MY SOLE 2010 SEWN GIFT

It's good to see it was appreciated! I didn't get a label made yet but that will be the embroidery effort. Good thing this was super simple because there was no time to focus on anything that required anything more! I have high hopes for 2011 Christmas.
My sister is improving and Drs now say tomorrow she will be moved to a private room.That was the best Christmas gift we could have hoped for.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Download this terrific free Christmas kitty design from Loralei designs here.

Have yourselves a meowy little
MERRY CHRISTMAS ~~

LET IT DOUGH!!

Check out the rest of this artwork here. .

IT'S THE 20TH OF THE MONTH!!

You know that is time for a new Raggedy block from Kaaren. She's settling in from their move to Nova Scotia. The link is posted on the side of my blog so you can download this block and any others you might have missed. It's been a very fun project. I've started quilting this by doing it a block at a time using my embroidery machine. I'll get a picture posted soon to give you an idea of how I'm doing this.

FREE DESIGN LINK

http://www.zundtdesign.com/embroidery-designs/lacemotif.html

Happy Monday!!

HELLO REINDEER!!

Margo has used the applique pattern from the December/January 2011 issue of McCall's Quick Quilts magazine to digitize the embroidery version of these quilt blocks. She is using minkee fabrics for her reindeer fabrics. She even did one with a red nose for the Rudolph block. The issue is still out and available because I saw it at Borders bookstore yesterday. This would be a good way to use up your scraps of Christmas fabrics and stitch a reindeer to each block. The blocks make up to 6 x 9 inches.

Great job Margo.:)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Wow, it's nearly here and I will admit that I am not ready. Oh well, at least there a few days until then.

Look at this darling little caroler doll. The instructions are found here.
I think the face would be perfect for a quick embroidery project and stitching around the face to the body fabric.A great project to start working on after Christmas and have a good number ready for next year! These are so cute!

Chenille Flowers

Aren't these the cutest chenille flowers? Remember as kids we called them pipe cleaners? Anyway, instructions are found here and include a video for you to watch.

CUTWORK SOFTWARE

If you enjoyed the cutwork webinar as we did last Saturday then you surely will enjoy this pillow I found here this am.

Then as I was reading the instructions I realized it was made using a fusible vinyl film and a separate unit that attaches to your computer. Not my intention to suggest any other method than using our cutwork software for the letters and all. Cute pillow idea though.

NEW YEAR'S DAY PROJECT

Plans are  underway for our 2011 class. I will be taking the supply list into the store later this afternoon so sign up when you can. This project will incorporate embroidery during the class and make a tablerunner using the techniques I will show you in class.
You could use them to turn a this project into a quilt. We will actually do embroidery and quilting using embroidery during the class. I'll have machines available for embroidery in case you do not own an embroidery machine - just indicate that is needed when you sign up for the class so I will know how many I need to have available.
Hope to see you there!

SOFTWARE SAMPLER
Join me this Saturday at 1pm for the last Software Sampler class of 2010.

UPDATE
Due to damage control at the shop (water damage) the class for this Saturday has been cancelled. Will try to schedule it as soon as possible.
Also, I did not leave the supply list at the shop so please contact me directly if you want to sign up for the class and I will then send you the information.
Amanda has everything under control at the store and I'm not sure when they will be able to reopen.
Not to worry - Strawberry Patches reopened in the afternoon. Yeah!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Wedding Hanky

CeCe did this for a special wedding gift. She was having problems trying to figure out which stabilizer to use. She didn't want to have to wash it after the embroidery so I suggested using a couple layers of the lightweight tearaway stabilizer from OESD. When the emboidery is finished carefully remove the stabilizer a layer at a time. Great job CeCe!!

BERNINA CUTWORK SOFTWARE

Please be my guest and join us at 8am, Saturday November 20th in the classroom to watch the 1 hour, live Bernina webinar - "Cutwork Tool and Software".

