Author Archives: Marjorie Busby


About Marjorie Busby

My blog is about helping other quilters learn to use great tools in their quilting through what I can teach and through finding other bloggers who have good information. In addition, I am a mother and grandmother. Other hobbies include any other stitchery which makes me happy at the moment. My profession is as a registered dietitian, and I have worked in clinical research for most of my career. I am now retired and enjoying every minute.

Machine Embroidery Blog Hop this Week

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Kelly at I Have A Notion is sponsoring a blog hop this week featuring Anita Goodesign machine embroidery designs. I couldn’t resist trying out some new embroidery designs and will share a project with you on Wednesday. And until Wednesday, you can visit the following sites where the blogger participants will share tips, tutorials, inspiration and oodles of giveaways (Anita Goodesign embroidery sets are included).
Monday, March 18th:
Tuesday, March 19th:
Cindy - Sew Cindy
Trish - AllThingsCrafty.com
Wednesday, March 20th:
Thursday, March 21st:
Rebecca Grace - Cheeky Cognoscenti
Fri., March 22nd

 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

What’s Old is New Again

While I’m spending time with my grandsons this week, I thought I’d show you a quilt that was made by my great, great aunt and great grandmother. This quilt is made from fabrics from my Mother’s seventh grade school dresses (mid 1930′s). The fabrics and quilt design look so much like quilts of today. I thought you would enjoy seeing it. The entire quilt was hand pieced and quilted. IMG_2948-001IMG_2950-001
 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

The Ikea Effect??

Recently I heard a great interview on NPR and have thought a lot about it in relation to quilting–or at least in relation to my own quilting. It’s funny sometimes how I’m not sure whether two fabrics go together or whether a quilt layout really works, but by the time I’m finished I really like it.

Which brings me to the discussion of one of my weekend projects. I started out with some crumb blocks that Sherry had made and made more blocks to go with them using Elizabeth Hartmann’s improvisational piecing method. That requires a lot of rotary cutting and is too much like work. So, I started thinking about how I could do the same thing using my AccuQuilt GO cutter. That led me to think about how Sharon Schamber does piecelique, and I was on my way. I already had a block drawn in EQ7 that would work–an angled log cabin made in the same manner as the improv piecing. So, I cut strips with my AccuQuilt strip die and made some shortcuts to Sharon’s method and had a lot of fun making the blocks. I love gluing the strips together and then stitching them after the whole block has been assembled.

The plan was to use my Patience Corners quilt layout which puts sashing on two sides and turns the blocks in alternating directions. My daughter has asked for a new tablecloth quilt for her kitchen table (where the children eat a lot of their meals) because she doesn’t want to wear out the one she is using now. The current one is made from bright batiks in the Bento Box pattern. So, rather than using white sashing, I decided on a silver batik that would not show stains.

With all that said, here’s a picture of four blocks pinned to the design board. Not sure whether I like this or not. Since I’m spending time with grandchildren this week, I won’t look at this again until next weekend, so that will give me time to decide whether I like it or not.

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Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Weekend Quilting

Spent the last week and a half finishing some UFO’s. Now there are five quilts to be bound which is a couple days work for me. It is so good to have these quilted. Sometimes I don’t quilt a top because I’m just not sure how I want to quilt it. Either I can’t decide about the block background or the sashing or there is some indecision somewhere.

My quilting machine is a Nolting Hobby Quilter which was one of the first (if not the first) machines made for the home hobbyist. It’s a workhorse and has served me well. And the reality is that I’m never going to spend as much as it costs to get a top of the line computerized quilting machine. It’s just not on my wish list.

Years ago I bought the stylus and some of the Quilt EZ motif template boards. I never bought the pantograph boards because I prefer to work from the front of the machine, and really enjoy doing freehand work. But that’s not to say that there aren’t some pantograph designs that I like. In fact, I have designed quite a few myself. The problem with paper pantographs is that I have trouble following the lines (could never color inside the lines in a coloring book either). The nice thing about these boards is that the stylus fits inside a small groove and it’s a lot easier to follow the lines.

After using the heart for the Candy Hearts quilt and enjoying using the templates again for the large hearts, I decided to buy some pantograph boards. Two of my favorites are the interlocking squares and the Baptist fan. And it has been so much fun for me to finish some quilts that I couldn’t decide how to quilt. The red and blue and yellow and green quilt had such wide sashing that every time I looked at it, I folded it back up and put it in the “later” stack. I love, love, love the interlocking squares on it.

And yes, I’m thrilled to have the Candy Hearts finished — that was a lot of work. But I’m just as happy to have these others quilted too.

