumped into a basket for easy access. It also usually holds scraps of thread and some empty bobbins down at the bottom. And rats, didn’t actually mention the 1st and 2nd most important tools of machine sewing - a machine and an iron!
