Warm Up for Winters with Embroidery

The winter holidays are just around the corner and, as always, my mind is filled with the thoughts of cooking special meals, baking yummy treats and creating fabulous gifts for friends and décor items to make my home festive.

Two years ago, I hosted twenty people for Thanksgiving. Since it had been many years since I had hosted this holiday and special meal in my home, I created coordinated linens for the dining room that included tablecloths, chair covers, hot pads, and cloth napkins; all were embellished with fabulous machine embroidery designs. I placed scented candles in decorative wine glasses, and my tables were beautiful.

Because my Thanksgiving décor is complete, I can concentrate on Christmas for my projects this year. While I am hosting the Thanksgiving feast again this year, I am also having several Open House receptions during the Christmas season. I will need projects that can be easily laundered so that they are fresh for every set of guests.

Several years ago, I created pillow covers for the throw pillow on my couches. These covers are created with holiday themed fabric and were constructed using foundation piecing to attach the fabric to a layer of batting and backing fabric. I then stitched the front to the back and finished the covers. Every year, these covers get freshly washed and pressed before taking place of honor in the living room. These covers utilized techniques I generally use for making quilts. This year, I will take them apart, add some machine embroidery for a fresh look and then stitch them back together.

Since my home has an open floor-plan with living, dining, and kitchen all flowing into one another, I need to color-coordinate the dining room and kitchen to my pillow covers. I have several beautiful tablecloths that I’ve collected over the years, but they are starting to get small holes and frayed edges.

In order to salvage my beloved tablecloths and coordinate my holiday home, I will use embroidery designs utilizing fabric appliqué to cover the holes. To freshen up the hems, I will stitch yards and yards of free-standing lace borders. I love this style of machine embroidery! I will stitch festive designs on one of my smaller cloths and drape it over the curtain rod in my kitchen, bringing the celebratory décor to that utilitarian room.

To finish off my décor for the receptions, I will use a free embroidery design I have that makes a collar that gets placed on the stem of a wine glass, making it easy to identify who it belongs to. These are quick and easy to make and elicit lots of wonder from my guests.

After wining and dining our guests, we will see them off with a little drawstring goody bag. These easy-to-make pouches will be decorated with tiny embroidery designs and filled with chocolate coins. A sweet treat to help our guests remember the evening and also have a little bag to hold jewelry or coins or anything they desire.

While I truly believe that good food and wonderful friends are all that are needed for a fabulous gathering, I also believe that a beautiful setting can make it even better! Celebrate and enjoy life!

It’s Raining Quilts!

Here in Crete, we have two seasons, Winter and Summer. Yes, we get hints of Spring and Fall, but once either of those mellow seasons begins, the harsher one is ready to take over. This week, we are seeing Winter coming upon us quite a few weeks earlier than normal. I don’t like the cold, but I love the rainy season that marks my Winters here. I absolutely adore rain! The harder the better, and if thunder and lightning are involved, I am in complete bliss!

When the weather is gloomy, I love to be in my sewing room, preferably making quilts. Something about creating in my snug space while the weather rages outside is so comforting to me! I’ve made some of my best quilts during bad weather.

This year, now that my sewing room is ready for all the messes I can conceive of to create, I am anxious to get in there! Patchwork for making quilts. Long-arm quilting. Machine embroidery. There are so many things to choose from!

I used to not like to do machine embroidery during the storms because we lose power a lot. Now that I am fully immersed in embroidery quilting, which can be very in-depth and tricky, it would be a shame if the power went out in the middle of something. So, like my computer, I now have my embroidery machine plugged into a UPS (universal power supply). This gives me 10 minutes to get my stuff done or saved. Lovely!

The wind is blowing and storm clouds are in the sky, making the blue that is still visible even more vivid. The white, puffy clouds are standing their ground, trying to hold on for another week or so. This is a time when I hope that the dark wins out over the light!

It’s funny that I hope for the dark, rainy season. I suffer from SAD (seasonal affective disorder), which is when a person’s moods and health are affected by a lack of sunlight. If I spend too much time in the rest of the house, the weather does affect me. But, in the sewing room, all is right with the world.

When making quilts, it is important to have good light for choosing our colors and fabrics. There are full-spectrum lamps out there that do a good job of recreating natural light in the small scale. Unfortunately, I don’t work in the small scale, so I needed a whole-room solution. For a total of $20, I bought a cheap 4’ shop light and two fluorescent bulbs. I chose one cool tube (burns in a blue or pink hue) and one warm bulb (burns in a yellow hue). The mixture of these two bulbs creates a facsimile of natural light. And the 4’ shop light on my ceiling spreads this light all over my largish sewing room. Fantastic!

