Category Archives: Design

Variegating a Quilt

I am back to the Half Square Triangle quilt. All of the triangles have been stitched. This morning I sorted all the triangles and put them in order with color transitions that seem to work from one print to the next. They could be ordered differently, but this is the order I have them.

The next step is to decide how many pieces are in each variegation. Because the fabrics were chosen randomly, there are not equal numbers of squares in each stack. Thus, I expect to use 4-8 squares of a color in each variegation.

Hopefully this afternoon, I can start putting the squares up on the design wall and will take a pix and show you how it looks. This is a real shot in the dark – we may not like it when it is actually up on the wall.

Here’s the original quilt design – if you need a refresher. The colors in this EQ7 version are random scrappy.

 
 

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

Marjorie

 

Happy 4th of July and a few Circles

Hope everyone is having a Happy 4th of July here in the steaming hot USA. The last couple of days have only been in the upper 90′s here in North Carolina, but it seems hotter than our record 100+ temperatures of last week. I have spent the past few days working on a new machine embroidery set using my circle die and staying inside as much as possible.

There are two new machine embroidery sets using the Circle Die–and who doesn’t have a circle die? It is so wonderful to have perfectly cut circles every time.

I did something new that I thought I would share. It’s a way to reduce waste when cutting circles–and a picture is worth a thousand words.

Circle Die 2-3-5 inch circles

Use an 18 inch x 6 inch strip of fabric with fusible already pressed onto the wrong side. Leave the paper on the fusible until circles have been cut. 

 And here’s one of the designs from the Circle Flower Set I’m finishing today. You can also do this on your regular sewing machine using the applique stitch. Scroll all the way to the end to see this really fun flower made only from the small (2 inch) circle on the circle die.

 
 

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

Marjorie

 

Chisel Die – More Options

Yesterday, I gave you some options for the Chisel Die. I started playing around in Electric Quilt and came up with some more options. The individual block will be shown first, and then the quilt layout from EQ7. Some of these are just positive/negative changes rather than completely different blocks. Play around with this and see what you can create.

Chisel Friendship Star 1 Block

Chisel Friendship Star 1 Quilt

Chisel Friendship Star 2 Block

Chisel Friendship Star 2 quilt

Chisel Whirligig Block, Chisel Pinwheel 2 Block

Chisel Whirligig Quilt

Chisel Pinwheel 2 Quilt

Chisel Pinwheel 1 Block and Chisel Stretched Star Blocks

Chisel Pinwheel 1 Quilt

Chisel Stretched Star Quilt

 
 

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

Marjorie

 

Ta Da! Sunbonnet Sue Makes an Appearance

August was busy around here with visitors and a couple of day trips of our own. And, in the meantime, my embroidery machine and I were working on my new Sunbonnet Sue designs. I haven’t finished all of the thread charts and other documentation, but have posted them in my store as “coming soon” and hope to have them ready for sale by the weekend.

Here are some preview pictures of three of the designs. The set also includes Sunbonnets with applique stitch, raw edge applique with a zigzag stitch, and others. I have also designed a nice little quilt with these Sunbonnets and will have instructions for it included with the set.  I’ll tell you more about the quilt tomorrow.

SBS #1

 

SBS #2

 

SBS #3

 
 

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

Marjorie

 

Dressing a Christmas Table Runner with Machine Embroidery and Die Cuts

You know that I’m not into ornate things – but I do like elegant – and sometimes that means very simple. I have been working on some machine embroidery to be used for embellishments on things like table runners and tree skirts and any other things that may need embellishing at Christmas time. What’s really nice about these is that there is no top or bottom, so they work on things like table toppers which are seen from all directions. I took  the large circle die and checked all my other dies to see what shapes fit inside it.  Here are some photos of what I’ve done. I hope to have all of these and more available as an embroidery set by Saturday.  These circles are about 5 1/2 inches or 130 mm finished.

Christmas Table Runner

 

 

 

 

 
 

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

Marjorie

 

Drum Roll—–and we have a winner!

Danita is the winner of the shapes to make a small turtle quilt. My random number generator consists of writing all the names on small pieces of paper, folding them up, shaking them up, and drawing a name. Thank you all for following my blog and Accuquilt.

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend. 
 

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

Marjorie

 

Trying something new

Don’t forget – LAST DAY FOR TURTLE GIVEAWAY – leave a comment here and LIKE the Accuquilt Facebook Page for a chance to win.

 

Today’s post is about trying new things. The challenge of finding the best technique is never-ending. Judy Danz mentioned to me that she has been using glue sticks instead of fusible for machine embroidery applique. I also have used glue stick on some things – like door hangers, but never on more delicate applique. So, I decided to give it a try. With Judy’s technique, she starches the fabric before cutting the applique, then uses glue stick around the edge of the wrong side of the applique. I used glue stick on the background just inside the die line. My method was a bit messier, but my fabric had not been starched, and I was afraid I would stretch it. But I wanted to show you the results. I love this method–it leaves the applique so much softer. Because of the number of stitches and the length of the stitch into the fabric, I do not believe the fabric will fray. I already washed the flower that is shown below, and it looks as good as new. What do you think?

