Trials and Tribulations with Quilting, Machine Embroidery and Sewing
Posted in miscellaneous on Aug 28th, 2008
This is the current plan for my next quilt…
Each of the squares is 3 inches. The quilt is four identical blocks (see below). Each block is rotated 90 degrees from the previous block.
I spent a bit of time today scanning the fabric and using PC Quilt to see how it would all come together. I [...]
Posted in Quilting on Aug 27th, 2008
It’s finished!
The continuous binding worked well. It did take me three attempts to get the join right, but as soon as it worked I had a bit of an ‘aha’ moment so I think I should be able to do it easily next time.
I ironed the binding into place after I attached it to the [...]
Posted in miscellaneous on Aug 21st, 2008
I’ve cut the binding, the hanging sleeve and designed the label.
The black rectangles in the above image are where I removed my name.
I use a mixture of software to create my labels – Scansoft PC (Easy Layout) – this is janome software and very old and out of date -Â to create the words and then [...]
Posted in miscellaneous on Aug 20th, 2008
I’ve been thinking about this quilt again – I still need to bind it. I have decided to use all of the fabric in the blocks to make the binding. I plan to do a continuous binding and I found a fabulous tutorial here.
It also needs a hanging sleeve and a label.
Posted in miscellaneous on Aug 17th, 2008
A bit more free motion practice.
I decided to try the fill stitching before stitching the outline.
As the bobbin thread ran out, I needed to fill a new one. I bought more of what I thought was the same type, but the new bobbin created all sorts of tension problems – see below
See the white bobbin [...]
Posted in miscellaneous on Aug 14th, 2008
I worked on my flower…
I have found the sewing machine speed that works for me and I am pleased with the results – it’s not perfect, but if I wanted perfect I would digitise a flower and use my embroidery machine.
As you can see in the below image, I’m still going outside the outline and I [...]
Posted in miscellaneous on Aug 13th, 2008
I’ve been working on my free motion embroidery. This is my first attempt at fill stitches. I haven’t yet found the right machine speed so more experimentation is required. The density isn’t right and the stitches are a bit bitty.
Also some of my stitches go over the outline – I think I can fix this [...]
Posted in Machine Embroidery on Aug 7th, 2008
I’ve been learning free motion embroidery from this book.
Above is my attempt at a leaf. I’m quite happy with the results. The key for me was to go really slowly – my machine is set at the lowest speed. Also, a spring tension hoop seems to work much better than any other kind plus it [...]