Terrific Quilting Sites

A question was asked on our Janome Horizon 7700 sewing digest as to who inspired us. The group came up with a lot of names of websites. I've listed them on my sewing and quilting page for every one's convenience including my own. If I find a neat site on the big desktop computer and save it to favorite places, then when I'm relaxing and want to find those great sites, I'm usually using the laptop that of course never got those favorites marked. Now all I have to do is go to my blog and click on interesting links and so can you. One of the things I try for with this blog is to be a resource for others so that they can enjoy their quilting and sewing hobbies.

I also got some great magazines in the mail the other day and just loved reading through the old copies of Dressmaking With Stitches which used to be called Australian Stitches It encourages me because of the great way they explain sewing techniques and the clothes they make are normal people clothes. You know, the kind of thing that you wear to the grocery store, a parent teacher conference, the library, living life. I only wish it was cheaper for a subscription!

Nicole's Designs

We have added another embroidery designer to our embroidery designer page. It is Nicole's Designs, which specialize in modular designs. They are perfect for decorating children's items. usually each design set has a freebie that goes along with it.

Wedding Quilt Part 1

When my son Ron proposed to Savannah we were all very happy and I started thinking wedding quilt. I started asking what type of quilt they might like and colors, etc. One day Savannah sent me a schematic of what she thought they would like.

I was very happy to have a goal of some type in mind since a queen size quilt is a large undertaking and I wanted them to like it. I got my crayons out and David made me some graph paper and I got to work converting her ideas into something that could be sewn and without too many odd angles to sew. It took several attempts but at last I had a reasonable rendition of what she had drawn, expanded into a queen size quilt. When she was her at Christmas she gave her stamp of approval to the final design.

The above picture represents only one half of the quilt. It will be made with 2 1/2" squares for the most part. It is to be a scrap quilt using a huge variety of fabrics. This of course, meant I got to go through all my stash pulling out the different fabrics that I thought might go. I also pulled pre-cut 2 1/2" strips and squares. I did have to buy some more yellow fabrics as I didn't feel I had a good enough selection of them and I didn't wanted to have too many repeats of the same fabrics.

My calculations tell me I will need to cut over 1700 2 1/2" squares for this quilt. Since that seems like a mammoth job, I stuck all the colors except for the red and purple fabrics in a box until I get the red and purple cut up. Then they can go downstairs to sew during my breaks from doing dishes, etc. and I can pull out the next colors to work on. I look forward to making this quilt and sharing it with you. Hopefully it will be done by the August 2011 wedding.

Sherlock Holmes Wallhanging

When Embroidery Library came out with some great reading related designs, I just knew I had to make something with the Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Design for my husband. David is a huge Sherlock Holmes fan and has helped suck me into being a fan also! I had thought originally to embroider out the design and then frame it in a conventional frame, purchased at the thrift store and spruced up by me. Well when the first sew out was in process, something got caught behind the machine and messed things up so I had to start over. Then I ran out of thread, but thankfully was able to substitute another color and it doesn't show too much! But when it was finished, I really liked it until I tried to frame it. It was just a tad too big which meant I had to think through what to do with it. First I quilted it and then tried some techniques that were new to me. I mitered the corners and used a facing to the front instead of binding it and did a raw edge applique for the frame shape. I had a great time trying out some of the decorative stitches on my Janome Horizon 7700; a very fun machine to work with! David was very pleased with his gift and now all we have to do is decide where to hang it.

Oma's Place Embroidery Designs with a Message

Oma's Place has an assortment of different designs, including those for parents with special needs children, Christian home designs and other. Many of her free designs have the .pes extension so be sure you can reformat the design before downloading or buying a design.

4-Hobby Machine Embroidery

Happy New Year to all! May this be a great year with lots of wonderful sewing projects completed. I had posted about this site before, but in case you hadn't seen it yet, I did want to remind you that 4-Hobby Machine Embroidery carries a selection of Judaica symbols in machine embroidery and several Hebrew alpha bets. I know these types of designs are fairly hard to find so for those who are looking, please check this site. They also have several other types of ethnic designs including Hamsa.