Mail love

It is truly lovely to be back home.  Especially because there were so many nice things waiting for me when I got here. 

Ginny, a reader and fellow embroiderer was kind enough to send me some interfacing she likes to use when embroidering - it adds stability and helps hide those pesky end bits of floss that no matter how hard I try to weave them in the back they still manage to make their presence known. 

Ginny also sent me a Redwood quilt sampler pattern - designed by a Canadian quilter named Jean Boyd.  It is absolutely adorable and I can combine my fledgling embroidery and quilting skills in one project.  In fact it has inspired a quilted table topper (more on that in a sec...).

I received a book in the mail from ~V of Turkey Feathers and Pattern Bee fame.  She had a 'drawing' for a book she had just finished and enjoyed so much she wanted to pass it along.  I was actually second runner up since the first drawn name, sadly (for her anyway), was outside the US.  The book is Astrid and Veronika and has been on my 'to read' list for ever.  I never win anything so I'm doubly thrilled. 

I'm also going to keep in spirit and pass the book along in the same fashion when I am done with it.  I love the idea of it making its way around blog land like that. 

~V also included a slew of embroidery designs with the book and I now my little head is spinning with embroidery ideas.  This may turn into an embroidery blog after all (not really but it may seem like it for a bit).

So after seeing the Redwork sampler pattern I got the idea for a table topper using a morning glory transfer I've had for a while.  I like the simplicity of the Redwork pattern but wanted it to be a little bit larger for a table.  So I came up with a modified version of it.

The embroidered flowers will be in shades of periwinkle and lavender and I'll find material in those same colors for the scrappy checkerboard effect.  The idea is to have less contrast than the image shows but you get the idea.  It will be contained with a pale green containment border and will have a smaller embroidered morning glory at each corner.  The images here are just clipart and not the actual embroidery pattern.  Just fooling around with Excel - much better use for it than spreadsheets, don't you think?

Question for the quilters - when you have embroidered blocks in a quilt do those blocks get quilted?  Or no?  I can't picture how you would quilt it and not have it interfere with the embroidery.  The embroidered blocks will end up being eight inches square - is that too large a block not to quilt?

Comments

[Marilyn]

Andrea, I was so glad to see someone else using clipart & Excel to design their own pattern....I love doing that. I use PaintShopPro quite a bit, too.

The redwork pattern is so beautiful. I have to find that pattern!!!! I've been playing around and doing a couple of squares in redwork, too.

And, thanks for the comment on my blog....I love the car and am keeping my eyes open for one. DH may have something to say about it but oh well.....LOL.

[Sandy N]

Yes you can quilt in the embroidery blocks. Cross hatching looks wonderful and it does not alter all the lovely stitching. I love the look of the 1/2" cross hatching, but I also have a couple that are quilted 1" apart.

[Dannielle]

Looks like a wonderful project!

I usually just quilt 1/4" inside the embroidered squares to frame them. I always embroider through the batting so it's stabilized sufficiently. I usually use Hobb's Heirloom batting which can only go 4" between stitched areas.

I have really enjoyed reading about your recent embroidery projects :)

[Kim]

I was going to suggest cross-hatching for the quilting also, but someone beat me to it! LOL! You could do the same thing in the checkerboard border and it would continue the look and keep it simple so as not to detract from the embroidery.

[frenchgardenhouse]

The redwork pattern is so lovely!

I am completely impressed that you can do that quilt layout on excel...and here I thought it was only for boring spreadsheets! fun post.
Lidy