Candy Hearts

Candy Hearts

 

Candy Hearts Closeup

Candy Hearts Closeup

Pinwheels with Interlocking Squares

Pinwheels with Interlocking Squares

 

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Patience Corners with Baptist fan quilting

Patience Corners with Baptist fan quilting

 

  
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Another Candy Hearts Quilt

I got an email a couple of weeks ago from Cherry at Cherry Blossoms Quilting Studio. She made the most adorable quilt using the Candy Hearts embroidery set. This is her adorable quilt. It’s a mini – but just think of the wonderful ways to use this –from a banner/ wall hanging to a table topper.

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XOXO by Cherry Blossoms Quilting Studio

 

In fact, I was so inspired by this, that I took the stack of assorted hearts that I had and stitched them together. In the end I had five different toppers. Here are a couple of photos.

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The one thing I realized later after looking at the photo of what Cherry has done and then at the hearts I stitched together, is that her hearts are on a much smaller background and are nestled closer together. If I were doing it again, I definitely would do it her way. 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Candy Hearts Quilting Progress

After posting yesterday, I continued to quilt some samples until I had a better idea of what I wanted to do on the candy hearts quilt. If you remember, this is how I started.

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After looking at this a bit, I decided to change the heart. After I did that, I looked at the background fill and decided that it would be better visually, if it were round. In the top part of the image below, you can see how I changed the background fill in the upper part of the block.

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This gave me a pretty good idea of where I was going, so I loaded the Candy Hearts quilt and started work on it. I finished the stitch in the ditch and the ribbon candy in the frames and have started adding the hearts in the plain blocks. The plain blocks are smaller than my sample, so will have to see what fill will work best in the wider areas.

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Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Winter Fun

I saw a fun project last weekend and knew I just had to make these for my grandchildren. I can remember what rambunctious fun I had growing up with two brothers and a sister and my grandchildren can get pretty rambunctious too. So, I started making snowballs–yes, snowballs! It takes about five minutes at the most to hoop my fabric and stitch out these cute little faces. The balls are made in the shape of a baseball, so they’re one continuous seam. These snowballs are made from cotton lycra (dancewear fabric) because that’s what I had in my closet, but I’ve ordered some white fleece from Joann’s. They’re filled with fluffy fiberfill. I think about 2-3 dozen snowballs should be enough for three children. What fun to build forts and have a great snowball fight. (I purchased the embroidery files from http://www.CharmingStation.com.

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And this is the second thing I’m working on–ideas for quilting my candy hearts quilt. There are alternating plain blocks in that quilt, so this is what I’m thinking about doing for the plain blocks. I stitched it out this morning to size the hearts and see how it would look. I’m pretty pleased, but think I’ll use either a wool batting or a layer of Dream Request weight underneath my Hobbs Heirloom batting to give the quilting of the heart shape more definition. This quilting is with only one layer of Hobbs Heirloom.

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Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Sherry’s Bargello

This is the most beautiful bargello quilt. Sherry has such a wonderful sense of color. When I look at the photo, it seems that the quilt is folded, but in fact, the photo shows the quilt hanging straight down. It was so large that I couldn’t pin the entire top, so the top sides are folded in just a bit and the bottom is sitting on the floor. Is that an incredible optical illusion. Just imagine how it will look on her bed. The back is a lighter color and the overall quilting design is such that she has decided to turn it over to the back side for summer. Doesn’t this make you want to make a bargello?

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Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Patchy Hearts by Linda

I got an email yesterday with this beautiful quilt picture attached. Linda won the hearts giveaway last year, and this is what she did with the fusible hearts. I absolutely love the pastels and bright colors mixed together. This is Linda’s quilt design (she designed it in EQ). The hearts have sashing on two sides and the alternating blocks are half log cabin blocks. This is wonderful.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis is the label she made. I love using the applique for the label.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

  
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Love is Everywhere

I have been working all week on an early Valentine present for those of you who do machine embroidery. The Queen of Hearts die AccuQuilt die #55325) has some pretty hearts on it, and I have digitized them with three different applique stitches that are designed specifically for quilting. This is one of the heart shapes used for the Have A Heart Make A Quilt campaign that I mentioned earlier this week. These stitches are light and flat and stay that way after laundering. All my quilts go in the washing machine and dryer, so my embroidery has to stand up to that too. Here are some photos of the set.

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Closeup of Hand Applique Stitch

Closeup of Hand Applique Stitch

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Closeup of free form applique stitch

Closeup of free form applique stitch

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Closeup of filled pebble stitch

Closeup of filled pebble stitch

 

 

To get this Valentine gift, just email me before February 14 at busbyquilts
at gmail.com, put HEARTS in the subject line, and tell me the machine format you use. 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie