Quilting Embroidered Quilts

Hi! I'm in the office to pay the bills and catch up on my emails today.... then back to un-packing! I'm SO TIRED!!!! And SO ready to be DONE!!!!! ..........but it's fun seeing the house come together, so it's very worth it! Thanks for all of your well wishes!! They give me a much needed boost to keep working and get the house pulled together!

I had a question from Wendy this morning about how to quilt an embroidered quilt. You do have to quilt the embroidered areas or they'll "POUF" out and look really sloppy in the finished quilt. I'm a hand quilter and if I was hand quilting one of the embroidered quilts it would be really easy to quilt around and through the embroideries and not disturb them....... BUT!!!!...... I don't have time to hand quilt anymore so we've found two really lovely ladies to do my machine quilting, Jill Therriault from Wenatchee and Susan Johnson from Richland. I have them quilt around and throught the embroidery in designs that complement the stitchery. They have to avoid heavily embroidered areas (such as lots of lazy daisy petals or french knots) and, of course, beaded areas. Most beading should be done AFTER quilting. It will make your quilter MUCH happier, and it's easy to hide the thread ends between the layers of fabric and batting. If you only have a few beads though, I'd just go ahead and sew them on beforehand and let your quilter know where they are so that she can easily avoid them when she quilts.

Some embroidery (and fabric patterns..... and piecing for that matter!) lends itself to simple, simple, simple quilting................... Some embroidery just calls out for detailed quilting.... Here's an example; Flight of Fancy with it's bold, bright, graphic fabrics and large scale embroidery lends itself to large, simple quilting. Pieces of the Past with it's simple, uncluttered and pale fabrics and detailed, pastel embroidery lends itself to heavier, close together quilting that makes the embroidered areas "pop". Just use your imagination & have fun with it! (Jill quilted Pieces of the Past with an all-over vertical "wallpaper" design around the plates.... heavily quilted around the appliqued areas inside of the "picture", and left the "tablecloth" pretty much un-quilted so that it would ripple a little bit like a tablecloth normally would..... Winter Wonderland on the other hand was quilted by Susan with an all-over swirling pattern with snowflakes suggesting blowing snow... both look just great!)

Well..... enough of a break.... back to un-packing! WHEW!!!!! :o)
xox Meg

MOVING DAY!!!!!! WOO HOO!!!!!

YIPPEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! We received the go-ahead to move into the new house last night! I was SO excited I couldn't sleep last night, so, today I think I'm going to be running on nervous energy alone!!!....................oh... calm down girl!! LOL!!! Right now they're installing the TV's & stuff and there's a photographer out there taking pictures of everything before we fill it up with boxes and furniture. Kind of weird to walk into your own house & find strangers taking pictures...... "good" weird tho!!! LOL!!!!!
Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait!!!!!! Just had to share today with you! I know.... I'm dopey!'
xoxoxoxo Meg

Another Valentine Greeting!

I just finished another block from "Fondest Regards" and realized..... GEEZ!!! .... it's a Valentine! I was going to do French knots all over the heart but if there's an opportunity to use pretty, sparkly, PINK beads??????? Enough said! LOL!!!!

Hmmmmm..... which block to work on now!!!?

xox Meg

Happy Valentine's Day

Hi! I finished stitching the center block of a new quilt "Fondest Regards" just in time for Valentine's Day!!! Really.... finished this about 10 minutes ago and I LOVE it!! I'm using new variegated floss from Cosmo (totally colorfast) and it's just been so much fun to work with and it's turning out SO pretty!!! The forget-me-nots are done with one floss.... YEAH! ONE floss!! Same with the blue flowers at the bottom and the words. This floss will be released at Spring Quilt Market in Minneapolis. I don't know what they're going to call it either... right now their variegated floss is called Marble Threads but they're supposed to be changing the name.... something pretty I hope! We'll have all of the ones that I'm using up on the website when they're available. WOO HOO!!!!
OH.... another 1/2 woo hoo!........... our house is almost done & we should be able to move into it in a week or so! Once they give us the "go-ahead" I'll be pretty much missing in action for a couple of weeks to get "nested in" but I'm going to set aside time every day to stitch on the new designs so that they'll be ready in time for market. I can't wait to live without cardboard boxes everywhere!!!! Wish me luck.... this has been a marathon house build so hopefully the move will be easy to make up for it!!!

NOW........
This is the Gardener's Angel of Spring, made by Wendy Stanek. She's added flowers from another pattern at the edges. She wrote that her 7 year old daughter wanted MORE embroidery on the fabric......................... a future pattern designer???? Looks great Wendy!

Well..... I can't remember quilte how long ago.... or WHAT this was for, but I love what Elizabeth Quigley from Texas did with this little free pattern! What a cute Valentine dish towel!!! Hmmmm...........I may need to make one!

These next few Hocuspocusville pictures were made by Laura Allen from St Louis, MO. She's done the quilt in mainly orange and she's added black beads and extra this's and that's here and there to spark it up!! LOVE what you've done Laura! Great job!

Hey, just a reminder! I LOVE to get your pictures of projects so that we can share them like this!!! If you can send them as big as possible (at least 600 dpi or so but can be as large as 1500 or more) Just as big as your email will allow........the bigger the pictures can be once they're loaded on the blog! YAHOO!!!! Then we can see all the beautiful details of all your hard work!

Extra Hugs & Kisses for Valentine's Day!! Meg

New Releases!!

Hi!.... OH HAPPY DAY!!! The new patterns are finished, printed and ready to release!! We've just finished putting them up on the website along with their floss kits. It's feels SO GOOD when something is completed!!! Now I can give ALL of my attention to the NEW, new designs! LOL!!!! Geez..... how lucky am I to get to work at something that's SO MUCH FUN!!????