So, when the weather is gloomy outside, I can make an excuse for my health and escape to my sewing room for hours of blissful quilting and machine embroidery! No one bothers me for several hours, and I come out happy and peaceful.

So, rain, rain, don’t go away. Come again. Today!

Machine Embroidery Made Fun and Faster

The past couple of days I’ve been railing at fate and grinning ruefully. I always have several deadlines for machine embroidery or that entail making quilts. This month, I was on time! In fact, I was a bit ahead of time and looking forward to submitting my final projects with time to spare.

I took a quick nap the other day after getting up early to deliver my friend’s dog to her at the airport for their trip home. When I woke up, I had a massive charlie-horse in … well … my nether region. Uncomfortable, but not bad. Within a couple of hours, though, it was apparent that I had sustained a groin-pull in my sleep! This is more than uncomfortable. It is also embarrassing in my house where I am the only female. The girl cats just aren’t any help with this! Luckily, we’ve always been pretty open about things in this household, or I would be hobbling around trying to hide my chagrin and pretending that all is well. Instead, my son volunteered to clean the litter boxes!

Since sitting is the best position for me, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the computer. The computer portions of my deadlines are completed so I went back to my archive files to see what I could see. It seems I started writing a book on foundation piecing, one of my favorite techniques, several years ago. Next year, I will be providing these types of designs for embroidery quilting, so I’ve been spending lots of time cataloguing things. I am planning for these to be free embroidery designs and I want them to be very special.

Even the most dedicated fiber artist can get bored when unlimited time is available. So, I’ve also been surfing the web (I almost drowned the one time I tried real surfing) and finding some great information on new quilting supplies, fun projects for machine embroidery, and lots and lots of temptations to buy, buy, buy! The only thing I did buy was a new accounting program since the one I’m using is over 10 years old. How is that for boring! Of course, my office is now set up in an alcove in the living room since our son returned to Crete, and the hubs sits on the couch not too far behind me. Something about online shopping while he watches me just doesn’t feel right. I have nothing to hide, but I like shopping in private!

But, my thoughts are now full of new projects to try! There are some wonderful hanger covers for those delicate items we love or to keep things from sliding off the hangers. I also found several collapsible grocery bags that might actually make me remember to take my bags with me to the store. Several beautiful throw pillows, and the embroidery software tricks to make them easy, are swirling in my grey matter, too!

Now that I want to be stitching, and really do need to anyway, I am determined to hobble into the studio today! I will ignore my full size cutting board and ironing station. Instead, I will lay out the table next to my machine with my portable ironing board and small cutting board that I use for classes. I normally hop up and down out of my chair when creating, but for today, I will sit and do everything. I’ll be genteel and ladylike!

Anyone want to take bets that I’ll forget, hop up too fast, and immediately yell obscenities?

Quilters Pull the Strings

Quilters come with strings attached. This is a well-known witticism in the quilting world, but I think I see it differently than most. For me, my strings are the tools and accessories that are needed to create my art, the most important of which, right now, are those that are needed to set up my long-arm quilting setup.

I have all the parts, pieces and accessories that I have always used, and they are all in good condition. However, I haven’t had this thing set up in a couple of years, so I spend some time at online forums in order to reacquaint myself with it all. Guess what? There are so many new products out there and they include items for making quilts and machine embroidery! So many new items that I feel I must have!

At the top of my want it list are these great gizmos that make it quick and easy to attach the quilt, backing at batting to my quilt rollers. I’ve learned all I can about it, including watching several videos, and yet I still can’t make up my mind. What I now have is perfectly acceptable and not difficult to use, and part of me doesn’t see the need to upgrade, while the other part of me is yelling that I must purchase them now! This last voice is probably the one that will win, but still I resist.

I’m actually like this with most of my higher-end quilting supplies and machine embroidery tools. I can’t afford to buy all of the ones I want, so I have learned to prioritize by whether or not the item will actually be helpful to me. Sometimes the item I want most turns out to be lower on the list than something that is much more helpful. If I spent my money on the most wanted item, I may not have enough to get the ones I truly need.

It’s amazing how much this reflects life outside of embroidery or quilting. Isn’t this the same as how we budget for items like groceries, clothing, cars and more? Of course it is! My husband obviously doesn’t handle the household finances because he quite often just tells me to buy whatever it is that I want. It’s a lucky thing for our finances that he doesn’t have many wants, with an attitude like that!