Software Sampler class will be on Saturday, November 20th at 1pm. Due to the holidays this class will be a special combination of 2 months of software lessons related to different uses of lettering, as created within your Bernina embroidery software. Projects such as a bag flag, gift tags, luggage tags and greeting cards will be discussed and are perfect for those quick gift ideas.

We also have this session of Software Sampler available Saturday, November 27th at 1pm.

The Software Sampler class will begin at 1pm and is well worth the price of admission!

See you Saturday!


HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Happy Veterans Day

In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill proclaiming November 11th as Veterans Day and called upon Americans everywhere to rededicate themselves to the cause of peace.

In 1968, Congress moved Veterans Day to the fourth Monday in October. However, it became apparent that the November 11th date was historically significant to a great many Americans. As a result, Congress formally returned the observance of Veterans Day to its traditional date in 1978.


The Veterans Day National Ceremony is held each year on November 11th at Arlington National Cemetery. At 11 a.m., a color guard, made up of members from each of the military services, renders honors to America's war dead during a tradition-rich ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
 

It's November 3rd

All I can say is I'm sooo glad that the election commercials and all are finally finished!
THANK GOODNESS.

Now get ready because Christmas is 7 weeks away. OMG!!
Speaking of gifts, have to pay our property taxes. So much for that wave of gift giving thoughts.

Below is my block 4 from the Raggedy Ann quilt bom

project. I don't have the borders attached because I want to try the method that Sharon Pedersen uses for quilting the block as you go. Guess I need to figure out how I want to quilt the block. I do have until the next block is published on the 20th to get it done.

Happy Halloween

May all your tricks be rewarded with wonderful treats today.

SOFTWARE SAMPLER

This Saturday, Oct 23rd is Software Sampler Saturday!!! 1:00pm.
Hope to see you there.

Happy 20th

It's arrived ~ the number 4 block for Kaaren's raggedy friends quilt. Now I have it ready for digitizing and then stitching out. This is the first block for row 2. The one embroidered square is 8 1/2" square. I need to get those instructions posted I promised as to how I'm using the BERNINA embroidery software on these blocks. 
Remember to click on the Raggedy link on the left sidebar if you haven't added her blog to your favorites.
Enjoy!!

QUILT SHOW RECOVERY

Wow, the Pacific International Quilt Festival in Santa Clara was one big show! Mom and I decided this was the year we would stop talking about wanting to do the show and signed up for several classes. This is a professionally managed show by the Mancuso Management group and as one would expect was done well.
We walked our feet and legs off at the knees several times. We took a class for each of the 3 days we were there. The location in Santa Clara was at the Hyatt and the adjoining convention center so was so easy to get around and we never even stepped outside once we arrived Wednesday afternoon until we left Sunday morning! The quilts were magnificent. Cindy Seitz Krug won an award for her quilting on a joint-effort quilt with a friend. Cindy's quilting was spectacular and was well deserved of the ribbon and award. I took several pictures of quilts that we admired for the overall image and others of just pieces of the quilting efforts to share with you at the software sampler class this Saturday. Vendors of all categories and wonderful surprises and special deals rounded out the days. Some of the teachers I wasn't that familiar with but after seeing their works I am looking forward to the possibility of being one of their students. The show does have a policy of allowing teachers to teach for 2 consecutive shows and then they have to take 2 years off before they can teach for another 2 years, etc. 2 years on and 2 years off. John Flynn, yes that John Flynn has a wonderful since of humor. Sue Nichols was a joy - just like Margo said she would be. Even with a major sinus headache I was still thrilled to be in her class. I was even the light monitor and was gifted with a spool of her King Tut thread as a thank you. Nina McVeigh taught a fun class using the BERNINA software that I want to share with you as a software class. The project makes a neat neat gift item! Oh, and we got to the see the Rose of Sharon quilt in all its glory! Quite an accomplishment to have the back of the quilt as beautiful as the front of the quilt! Sharon Pedersen was the artist behind the Rose of Sharon quilt and contest - she is sooo funny!! Mom enjoyed her class with Sharon and after listening to Sharon as the hostess of one of the festivities for those that took classes - I'd take a class with her in a minute!!
We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the show and away from home!

