Category: Machine Embroidery

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Patriotic Stars Throw Quilt – Tutorial

I am reprising this quilt from a 2016 blog post that I wrote for AccuQuilt. I have searched the AccuQuilt blog site and cannot find the post for a link, so will rewrite it here as I think it’s a wonderful quilt and fun to make. The May-June-July months of Memorial Day, Flag Day, and July 4 are wonderful times to make this quilt. With the Patriotic Stars embroidery set, you can stitch the same star for every block or use a variety of stars from the set. There are three sizes of stars, so you can make blocks that fit any of the stars from the AccuQuilt GO! Star die.

Supplies Needed for QUBE and Star (to make the quilt exactly as I did with 6″ finished blocks)
Machine Embroidery Supplies:
  • Fusible – Lite Steam A Seam2 (Lite SAS2)
  • Medium to light weight tearaway stabilizer (satin stitches will need a medium weight stabilizer whereas blanket and lighter edge stitches will use a light weight stabilizer)
  • Machine Embroidery Supplies including coordinating thread and bobbin thread
  • Background Fabric for Star Blocks – ¾ yard
  • Applique Fabric for Stars – 1/3 yard
  • Blue Color 1 Fabric – 1/2 yard
  • Blue Color 2 Fabric – 1/2 yard
  • Background Fabric for Pieced Blocks – ½ yard
  • Border 1 – Red Fabric – 1/2 yard (or more if you use this for binding)
  • Border 2 and Binding– Blue Color 1 Fabric – 3/4 yard
Embroidery blocks (make 12 blocks):

Apply fusible as per manufacturer instructions and leave paper backing attached until stars are cut. Cut fabric and fusible to fit the star size for the quilt you are making. When cutting fabric with fusible and paper attached, the recommendation is to cut no more than 4 shapes at a time.

Embroider the stars onto a block that is approximately 3 ” larger than the finished block. When the embroidery is complete, center the star and trim the block to a finished 6-1/2”. Using a larger background square makes it easier to center the star perfectly in the block by trimming it to a smaller size rather than trying to center it perfectly in the embroidery hoop.

Pieced Quilt blocks: (make 13 blocks):

The Frayed 4-Patch Block is cut with Shape 2 and Shape 8 of the GO! 6” QUBE. This is the cutting diagram for the block.

Cutting instructions for quilt blocks:
  • Shape 2: cut 52 squares from blue color 1 fabric
  • Shape 2: cut 52 squares from blue color 2 fabric
  • Shape 8: cut 52 rectangles from background fabric
Cutting instructions for Borders:

Cut fabric for red borders using the 2-1/2” AccuQuilt Strip Die (Die # 55014 or 55017). Cut 2 strips 2-1/2” x 30-1/2″ Cut 2 strips 2-1/2″ x 34-1/2″.

Cut fabric for blue borders using the 3-1/2: AccuQuilt Strip Die (Die # 55032). Cut 2 strips 3-1/2″ x 34-1/2″. Cut 2 strips 3-1/2″ x 40-1/2″.

Assemble quilt as shown in the diagram below:
Add red border:

Pin and stitch the red vertical borders to the right and left sides of the quilt top, easing as necessary. Press seams toward the border.

Pin and stitch the red horizontal borders to the top and bottom of the quilt top, easing as necessary. Press seams toward the border.

Add blue border:

Pin and stitch the blue vertical borders to the right and left sides of the quilt top, easing as necessary. Press seams toward the border.

Pin and stitch the blue horizontal borders to the top and bottom of the quilt top, easing as necessary. Press seams toward the border.

Quilt as desired, add binding and a label to your quilt and you will be ready for the 4th of July.

 

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AccuQuilt Launch Party Next Week

Next week there’s another live AccuQuilt event and I’ve been invited to participate. This is a launch party for two new AccuQuilt applique dies and I am going to talk a little bit about machine embroidery. AccuQuilt always has all of their machine embroidery designs on sale in February so this is the perfect time for this. Here’s an invite to the event. I hope you will join us.

In our Quilt Along (QAL) Block Six – the Economy Block Modified – had to be corrected and I have updated the download now. So if you downloaded it previously, discard that and download again. There was an extra step in it – Step 3. There are two ways to make that block and I combined them when it should have been one or the other. It’s fun making it both ways but making those squares in a triangle are so much fun for me personally that my brain added that in when the block was meant to be done in rows.

This has been such a busy January-February for me. There have been four projects that I have had to get done for AccuQuilt – you will see all of them in the next few months – new dies and lots of fun. And with those new dies are some applique dies and I’m working on embroidery designs for those. For all of the 2020-21 school year our family was fully committed to virtual school, so it is exciting to do some quilting and creating now.

Hope you have a peaceful day!

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Block 6 – Economy Block Modified for Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day! Block 6 is Economy Block Modified. The modification are those corner squares which link with the connector block to give that beautiful faux on point setting.  It’s a fairly simple block. I also added the instructions for the border half blocks. You will make 20 of them.

