for yellow thread, one for blue, one for green and one for red.
Rather than have the embroidery machine stop after each word,
I simply shut off the STOP (monochrome function in Embroidery
Mode) function which kept the embroidery machine working
until it had completed all the words for each hooping. If I would
have had to change colors, I would have left STOP/monochrome function engaged. In some cases, the words were short
enough that I could get two words per line. There may be a way
to keep the images completely separate, but I ended up putting
spaces between the words. The stitches were very large and
easy to remove once I was ready to work with the words.
I have to confess that I wasn’t as careful as I should have been
with the placement of the words. I cut the border 2 1⁄2" wide and
I hadn’t left quite enough room between the bottom two rows
of words. Note to self: ‘Next time – make sure to leave ample
room between the lines.’
There was plenty of room at the top of the hoop so I could have
easily got six words per hooping.
I cut the words into 2 1⁄2" wide strips. Then I arranged them
around the quilt to help with the initial placement.
The completed quilt top – it is GORGEOUS!
Once I had a basic idea of how to divide up the colors, I was
able to fit the words into a border around the I Spy quilt.
My inspiration for the above quilt came from a book from Possibilities. I was just starting to quilt (1998) and when I saw how the
words were used in the border of the I Spy quilt – well if I have
to be honest – I think that was the clincher to buy an embroidery machine many, many years ago.
That first I Spy quilt, which was intended for my daughter, was
donated to a guild for a raffle quilt. This is the replacement quilt
and now the top is done! My daughter is now 19 – perhaps a bit
old for an I Spy quilt?
The stitch pattern is very dense
THE sashes (or how our children get us into trouble)
I will reiterate that I love to have the ability to do machine
embroidery – I just don’t have too many opportunities. However
when I want to machine embroider something, I CAN!
Two years ago, my daughter was graduating from high school
and was on the prom committee. At prom, various awards are
presented in the form of sashes. The awards included Most
Unique, Prom Queen and Prom King, Best Dressed, etc. There
were 14 in total.
Madeline came home and asked if we could make nice sashes
out of satin instead of whatever the committee was going to
come up with. My Mom instincts kicked in and I said YES. Then
horror of horrors – the committee was going to do some horrible glitter glue thing for the lettering on my beautiful sashes.
No way! I thought about appliqueing the letters on, but there
were a LOT of letters. Hmmmm – why not embroider them? It
won’t take long.
So I made the sashes out of an inexpensive satin. And to make
things more challenging, the letters had to be in gold metallic.
If you want to read the original story on my personal blog it is
pretty funny.
“Manni” modeling one of the sashes
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