Of course, when I have an interest in a new product, I find that I spend way too much time online trying to find more and more information on the item. This, in turn, has me stumbling upon even more items that I am interested in, and more items I need to research. While I enjoy a good bout of window shopping online, this time would be so much better spent in my sewing room, using the tools I already have and perfecting new techniques!

So, if you feel you aren’t getting as many of your projects done as you would like and can’t figure out where the time has gone, think about your online time. Even if you’re researching machine embroidery designs, looking for free embroidery downloads, or drooling over the newest gadgets for making quilts, you are not really participating in making your projects!

Like me, you may need to log off from time to time and check back into your sewing room and projects! Of course, there’s nothing saying you can’t let your dreams take flight with a bit of surfing the net!

Bobbins Bobbins All The Way!!

Adventures in Bobbin Buying … that is the theme of my life right now! Between making quilts, creating machine embroidery and fashion and décor sewing, I have many machines by many different manufacturers. The one thing they all have in common is that they all use the exact same bobbins, whether they have a drop-in bobbin or an old-style bobbin case. While my quilting machine uses a metal bobbin, they are still the exact same thing as the plastic versions I use in my other machines … and I’ve been known to use whatever had the right color thread wound on it!

Sometime during our move here to Greece, I misplaced at least half of my plastic bobbins and all of my metal ones. I insist on using the same thread in the bobbin as I use on the top when embroidering, and my current project has 30 colors in it. This left only a couple of bobbins free for other projects. I decided that I needed to buy some more!

I began my adventure at the local Singer shop, which is the only place I’ve found that sells anything machine related. They had two types of bobbins and I was happy to see that they had the ones I needed. Unfortunately, the woman behind the counter finally decided to stop pretending she doesn’t speak English! She asked if my machines had the drop-in bobbin or the metal bobbin-case. I have both! Since it was easiest, I said that I had the drop-in type and showed her on one of the machines in the shop. She took away the packages of bobbin in my hand and replaced them with the other ones they stock … which, I must point out were not the same as those in the machines in the shop!

I figured I would take her advice, even though I was sure these were not what I needed. At home, I realized that I was right. On a return trip to the shop, she would not let me exchange them, nor would she allow me to purchase the correct ones, since she insisted they were not the ones I needed. She probably believes I have one low-end machine and little experience using it.

So, my next efforts took me online. I found some bobbins that were supposedly for many types of machines, including all of mine. I ordered 40 of them and a neat clip thing to help keep them orderly. Wouldn’t you know it? Those that arrived were exactly like those the Singer lady insisted I wanted. And, like hers, these are also not what my machines use!

Actually, I need to confess that all these bobbins will work in my machines, but they are small like the pre-wound ones that get thrown out after the bobbin thread is used. They do not hold a lot of regular thread and the thinner size tends to bounce around in the case (both types), creating thread messes more often.

Something this basic reminds me how often I need help at a fabric or machine shop and not one employee has any idea of how to sew an no further information than I have on various quilting supplies or embroidery tools! My son has worked for a major fabric chain for months, and doesn’t know anything. At least he can crochet and is interested in fiber arts. So many of those clerks are not interested in what they sell and customers like me end up helping other customers who need assistance … including which aisle they can find certain products on.

Still, I’m all for more people getting bitten by the stitching fever, so I have hope for those clerks! In the meantime, I just need to remember that I really do know what I need and that it’s okay to be firm with those who tell me I need something else.

So, I’m now off to research bobbins online again! This time, I think I’ll create a table of different bobbins types and the machines they will work with. Maybe my efforts will help those, like me, who just need a few extra bobbins from time to time!

When Time Flies With Embroidery

Since my son graduated from school a few years ago, it would seem normal to be more relaxed in the latter days of August. No longer do I need to rush about buying clothes and supplies, alter band uniforms, or scurry to get the household organized so that the home and my career run smoothly once school starts. I really don’t miss those crazy days, but not much has really changed!

Now, with the school supply specials, I look for deals to stock up my office and sometimes even find great deals on craft supplies. Quilting supplies like rotary cutters and mats can often be found at the local office supply store! Then, I take stock of my every day supplies for batting, interfacing, stabilizer, thread and more. Since the fabric stores are competing for business with school shoppers, deals are especially good at this time.

Instead of rushing to organize house, school and career, I spend the time organizing my sewing studio since fiber arts is my career! This year, as well as setting up a new studio, I am also creating a lot of soft items like chair covers, cork board covers, a new padded cover for my large, homemade ironing board and new fabric leaders for the rollers on my machine quilting frame. And, for the first time, I’m actually color-coordinating everything! Woo hoo!

