explore your machine stitches

Hi Everyone! I know it has been a very long time since I wrote a blog post; I am just having too much fun sewing. : ) Really, I don't want to post just about whatever I've made, but I also want to help you on your journey sewing and quilting through my own experiences. Today, I would like to encourage you to explore your machine stitches.

If you know me, then you know that I DO NOT like to sew or applique by hand. Just about the only thing I really like to sew by hand is binding, but I am even finding that the machine can do this just as good as I can - most importantly, it is durable.

I currently have an orange peel piece in the works and needed to applique my orange peels down. I really love the look of straight-stitch applique, but since this is a pillow and might get washed a few times, I decided to go for a button-hole stitch (or is this called a blanket stitch?). It might be easier to do this by hand, but I am saving my hands for typing. Anyway, I first thought I wanted to use a blanket stitch with monafilament thread on the top and gray thread on the bottom spool so all of my different rainbow colored orange peels would stand out rather than a constrasting thread.

The problem I have with cleanr monofilament is that I struggle a VERY long time with tension problems. It scares me just thinking about it. A friend of mine, Katrin, convinced me to use regular thread and my trusted machine blanket stitch. I pulled out the colors I needed and bought a couple more that were missing.

I am very fortunate to have a blanket stitch or buttonhole on my Pfaff 2046 sewing machine. I use it regularly, at least once a year. Yes, that is regularly. : ) It just took a bit of time to get the right tension; I had to reduce the tension on the top thread and additionally loosened it a bit on the bottom spool as well.

If you have a Pfaff, check out these two stitches - No. 2 - a fake Sashiko and No. 28 a buttonhole or blanket stitch. I increased the stitch length on ths Sashiko to 4 on the length and increased the depth and length of the buttonhole stitch to 3.5 to get the achieved look of good even handstitching.

Here was my end result. This is really all machine appliqued and machine sashiko quilted. I promise you! Doesn't it look fabulous? I am pretty impressed with it myself. I was a little nervous with the Sashiko, because I didn't think it would come out this nicely with the machine. I used a very bright white cotton thread on the top (which I would normally never quilt with). My quilting guru, Sabine Feldmann always told me quilting with white makes it look like your quilt was just basted and not quilted. I agree, but here it totally worked especially against the "salt and pepper" lovely, yarn-dyed Essex Linen in black from Robert Kaufmann.

Click to enlarge

If you are interested in the printed fabrics I used, the charms are from Lecien Fabrics. I used two - one of cold colors and one of warm colors. Honestly, I was just waiting for a good excuse to break out these two charm packs. There is nothing more exciting than breaking open something new! : )

Now, there are a lot of other stitches on your sewing machine to test out. These were just two I decided could possibly fit this project. My machine has a lot of other decorative stitches which could really look nice too, if I sat down and played with them. Hey, that's a great idea. I think I will do just that tomorrow too - try out some more stitches on a scrap fabric and see when and how I can use them in the future. I hope you do the same?

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TIP

After I finish up the packwork pieces in the morning hours, I like to put them on display. I can see them when I walk by (doing my other chores) or when I am preparing lunch in the kitchen. It helps to to see (from afar) if I need to tweek, improve or change something. I am really happy I decided on this design and the offset (asymmetrical) layout! 

Thank you for joining me today! I always get tickled when someone drops by to hear my rambling. Feel free to leave a comment here or on Instagram (@easypatchwork). I love hearing what you have to say. You really make my day! : )

Happy patching!
Karen

pinwheel parade finished

As I told my good friend, Katrin, the other day, I think August is going to be be the month of me finishing up a few projects. Since I signed up for six or more SAL/BOM this year, I haven't had a lot of time to finish my other projects that were started earlier. I have put most of those projects aside to work on the ones that I am emotionally connected to.

One very dear project is a quilt that I am making for my niece, Nina. She picked out the fabric in a fabric store when I was visiting last fall. She is a very well-raised young lady with a great sense of color.

I had three fabrics to begin with and from those I think only about a 1/4 to 1/2 yard each. If this was going to be a bed quilt, I was going to have to bring in more fabric. I added the fresher green and black dotty fabric found around the outer edges and in the prairie (pinwheel) flower. Nina and her mom both like dots, so I think they will like the additions. Now it's finished! I really hope she likes the pattern I came up with.

There are lots of pinwheels in this quilt. I think there are 96 green sashing blocks and 24 pinwheels. I don't like sewing curved edges anymore after sewing OHO for Brigitte Heitland, so I came up with an easier way to make the flowers. I appliqued circles onto the white fabric and cut them twice. After all were cut, I regrouped them into four blocks and sewed them back together. It was a lot of work, but I think it saved some time. It also gives the quilt added thickness from the applique stabilizer underneath the flowers.

I used 80/20 cotton/poly batting and 100% cotton thread for the quilting with my Pfaff home sewing machine. I started with an echo quilting around the flowers and realized after 20 sections, the thread was all wrong on the back. I wanted to rip just the ones out that were really bad, but ended up ripping everything out. You should have seen me on the floor doing this. I think my husband thought I was crazy.