Applique applied with glue stick

 

One important thing is that I really did manipulate the fabric to make sure that it came all the way out to the stitched die line. Because it is softer without fusible on the back, that was easier to do. I also used my mini iron to press the glued applique piece onto the background so that it would quickly dry.

Remember, these craft glue sticks are just starch, so they wash out very easily, leaving your work soft and beautiful. 
 

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

Marjorie

 

Another turtle – and last day to Vote for the Barn Quilt Block

I’m having a lot of fun reading everyone’s comments and have started sending out embroidery files. I extended the giveaway through Friday and will send files out for comments posted through Friday, April 22. In the meantime, I made a couple more turtles – just for a little variety – here is a photo of one.

Star turtle

 
 

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

Marjorie

 

A visit to Stash Manicure and Annie who makes awesome fabric postcards

Blog visiting is addictive isn’t it? I was visiting SewCalGal the other day, and she talked about guest blogging on Stash Manicure. I decided to drop in on SewCalGal via Madame Samm over at Stash Manicure. While I was there I found another post that was really fun by Annie: Stash Manicure: Meet Annie, a postcard ARTiste( she says she’s not..U B the judge lol). She makes these awesome fabric postcards. I love these postcards. They have bound edges and wonderful designs. I’ve seen a lot of fabric postcards, but haven’t been inspired to make them until I saw these.  Now, I have this great link and am going to get back to this one day soon.

Not much quilting going on here this week. I went to a Slap Happy Quilters’ retreat last weekend and am a little burned out on quilting. But I will get back to it today. The retreat was wonderful–I used my Accuquilt to cut a lot of kits for other quilters to make comfort quilts for the Alamance Regional Cancer Center patients. It also gave me an opportunity to re-examine my priorities in charity quilting. Sometimes I try to do everything – make the patterns, cut, make and quilt the quilts and then I’m really spread too thin. I made the decision to focus on making the patterns and my friend, Sherry who is a fantastic quiltmaker, will help by testing the patterns and adding her touch to the instructions. In this way, perhaps even more quilts will be made and my efforts will actually be more efficient. Thank you Sherry for helping me think this through :)  
 

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

Marjorie

 

Quilt in Progress – Naming It

I have so much trouble naming my quilts. Perhaps they should just be numbered–but that wouldn’t be fair. I absolutely love this one in progress. Names I’m thinking of: Dueling Triangles and Triangle Float. I thought of a couple of others yesterday, but didn’t write them down and couldn’t remember them last night.

So, here’s what I’m working on. I really do like making blocks and then layering them with a solid block or another block, stitching from corner to corner and seeing what the surprise turns out to be. Not long ago, I ordered a pattern that looked like this:

However, when I read the instructions and started to make this block, I was not happy. It required that I cut half square triangles, add strips to either side, then trim the strips and stitch one triangle to the other matching those seams. That seemed like a lot of work. Thus, I had to rethink whether I wanted to make this really pretty pattern.

I started thinking about one of my favorite patterns which is a “Half Fast Log Cabin” (yes, that’s a pattern–and a great one–and don’t say it too fast or you’ll be in trouble with the other quilters in the room!). With that pattern, a log cabin block is made in rounds of color, a solid block is layered on top, marked corner to corner and stitched on either side of the line to make two new blocks. It has become one of my most favorite patterns for showcasing large prints.

So, I decided to try making something simpler than the half fast log cabin and simpler than the new pattern for which I paid real money. I made a square, added 2 1/2″ strips and then added a solid block and marked it corner to corner and stitched quarter inch seams on either side. This is what I got:

I worked on it in Electric quilt and you can see the drawing in the previous post below. However, when I started making it up in fabric, and put it on the design wall, the design I wanted to see didn’t show up very well. I decided it was because I used 2 1/2″ strips all around and that if the strips were narrower, the triangle would show up more.

So, back to the drawing board. I was able to cut the blocks down so that the strips were narrower as if they had been 2 inch strips originally. Once this went on the drawing board, I was much happier. Now, I have stitched some of these together into rows and I am liking it better. Color choice has something to do with this too. I am using two very vibrant fabrics and that makes the actual design disappear a bit – if one fabric were stronger than the other, the design would definitely be more evident. And now that the blocks are smaller, I’ve got to make more blocks.

Here’s what it looks like so far. I’m still not thrilled with the way it looks in fabric, but have a feeling that it’s going to get better when I finish the rest of the blocks and stitch the rows together. I will use quilting to make the rows more apparent – perhaps some straight lines through one color of diagonal lines.

I’m also working on the instructions. That always takes longer than I expect–I was certain they’d be done yesterday, but hopefully, I’ll finish them today. This is a lot of fun–and it goes so fast when each block turns into two–maybe I should call this Double or Nothing! Or maybe I could name it Double Fun! 
 

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

Marjorie