Since it’s Valentine’s Day, I will show you a pretty Valentine’s quilt I made about five years ago. It’s still one of my favorites. I wrote about the quilt and the bears in an AccuQuilt blog post and it has a full tutorial on how the bears are embroidered. I digitized the Candy Hearts embroidery and the quilting was hand guided on my longarm. The bears are a pattern from Dolls and Daydreams.

Candy Hearts Quilt

 

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Sampler Quilt Finished with Pictures

I’ve been working on a new project and trying to finish the Sampler Quilt from May for awhile now. Finally, this past week, I hand stitched the binding and yesterday I was taking pictures when the grandchildren stopped by. The pictures were quickly taken and the quilt is ready to find a home somewhere in this house. I think it turned out all right. Can you see Lucy, our Great Dane puppy, walking and sniffing the ground behind the quilt. She has to be right there with us no matter what we’re doing.

If you’re interested, the patterns are still posted. Just click the QAL menu at the top of the blog.

There were enough scraps left over that I have already made twelve more blocks for another quilt and twelve more blocks for a third quilt. Will show you those in the coming days. As always, fabric is like fishes and loaves. I’m a little tired of this fabric for now but will keep plugging along.

Just to give you a glimpse of the new project, it’s embroidery and it’s Christmas. And it’s finished and almost ready to show.

 

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Gingerbread Cookie Machine Embroidery

This is what I worked on last weekend. It was hard to set aside the Mariner’s Compass and some other projects, but Christmas is coming and it’s the season to finish. The Gingerbread Cookies were done last year, but since then, a new die has come out with an applique dress and a bow and buttons for the Gingerbread people, so these designs needed an update. In working on this, I wanted to create a set of machine embroidery that would work for stitchers who have the new die and for those who don’t. Thus, I kept the designs from the old set and just added new ones.

There is still work to do to finish these, and they won’t be done until just before Christmas. I can see that the cookie with a scarf and top hat is taller than the others. His hat will have to be a little shorter and lower on his head in order to keep him proportional. This set will be perfect for anyone wanting to get a head start on next year instead of shopping the after Christmas sales. Once these samples are done, they will definitely be stitched into a pretty quilt or table topper or something.

While I worked, I listened to The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Lately I’ve been getting books not only from Audible, but also ebooks from my local public library. It’s wonderful to have access to so many books. This particular book was set during World War II and described working class people living on a street in Germany and their lives during the war. It is a very touching story, and I cried for them at the end. This book also reinforces how important it is for all of us to protect our Constitution and our freedoms.

And the weekend weather was nice so Ted was outside working, and I was inside working. During the pandemic and cooler, wetter weather, I have truly missed those days where I can work long periods alone.  Virtual 8th grade also keeps Ted, Ezri, and me inside and together way too much – LOL!

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Christmas Table Runners

Last Christmas I made two table runners, a snowman table runner and a tree and star table runner. They are made with machine embroidery and are quilted in the hoop and the blocks are assembled with sashing. These are two of the prettiest table runners I have and they’re an easy afternoon project. The pattern includes all the machine embroidery designs and instructions for putting them together. The pattern also includes individual designs that are not quilted in the hoop so that you can add them to napkins or other accessories for your table. I listed them in my embroidery shop this morning and put the table runners and all the Christmas designs on sale. I hope you will stop in and take a look. I prefer to use the blog to give readers tips and tutorials, but these Christmas embroidery sets are too pretty not to tell you about.

Marjorie’s Embroidery and Pattern Shop

 

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Scottie Dog Applique Quilt Tutorial

This is one of my favorite quilts. The fabric I used came from my Mother. She always wanted to make a Scottie dog quilt. She had this little one yard or maybe a little more blue fabric and in making this quilt, I used every last scrap of it. But when it was time to bind it, there wasn’t enough fabric. Amazingly, I found a perfect blue (from Mother’s stash that I inherited) to match the blue in the Scottie dog fabric.

 

 

I used the AccuQuilt GO! 8″ and 12″ Qubes to make this quilt, but you can use individual dies or rotary cutting. 

Connector Block Cutting Instructions

2″ Finished Square (Cut 48 black dot, cut 48 light blue)

  • Shape 2 – AccuQuilt GO! 8″ Qube
  • Rotary Cut 2-1/2″ square

4″ Finished Square (Cut 24 light blue, cut 6 medium blue)

  • Shape 1 – AccuQuilt GO! 8″ Qube or
  • Rotary cut 4-1/2″ square

Applique Block Cutting Instructions

6″ Finished Half Square Triangle (cut 24 light blue)

  • Shape 3 – AccuQuilt GO! 12″ Qube or
  • Rotary cut 6-7/8″ Square and cut once diagonally to make two finished 6″ HSTs

6″ Finished Quarter Square Triangle (cut 24 black dot)

  • Shape 4 – AccuQuilt GO! 12″ Qube or
  • Rotary cut 7-3/16″ square and cut twice diagonally to make 4 finished 6″ QSTs

6″ Finished Square for embroidery (cut 6 light blue)

Border Cutting Instructions

  • Inner Border – cut 5 strips 2-1/2″ x WOF (width of fabric)
  • Outer Border – cut 6 strips 3-1/2″ x  WOF
  • Binding – cut 6 strips 2-1/2″ x WOF

Quilt Layout and Construction

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Nautical Medley Embroidery and Home School Fun

It’s Friday and we haven’t been out of the house and yard for many days. We wave at the neighbors or talk at a distance from across the fence. Or we text. And they are so kind to offer to buy groceries for us, but in fact we have a couple of freezers (one in the fridge and one free-standing) so we are good with food. And if needed, I’ll bake bread.

