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

summer's over!!

HELLO Everyone!!! No, I am still alive and kicking! I just got a little distracted over summer! ;-)

I did not expect to get distracted from blogging for so long, though! At the end of the school year, things were getting hectic, no more time for sewing, party here, party there, taking on new official sewing projects, finishing up the old ones, and had simply no more time to post! Well, I am back again. The kids are in school now, and I have a little bit of me time for myself. So, I wanted to get back to posting on a regular basis. Yes, I really do! Please forgive me! The summer was fantastic, and now I am ready to "get back to work!"

Thinking about summer, I would like to share with you the pillow I made for my summer swap partner from our group, Pillow Swap Four Seasons. I kind of stepped out of my comfort zone and started using a lot of low volume (LW) fabrics. I tried to create something in the same style as her inspiration mosaic with lots of different rainbow colors, low volume prints and symmetrical design. You can see her design here:

I have to admit, my style is a bit more "low key" using more solids than LV so it was a little challenging to sew how I could design and sew something for her that I could really poor my heart out into. I took the idea from her six-pointed star and made a circle of them which is typically called "Seven Sisters." You will usually see this pattern and design made using English Paper Piecing (EPP). But, I love to piece on the machine, so I wanted a "simpler" way to make the stars and decided to make them using 60° triangles instead.

Design: I started playing around with the below design in EQ7. I usually design all of my quilts using this program. My first design hat a border, because I like a "clean" area to attach the backing fabric when sewing pillows. In the end, I changed my mind and added another row of LV triangles.

My first challenge was finding low volume fabrics! My friend, Mara, in Greece helped me out with those fabulous LV you see in the picture below. I didn't have any, and she was kind enough to offer me those beauties from her personal fabric collection. The solids are from a Kona rainbow charm pack.This was my initial pull and starting point.

After I had the design, I broke out my Mini Hex N More ruler I bought from Quilt et Textilkunst at last year's Nadelwelt in Karlsruhe. I cut 2 1/4" strips and broke my ruler in! These are so cool!! You really have to get one! (I also have the large Hex N More ruler, but haven't put it to great use yet.)

I pulled a few other coordinating fabrics for the stars. Once again, this was my first choice that I really liked. I didn't use all of the fabrics and changed my mind throughout. ;-) If I made the pillow over today, I think I would have used this yellow print in the middle instead of the one I used. I think smaller prints work better with the 2 1/4 inch triangles.

I laid out my stars to see if they had the right contrast and "pow" appeal. I was content with these fabrics. I let them stay on my design board for a day or two.

 

Next phase, cut out over 200 pieces from over 30 different fabrics (!).

Sewing: I carefully layed them out on my flannel design boards. I didn't have room for all pieces on one board in the beginning. ;-) Then I started sewing the rows carefully together one after another. Triangle quilts are really rather simple. I have sewn four or five already. The true key is to sewing successfully is to sew every odd row to the right starting from the left. Start your even rows by taking the last triangle in the row and sew them to the left or upside down. Then they will always nest!

After the rows were finished, it was easy street from there. ;-) Do you see the turquoise star? What is your opinion about it? Does it work?

I wasn't so sure about it. I looked at the setup after dark and noticed it was rather light in value.

The next day I found a better coordinated for the blue. Now all outer stars are brighter than the middle star and equal in value.

Of course I didn't throw out that lovely star!I used it to make a mug rug! Every pillow needs a matching mug rug, doesn't it?

Quilting: I first wanted to do an inner outline quilting on the whole pillow, but thought I wanted to bringing another design element and made 60° angles through the middle of the pillow. I am happy with the end result, but I am not happy that I chose to use Vliesoline H640 on this pillow! It gives it way too much depth. I learned my lesson here. ;-) Today I might even be brave enough to use black thread for the quilting too.