I rethought the quilting through. It was hard going around the curves and struggling with the size of this large quilt (with pillow tuck) for a single bed. I really liked it, but knew I had to get the quilting done. I decided to change the strategy and quilt through the sashing. It allowed me to continuously quilt without having to back stitch or pull thread through at start and stop. This definitely saved me time!! The quilting on the back was great...my tension was just right this time. The quilting might seem minimal, but this quilt is heavy without the safety pins.

For the binding, I decided to go with something a little different. I made 1/2 wide double fabric - single fold binding and frayed it in the back. I thought it was a little more interesting for a pre-teen and not so traditional. (It also saved a little time of not having to sew by hand to the back.) I hope it holds, because I did NOT sew around the edge twice as recommended.

And to make sure the back binding frayed nicely, I washed the quilt. I was so nervous, but the color catcher washing sheets worked! I put three in and they were full of black and green die when the cycle finished. I let the quilt air dry and threw it in the dryer for the last five minutes of drying. It worked!! I would definitely use this technique again for a youth or baby quilt.

Oh, another thing I forgot to mention. I just love the fabric I picked to match the front. It is from a German fabric company called Tante Ema. Take a look at their fresh fabric lines. It is 30 cm wider than standard American quilting fabrics too.

If you are interested in how I made the prairie (pinwheel) flowers, stayed tuned. There will be a tutorial coming out but probably on another one of my blogs. And if you want to see even more pictures of the quilt (that I almost hate to part with) check out my flickr gallery.

Thanks for dropping by!
Karen

Slice & Roll Kinderquilt Pattern

I am really excited to share with you my newest quilt pattern, the Slice & Roll Kinderquilt featuring the Berenstain Bears - Welcome to Bear Country fabric for Moda. If you have been following my blog and posts, you may know that my family and I love the Berenstain Bears. We have quite a few books - maybe 30 in total from the original authors, Jan and Stan Berenstain. I started reading the books to my first-born when he was three years old. He really enjoys them and understands the lessons behind the stories. as well.

When I found out there was a fabric line coming out from Moda Fabrics, I was completely beside myself. The "I got to have it look" as quoted from The Green Eyed Monster quickly came over me. I designed a block with the fabrics depicting the original four main characters (Mama, Papa, Brother & Sister Bear) and a few other solid fabrics taken directly from the books. I also went a little modern with an offset border. With the great novelty fabric, I was able to make a "book" in the lower right with a selvage tag.

This really is a great pattern to use with all children's and novelty fabrics such as Dr. Seuss & The Cat in the Hat, Olivia, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

And as always, if you make this quilt, I would love to see YOUR creation!

Pattern Features:
selvage tag
offset borders
partial seams
easy sliced blocks

You can download your PDF pattern at the following locations:

DaWanda  |  Craftsy

Ich freue mich sehr, Euch meine allererste kaufbare Patchworkdeckenanleitung vorzustellen. Sie heißt Slice & Roll Kinderquilt {Patchworkdeckeanleitung}. Und sie liegt mir echt sehr am Herzen. Wenn ihr meinen Blog verfolgt habt, dann wißt ihr, daß wir die Berenstain Bären - Bücherreihe lesen. Es ist eine amerikanische Kinderbuchreihe die in den 1950er herausgekommen ist. Sie erzählt alltägliche aber sehr wichtige Lektionen, die die Kinder erleben, wie z.B. das Lügen erzählen und die Konsequenzen hiervon. Wir haben sehr viele Bücher der Reihe, ungefähr 30 Titel. Ich fing sie an vorzulesen, als unser Erster drei Jahre alt war. Er mag sie und versteht den Hindergrund.

Als ich erfahren habe, daß Moda Fabrics eine neue Patchworkstoffkollektion mit den Bären raus brachte, mußte ich sie sofort kaufen. Ich habe den 4er-Block mit den Stofffarben der Kleider der vier original Bären - Mama, Papa, Bruder und Schwester Bär entworfen. Die anderen Farben habe ich passend zu den Farben aus den Büchern dazu gewählt. Ich habe die den äußeren Rand (Bordüre) asymmetrisch entworfen. Der illustrierte Stoff aus der Kollektion ist ein schönes Beispiel für die Illustrationen in den Büchern. Dazu habe ich ein Zettelchen aus der Stoffrand in den Block rein genäht, so sieht es ein bisschen wie ein echtes Buch aus.

Man kann hierfür alle novelty Stoffe verwenden, wie Tante Emma Stoffe, Kaptän Sharky oder Prinzessin Lillifee.

Anleitung Schwerpunkte:

Slevage Tag

Asymetrischbordüre

Partial Säume

"Stappel" Schneidetechnique

Die Patchworkanleitung in Englisch kann hier als PDF herunter geladen werden:

DaWanda  |  Craftsy