Easter Blessings From Embroidery It

He didn't have to do it, but I'm ever so thankful that He did.
He did it for me and He did it for each and everyone of you. May we never forget this.  He loves us... always.

May you all have a very blessed day today.
Love,
Nancy

Easter Egg Applique

Dear Friends,

It's Spring!  I'm doing the happy dance here because it is my favorite season!  My favorite colors are anything pastel.  Love it!!!  The trees are budding out now with the most beautiful spring green as their leaves unfold.  Take a look at the rhubarb poking with its head out of the ground.  I'm ready for a yummy rhubarb strawberry crisp and I can't wait to start planting my tomatoes and other delicious vegetables.

With the warmer weather, I've been walking outside much more and being out in nature just gives me the feeling of being closer to God.  Despite my trials (we all have them) I have so much to be thankful for and spending time outside, especially working in my garden, just gives me a quiet opportunity to reflect on my blessings and to ask the Holy Spirit to guide me.

 

 

We have family coming to visit and I've been busy getting the house ready as well as planning the meals.  Sometime I just don't know what to fix.  There are a lot of meals.  Do you ever feel like that? 

My front door ready to greet everyone.  You are welcome to come for a visit.  I'd love to meet you!

The embroidery is from Needle Little Embroidery and is titled Rosebud Egg Applique.  I thought stitching it on burlap turned out so sweet.  I used a bamboo skewer to make a plant pick with it.  It is ready to welcome you at the door.

Blessings to you all,
Nancy
disclaimer: I received these designs for free. The opinions of the designs and Needle Little Embroidery are my own.

Machine Embroidery Free Standing Lace Doily

Good Morning Friends,

I had a very special weekend.  I was fortunate to get to go to Kansas to visit my parents.  Katie, who is in the Air Force drove up from Oklahoma City to be with us as well.  It was so nice and a blessing to see family!!

 

I made this very sweet free standing lace doily for my mother.  The pattern for it came from Pixies Rule.  It is from their "Lace Coaster" set.  I'm quite fond of free standing lace and thought this set was so pretty.

Sweet hubby needed some cross country hours and since I was wanting to visit my parents he flew us and I got to play co-pilot.  Just thought you might enjoy a few pics.

Embroidery blessings to all of you!
Nancy

How to do Cutwork Machine Embroidery a Step-By-Step Tutorial

Hi Friends,

I am so getting ready for Easter and spring too!  Our trees are starting to bud and I've started my garden seeds indoors.  Warmer weather is on its way!! 

I want to show you a really sweet project cutwork Easter project.  It is a cutwork egg with Easter bunny inside.  You can read below what I am going to do with them.

This pattern comes from Advanced Embroidery Designs.   My machine's largest hoop size is 5 x 7 and this pattern is 5 x 8 I was shocked, but it works.  I don't understand why.  I figured it would say pattern too large for my machine, but it still fits inside my hoop.  I can't promise for your own machine though.  I actually picked this pattern up free last year.  They have monthly free designs.  If it wouldn't have been free, I would have been afraid to purchase it in thinking it wouldn't work for my machine.

This really is an easy project so don't let the name of the website fool you.  It took me about 1 hour 30 minutes to complete. 

1.  Choose your fabric.  Best to use a small print.  I used a bright pink tone on tone for the first one and white thread.  For the second I used an off white tone on tone fabric with pastel variegated thread.  Have a full bobbin wound for this project too as well as a fresh sharp embroidery needle.

2.  Hoop fabric right side up with a water soluble stabilizer underneath.  Both are in the hoop.  Hoop tightly. 

3. The first stitch out is a straight stitch around the outside of the egg. Remove your hoop from the machine and cut away a bit of the fabric on the outside of this stitching. I cut away about a half inch which you can see below.  Look closely.  The stitching is on the INSIDE of where I cut.  I cut out a half inch on the OUTSIDE of the stitching.  REMEMBER THESE TWO THINGS:  1. ONLY REMOVE YOUR HOOP FROM THE MACHINE. DO NOT REMOVE THE FABRIC FROM THE HOOP!  2.  DO NOT CUT YOUR WATER SOLUBLE STABILIZER.  ONLY CUT AWAY THE FABRIC!  (I'm not trying to sound bossy here ;-)  I just really want to emphasize these two things.) 

 

Cut very close to the stitch line for best results. On the first sample I did, the pink one, I was afraid to cut too close and that left frayed edges that were difficult to clean up. On the second sample I cut as close as 1/32" to 1/64" of an inch, very close to the stitching!

 

4. The second stitch out is an outline of the inner part of the egg and an outline of the interior design.

5.  Again remove the hoop from your machine and cut away only the fabric between the bunny and the inner egg.  Keep the stabilizer intact.  An applique scissors is a very handy tool to cut close to the stitching line.

6.  The third stitch out is all the lace work and design.  This is the part that takes the longest.  Just sit back and check out some blogs and read a bit while the machine does it's magic.

7.  For the fourth and final stitch out it is a decorative stitch between the inner and outer egg lining.  You can change thread color if you like for this.

8.  Remove hoop and remove fabric from hoop.  Cut stabilizer close to the outside of the egg and place entire project in water.  This will dissolve the water soluble stabilizer.  Dry.  Press.  Enjoy!!!

I'm going to glue the pink one to the outside of an Easter card and attach a pretty ribbon as well.  For the pastel on the right I'm going to stitch it to a placemat.  I'll either put that placemat in the center of the table with a basket of candy or I will make 6 more of these and make a total of 7 placemats for everyone at our Easter dinner.  I've got to decide on that first. 

Enjoy and Easter Blessings to you,
Nancy
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Machine Embroidery Butterfly Quilt

Dear Friends,

Last spring/summer I took a quilting 101 class.  My mother and mother-in-law are both quilters and that is one thing I had never tried my hand at.  What you see is my very FIRST quilt I have ever made! 

Yesterday I was doing some spring cleaning and working on the garage.  While in there I pulled out the Easter decorations.  I set the dining room table for Easter and then put away my winter quilts that my mother has made for me. 

As I put away the winter quilt that I had on this wall, I was excited to pull out my quilt.  I actually finished it before Christmas this past year but tucked it away until now.

As I was assembling this quilt I really wanted to do more with butterflies.  I found all the butterfly designs you see on this quilt at Embroidery Library with the exception of the one you see below, the one in the corners of the quilt.  I received that design in one of my embroidery club classes at our local sewing store and it was given to me by the instructor.  I don't know who to credit this design to.

The six butterflies in the center were embroidered on Floriani's "No Show Nylon Mesh Non-Fusible".  To use this product, when the solid design is finished stitching, cut close to the embroidery design.  Then use a heat source such as a mini iron, stencil burner or wood burning tool to melt away the edges of the mesh from around the design.  ***Caution***Don't touch the embroidery design with the heat source or your thread can easily melt.  Do this carefully!!!

Then I stitched the butterflies onto the quilt by hand for a 3-D effect.

For the antennae, I used dark brown embroidery floss and tied knots in the end.

I used monofilament thread to quilt this by stitching in the ditch between the larger red squares and the 9 patch squares.

All the remaining blank red squares were quilted with this Embroidery Library design.  These designs on the red squares were embroidered with cotton quilting thread.

Thanks everyone for looking.  I hope you enjoyed this!

 

Happy Embroidering and spring blessings to you!
With Love,
Nancy