I’ve been running my embroidery machine almost non-stop and this morning had a good laugh when I realized that it was a good excuse to stay in or near my studio. I could spend the time organizing the space. Of course, I find myself cleaning the rooms and areas on that floor, too! While I enjoy the feel of creating new embroidery designs, right now I am more interested in organizing. Strange!

Since the second floor is as clean as it’s going to get, I’m thinking about moving my embroidery machine down to the dining room. Then, I can embroider for hours while cleaning that level of the house. Of course, moving my needed embroidery supplies downstairs, and keeping the cats out of them, might be too much for me to want to deal with!

This is actually a great way to get motivated to organize my life. I can work on my little netbook to do my administrative work, stitch designs, clean, and altogether immerse myself in my work! I have very few complaints about my day.

If moving my embroidery designs to the first floor works, I may even move it down to the basement for that phase of cleaning and organizing. Of course, my family may not see me for months! The basement is a dangerous space for a dedicated fiber artist to have. Lots of space for storage that never needs to be cleaned because no one sees it! Still, I open up the basement to the area’s population of stray cats and dogs, so I would much prefer that it start out clean this winter.

Tomorrow, I’ll be taking a break from the studio. My son arrived here in Crete a few days ago, so we will be getting his Alien ID renewed, his other paperwork taken care of, and adding him to the auto insurance. Then, we will finish up his enrollment for his college courses here and online, order his books, and shop for supplies. Since he’s been gone for a while, I also plan on buying him some much-needed clothing.

Like I said, not much has changed at all!

Embroidery Your Creativity

When I’m not cleaning my house or caring for my family and fur babies, all my endeavors are creative. Well, online shopping isn’t creative, but it does fill me with inspiration for future projects. While I love my creative endeavors, I had gotten into the habit of doing my tasks in an almost wooden manner … all technical skills and little artistry. Then last night I had a dream.

If it had been a dream of a wondrous new quilt block or fabulous new technique for creating perfect machine embroidery designs, it would be a great dream. Instead, this dream just reminded me of a couple of bits, important bits, that I had not included in my monthly quilt lessons. While these bits are on the technical side, they are also what make the artistry of machine quilting so easy! I had been so proud of the early completion of my lesson, but this morning, I got right to work changing it.

While editing, I also recognized a couple other areas where I had let the artistry slide in order to increase efficiency or to allow my brain to concentrate on something else while my hands did the technical work. The enjoyment was there, but it was strongly muted. That’s no way to create art!

Why do most of us still do hand-crafts in this age where everything is available locally or online? Some still do it as a more economical way to obtain both necessary and luxury items. Some do it in order to create one-of-a-kind items. Still others do it for the sheer creative joy of it.

So, why do so many of us get so bogged down by the technical aspects, which include time-management, easy or quick results, and constant research for new tools to make things easier, without first having learned the time-tested techniques that work wonderfully?

It’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve called my hand-crafts art or myself artistic. Before, I described what I did as crafts and myself as creative. My sewing just didn’t seem as important or awe-inspiring as a painting by one of the great masters or as beautiful as the dance of a prima ballerina or arias from that lovely soprano voice. In other words, I was insecure about my creative efforts no matter how many people complimented me and were in awe of what I had created. When I added machine embroidery to my daily routine of quilting, fashion and décor sewing, and other hand-crafts, it got too complicated to tell others what I do.

Three years ago, I figured out that what I do is create art with fibers. I am now a fiber artist. Not a quilter, not a seamstress, not a designer. Fiber artist. Two words and they describe who and what I am.

Wow, that sounds like all of my insecurities are gone, doesn’t it? Well, they aren’t. I don’t have an artist’s soul. I trained as an accountant. So, no matter what I do, the art isn’t the only thing I think about. I also think about the project when completed … what’s the purpose, where will it go, how much did it cost, is it worth the time and money? All of that really takes away from the artistry and enjoyment!

I can’t be the only one like this that then compensates by looking for that new great free embroidery design or a new source for inexpensive quilting supplies! Today, I have decided that I will concentrate more on the art and less on the fiscal aspects of it.

Writers are told to write for enjoyment, not for sale, for the best books. Painters are told to see their subject, inside and out. Dancers and musicians are instructed to feel it.

I think that’s good advice for us hand-crafters, fiber artists, or whatever we call ourselves. We should craft for enjoyment, see the world around us for project inspiration, and just feel the creativity pouring out as we create.

When we accept that what we do is from the heart and soul, and let go of the insecurities, we can let our artistry reach new heights!