Feathers

This is a new collection from OESD that I'm purchasing. It can be used for quilting but I'll be using these designs to add interest to an otherwise plain, solid color shirt. Have you looked at all the embroidery on ready to wear lately? Embroidery is not in the place you expect it to be so I will have fun with this group.

Halloween Crow Embroidery

Here's a free embroidery artwork from Bird Brain for creating a cute Halloween crow decorated towel...

Stitch this in color as shown or all one color such as redwork. Sweet.



Tissue cover

Happy October!!
Terry Atkinson has posted this free download project for you today. Perfect to add an embroidery monogram or small design to add a theme on plain fabric.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Pumpkin Project

Here's a cute little pumpkin project from Sandy Gervais - click here.

Software Sampler

Margo completed this bottle apron after attending the September Software Sampler. Wonderful photo!

Great job Margo!

The Quilt Show

Are you a member of The Quilt Show? It's here if it's new to you. I recently joined for a year - hadn't joined since the early days when it first started and my free subscription ended. I enjoy the Bernina free video tutorials so figured I would go ahead and join for a year and see what I can get out of it.
This morning I see they have a free give away for a set of the Olfa cutting mats so I entered that. Last night I downloaded some free project instructions that look interesting. So we'll see how it goes.

After Software Sampler class yesterday I purchased several Halloween fabrics to use in making the Ambrosia bag I posted about yesterday. So I've added another project on my list. Yesterday morning I did stitch out the redwork designs from block 3 of the Raggedy Annie project. They are soooo cute! Stinkin' cute! Nnow to construct the block and I will have completed row 1 of the top! I'm amazing myself with this since I can't sit at the machine too long at a stretch. I'm going to post a brief tutorial on how I'm using the Bernina embroidery software to create these blocks. Watch for that in the next few days.

Ambrosia Bag

Isn't this a darling pattern?

And the best part is it free offering at Amanda Murphy's blog here.
This is a good pattern to practice your quilting on the top half of the bag. I like the fabrics too.
Just a note that one of the items are D rings and the size we have at the store 1-1/4" reads to be the perfect size. That's a difficult size to find but we have them at the shop! So I'll be purchasing a package of them today.

Software Sampler

This next Saturday (9/25) is time for Software Sampler.

Here's a shot of the image of one of the bottle aprons I created in the software. We're creating several different bottle aprons and it's a lot of fun. Plus exercises using more features  in Corel Essentials from the Art Canvas tab.

Hope to see you in class. 

I was hoping that Kaaren might have posted the next Raggedy block a day early but that was not to be!! Oh well, tomorrow is the 20th so hope it's there bright and early.

My Wagon

Want to see my wagon?

It's perfect to hold my 830, the embroidery module and plenty of other things. Pam's husband saw it at Costco and hoped he had a useful gadget for her. Hey buddy, I think you are on to something.
Anyway, I just checked the internet and found it at Amazon for more than it was at Costco.
Here's another use for the wagon

New Qulting Designs For Embroidery

Here's a new collection coming from Diane Gaudynski through OESD, Quilting Whimsy. Looks like a very useful collection so it will be added to my list to order! You can click on the photo to get a bigger picture for yourself.

Here's a close up.

We will always remember

I remember what I was doing when we first heard about the attack on the twin towers. Then how it worsened during the day with the Pentagon attack and then the crash of flight 93. What a horrific day in our Nation's history. Still very emotional personally to listen and watch  the recordings and all from that day. There was a special on Fox news last night that highlighted two men that worked themselves out of the debris in tower 1 to climb down the stairs all the way out of the building and went hand in hand straight to a church. To this day they remain in touch as they share something this strong between them. Very remarkable and something good created from this horrific event.