Seven Sisters Read the Newsprint for Rita

For the backside, I wanted to make something more in my style and went with Rita's idea of the hexagon, pulled through my scrap bins for yellow fabrics, improvised pieced until I got those great triangles, and sewed together in strips until I got even bigger triangles. I sewed the different solids in from the front as a border, the added the black until it was big enough for the backing. I offset the star on purpose if you were thinking it went wacky by mistake. ;-)

Back Side of Pillow of Seven Sisters Read the Newsprint

Bottom Zipper for a Two-Sided Pillow

And I love the label I made for Rita! I transferred the design onto t-shirt transfer and ironed to a white piece of fabric and sewed it into the inside of the pillow.

All in all, I am extremely happy with the way Rita's pillow turned out. It wasn't exactly my style (meaning low volume prints), but it challenged me to be creative. I truly hope she loved the pillow, because if she doesn't she can always send it back! ;-)

If you are inerested in swapping pillows with a fabulous group of ladies, we still have a few vacancies open for an energenic and creative patchworker. More information under the tab "Pillow Swap Four Seasons" above. We have an online form in the pillow swap Flickr group.

Thanks for dropping by. I hope to be around more in the future as well!

Big hugs,
Karen

sunshine and rainbows

"You know you are a blogger if you wait for the sun to come out so you can take pictures of your latest makes!"

That was my day today. It looked good this morning that the sun was going to make a show, and it did! The sky is a little hazy right now, but the sun is still visiting. I really didn't want to start anything new today, but I couldn't resist making a new folded star with rainbow colors inspired by the idea pool for the Pillow Swap 2015.

I really enjoy making these. You can find the original tutorial from Maria Wallin (notonlyquilts.com). Contrasting fabrics seem to work the best. Instead of a rainbow flow, I went for contrary colors. I might use it for my pillow swap; I might not. Sometimes it is hard to make for others - to truly figure out what they like!

On a different note - I love Christmas time. The kids make a different Christmas ornament just about every year in school (and sometimes at home). My littlest one brought this treasure home today!

Und für die deutsche Mädels, die meinen Blog lesen....gestern Abend wurde ich in Kruschtwichteln bei Abendenssen mit Freundinnen eingeweiht! Sehr witzig und interessant!

Enjoy your weekend!
Karen

mystic rainbow chevron pattern

Life is grand and then you are blessed with time. Sometimes I have so many ideas, I don't know what to do with them all. You would think that I am a chaot who has an idea..jumps in..and forgets all about it and starts something totally different. (I would not be surprised if my friends say that about me.) Well, I never forgot about this one. I always wanted to make it and did! It is finished!! I also took the time to write the instructions. It is called Mystic Rainbow Chevron and has three different layouts.

The idea came about at end of last year when the Kona Cotton Essentials Challenge was announced and I entered it. I had a small stash of 6" Color Essentials and wanted desperately to use them up but didn't know how. I decided to make a rainbow with chevrons but mix it up just a bit.

Here is the picture that I posted in 2013:

You can slightly see the pattern in the background and if you look closely, you can see it is just a tad bit different than the one shown above. Why? Because I am offering three different versions for three different tastes.

What is really great about this pattern is that you are given a coloring page to design your own colorway. You can use any color scheme ranging from gradients to a rainbow or even in masculine neutrals. Have fun with this little mini. It measures about 11 x 15.5 inches. You can use it for a placemat or a tablet case panel.

The pattern is all paper piecing expect for the borders...take a second look...all of the chevrons line up perfectly! I told you I was looking for the easiest way to make chevrons that was fast and perfect...and here it is! the chevrons nest every time.

You can see more examples on Craftsy. And the best part of all - the pattern will be available for a very minimal fee of $1.49! Yahoo...have fun!

Why am I charging a fee? Well, many of you have downloaded the free patterns in the past. That is great...it makes me happy, but it would make me happier to see you sewing my patterns. Would you buy a pattern and not make it? And hey, a girl has got to make an honest living as well. ;-)

I can wait to see what you do with the pattern. Don't forget to share with us all. Thanks again! Karen