It’s such a bright spot to talk to the children. What’s really fun is hearing how the ten grandchildren are doing – five in each household. One household has chickens and rabbits, so they’re busy taking care of themselves and their creatures. The other household has four boys and a girl. Yesterday I got a hilarious phone call from the Mom (former school teacher) saying she was going crazy. At 11am on Thursday, the 11 year olds were finished with all of their school assignments for the next three weeks, their household chores were all done, and they were just cruising for trouble. The 8 year old is being very hard to teach as it is difficult to keep him on task, the 5 year old complaining that he’s not getting enough attention and the 2 year old pulling out all the toys. And watching TV for four hours a day is just not acceptable so what is she going to do. My husband suggested Lego challenges like the Lego TV show. I am sure they will be fine so long as they can get outside and run and run and run.

Here’s a memory picture—just to think about what has been and might be:

I quilted the background for the Northwoods Medley and Camper quilt on Sunday and Monday and although I work out on the elliptical and bicycle for 3 miles on each every day, my ribs were really sore. Quilting does use muscles which haven’t been exercised in awhile. So, I decided to work on some embroidery at the computer and embroidery machine. This is the progress on the Nautical Medley. They turned out pretty well. The wheel was really hard as the embroidery software wanted to put starts and stops all over the place with so many moving parts for the spokes and making everything stitch in a logical order was not easy. There may be more changes, and the sailboat is yet to come.

 

 

 

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ABC Quilt Project

Grandchildren are such a joy. A cute little story about one of the second graders is about his reading. He comes to our house after school on Tuesday and Thursday to play. One of his school assignments is to read 30 minutes every day. For the last two weeks he has found one excuse or another at home to avoid his reading. Yesterday he missed his visit to us because his mother restricted him to no more grandparent visits until his reading was done. We got a message late yesterday afternoon that he sat and read for a solid hour. We had a good chuckle over his motivation and the fact that we can never understand why it’s more fun at grandparents’ house than his own. Nevertheless, he has won a visit to our house today on a rare Wednesday but is required to read with us for 30 minutes of that visit.

This is one of the projects I’m working on right now. It was started about five years ago. The background fabric I chose was pink and as the grandchildren kept coming, they were all boys. At one point I stopped with the last three letters, x, y, and z unfinished. Finally two years ago the last grandchild was born and it was a girl. She’s two now and thinks she’s the queen of a house full of brothers and her dad. So a couple of weeks ago, I finished the last three letters and am in the process of putting this quilt together.

The embroidery designs are an alphabet from Designs by JuJu. I love her embroidery and this makes such a cute quilt with the bright colors. I added a princess crown, carriage, queen bee and castle from another Designs by JuJu embroidery set to make the rows come out even.

I’m still working on a decision as to the border fabric, but I think it’s going to be the batik even though the print looks really good with this.

This is the rug in her room and the turquoise hopefully will coordinate with that as well as the hints of blue in the sashing fabric.

And this is that wild child with her sweet brother.

 

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New Scottie Dog Die

Have you seen the new dies that AccuQuilt introduced today? The new applique die is a Scottie Dog and it is so cute. This is the “big secret” that I’ve been working on and here’s a picture of some of the designs I created. There are seven designs in all. The little dog is about 4-1/2″ x 4-1/4″ in size. And he’s a cutie pie. This little dog would make cute 6″ finished blocks or 8″ finished blocks.

There are two more new dies for pieced quilts. I think the 6″ finished crazy quilt block would be wonderful. I can see piecing the crazy quilt blocks on the machine and then adding some machine embroidery decorative stitches on top of the seams. This could be done either with decorative stitches from the domestic machine or using some of the fancy crazy quilt stitches from my embroidery software.

Are you getting ready for Christmas? Believe it or not the weather has helped us get ready for Christmas. It rained cats and dogs here last week. We actually got our Christmas tree up (and before Christmas Eve) and I have gifts wrapped and some packages ready to be shipped. They will go out today, well before the package deadline from UPS. We don’t do a lot of big Christmas decorations and our tree is an artificial tree, easy to assemble, and kind of skinny, but it has beautiful colored lights which we enjoy.  Ezri was here after school when we were putting up the tree. She insisted it was not really a Christmas tree because it was artificial. She has gotten to be a big tease about things like that.

PS: Our draperies are actually taupe but the lights give them a purplish hue.