Autumn Blessings

Kaaren (from the Raggedy Ann blocks) has a new sampler available for download from her site. It's part of her First Friday of the month projects.

It finishes about 25" x 27" and looks to be a way to use up some of your wool scraps as Kaaren did or just use cottons - which is what I'll do. In looking at the colors I think I will draw from the stash I'm using for Annie blocks and the only new needed is the black. Again I'm thinking that the osnaburg fabric will be good for these blocks. Or a muslin or small print would be equally fine. I can also see this in some of the civil war era prints too. With the size of the blocks I'm thinking I should be able to combine more than 1 at a time in my embroidery hoop. So will have to start working on this now.
Enjoy your holiday weekend!

New Foot Has Arrived And Is Nearly Gone

Remember the new foot #46 for pintuck, etc? Well, we have 1 more left in the store.  Call the shop now to have us tuck it away with your name on it.

Raggedy & Friends Block 1

I finally got the block stitched. It was just too hot to do much of anything last week.

The block on the sides is the sashing. The cornerstones will be a red fabric of some sort. Kind of forgot to select something for that but have plenty of time since we're only on the 2nd block. I am going for a scrappy look. I am digitizing the artwork and so the large design above took only 13 minutes to stitch! I finally decided to use Isacord thread and I liked my choice after the first stitchout. If you haven't checked out the free BLOM for this yet look for the button on the left side of my blog. That's the link to Kaaren's site.

College

Speaking of school. Here we are with Brett, #1 Grandson after his good bye dinner. He left the week after this picture for college in Chico. He is rooming with 2 or 3 other college students. He certainly darfs us. We figure the football coaches are going to be after him to play ball but he has never been interested in playing football. He's a gentle giant!

Now Kelcy is due to leave soon for Santa Cruz to start college too. She is a year younger than Brett. She graduated wtih honors and a 4.xx gpa. She intends to bcome a pharmacist. Their parents are left with 2 at home but know it will a tough adjustment.

Here's Kelcy with her group on the grounds at BC during graduation in June.

Now this was her group from North High that had GPAs above 4.0. Amazing! Kelcy was right in the middle, in fact, she is behind the guy in the suit right in the middle of the picture. I snapped this at that moment while in the stadium bleachers. It was pretty darn warm that night. The year Brett graduated was the last year the graduation was held at North high due to the large number of students graduating. Kelcy was the first North High student to compete in the state tennis championship.

Time does go by quickly! Enjoy your kids and grandkids because they grow up, go away to school and on to lead their own lives!

Real School

Caitlin is in 1st grade this year. Real school you know.

And she turned 6 ,  2 days after school started.

I thought her shoes were pretty cool. They were colorful, had bling and when she walked lights flashed all over the shoes. And remember when you were a kid with new tennies how fast you thought you could run? Well she had to show me how fast she could run in her new tennies! Streakin' fast for sure.

Feet don't fail me now ~~ Keep on truckin'

Raggedy Ann and Andy Stitch outs

Ok, I have stitched the embroidery out for both months. I didn't get the sizes right for month 2 - they're a little too large. So I've got them resized and will stitch them out again.

.

For my embroidery background I'm using osnaburg fabric. Not sure why some of the stitching on the right collar didn't stitch so will double check that in the software. Raggedy Ann and Andy in block 1 are my favorites to this point! Ha. Will shoot for constructing the blocks tomorrow.

Summer Sea Shell Towel Pattern

New free design from Bird Brain that would be easy for digitizing but can also be done by hand.

Are you stitching the Raggedy and Ann designs from Kaaren? I'm digitizing them and have sewn just the two from last month. I have the fabrics cut to piece the whole block, including the sashing. Tomorrow I hope to stitch out the two from this month. If you have V6 Designer Plus embroidery software you will find these single color images fairly simple to digitize. I'm enjoying the freehand open object  tool in V6. There's a closed object version but since the embroidery is redwork the open object tool is perfect. That and the blackwork run tool help make this quick to do. My goal is to at least post the embroidered blocks tomorrow, if not the pieced blocks.

New Bernina Foot

Here's the new pintuck foot from Bernina. Am anxious to get my hands on one.

Reusable Sandwich Wrap

Have you laminated fabric yet? It's pretty darn simple. Just choose matte or glossy. Then follow the instructions to fuse to one side of your fabric - usually the "right" side of the fabric, but hey there, this time the side that is laminated is what goes next to your sandwich or whatever is being wrapped. Now you're ready to create a number of nifty projects. Here is one that is in keeping with the "go green" focus that is pretty popular these days.

Click here to go to the site for instructions on creating this reusable sandwich wrap.

NOTE**

What I forgot to add was that if you want to spruce yours up by adding embroidery to your fabric, add the embroidery BEFORE laminating the fabric.That allows your fabric to still work correctly for this project.

Embroidery on the bed

Recently I was wondering through Bed, Bath and Beyond and stumbled on some embroidery quilts, terrific shams or pillow treatments. Luckily I had my camera with me so I snagged some photos to share with you. I just kept forgetting to post this pictures.

This one had the embroidered block, surrounded with just the small pieced fabrics. The embroidered blocks were the same as what you see here. Really a charming piece. Didn't want to see which 3rd world country created this one.

This pillow sham had piping all around. The strip of embroidery and applique extended across the width of the bed-sized pillow. Loved the aqua shade of fabric and embroidery. Very soothing.

Yes, this was on the same display as the previous pillow. Actually there are 2 in this shot that I thought were worthy to mention. The pillow on the left on the white background has a nice embroidery design laid out across the pillow front. The pillow on the right has a fun treatment of rows of fabric that finishes into nice rows of pleats across the pillow front. Looked like you could do this with a tie or piece of fabric that was seamed together and then turned right side out so no raw edges. This one was a little smaller than the others - more of an accent pillow. More of that grayish aqua shade that is very nice.

 

Well, imagine that! I found a lime green pillow on display. Now this is just a simple embroidered medillion or even a quilting pattern that is evenly spaced across the width of the pillow sham in a contrasting thread color so the design pops against the color of the fabric!

Knowing how pricey these things can be I am sure that you could find the perfect fabrics and all to make something very similar to any of these for a fraction of the cost. And it would be an original. So now, get started!!

Boo To you!

You might want the above embroidery designs if you have purchased the fabric below from us!

Click here to view the embroidery designs from embroidables!

I added the fabric color description for you to find it online here.

Frosty Frolics

The weather Gods have been taking pity on us lately, and I'm not complaining. But, it will seem like in just a blink of the eye it will all behind us! Christmas is just a little more than 4 months away. Soooo, perfect timing for a darling new embroidery design set from OESD! Love the shoes too.

Then here are the various designs in this collection. I love the look.

Great Tutorials - Polka Dot Pineapple

Found a great site with endless tutorials! Lettie is a crafter born in and still living in Hawaii, I know, too bad but someone has to do it! Anyway, check it out here.
I think you're going to love her site too. Everything is copyright protected so I can't post any pictures so you'll have to see it for yourself, but you won't be disappointed, trust me.
Cute little pincushions, lots of yoyo projects. The first project on her posting from Friday is a rolled felt peppermint pincushion.

No Place Like Gnome

Calamity Kim is designing this tablerunner with a Gnome look. It is so creative! Take a look at her site here to see some other views of her project. Raw-edged applique!

Colorful New Butterfly Quilt

Found this great project here. Perfect for using scraps up. Just need a background and black on this one really makes the butterflies jump off the quilt top.

Just keep making the butterflies to make it the size you want. I really like to scrappy look and easy to see how to change the look by changing the fabrics. There was a photo I saw too without the strip of fabric down the center, just a nother look.  Would think that 30s fabrics would be able great look!

Check out the link because there is a tutorial available for constructing the blocks.