And for the rest of my readers – these pages may be of interest too.

For the cording foot try this one.

For the tailor tack foot or fringing foot as [...]]]> No puede explicar en español que tipo de proyectos se pueden utilizar los pies que he adquirido. Lo siento!
Pero aqui son unas paginas de web con buena informacion.

And for the rest of my readers – these pages may be of interest too.

For the cording foot try this one.

For the tailor tack foot or fringing foot as it is sometimes known look here.

And here’s the page for the quilting foot.

Be sure to watch the little videos.

And for those that want more – this is the link to the index page for all the presser feet available. If you feel inspired to order some of them – be sure to check that you get the right one to fit your machine. Not all the feet shown in the index are available for all models.

Hope this helps!

Embellishment should be used in the same way we garnish food. It is important to consider scale. If [...]]]> I thought the recent email from Quilting Arts gave very good advice. Since I can’t link to it I’m posting the text here for those of you who don’t get the emails. The advice is from Frances Holliday Alford.

Embellishment should be used in the same way we garnish food. It is important to consider scale. If there is too much, it will overpower the dish. The right amount will add zest, interest, and excitement. Embellishment in quilting needs the same careful consideration. Think of embellishment as a punctuation mark: it is not the whole paragraph, but simply a place of emphasis.

Embellishments come in as many forms as our imagination will allow. A small amount of foil, a couching of yarn, French knots, or a sprinkle of tiny seed beads can be a subtle accent on a smaller, more delicate piece of art. This is the same slight of hand that allows a dash of paprika to give the deviled egg a little oomph. Like the parmesan cheese on the pasta, it adds interest and flavor, but is not the centerpiece of the dish.

A larger, bolder work of art – or gourmet delight – can handle larger scale embellishments. At the most extreme end of the spectrum, think of the French pastries studded with whole, glazed strawberries, large slices of pineapple, or long chocolate curls. When a large pizza is presented, it is more attractive with toppings like artfully placed cross-sliced peppers, slices of sausage, or whole olives, rather than a smattering of tiny, chopped pieces.

Comparable embellishments of this sort are large beads, recycled jewelry components, small toys, or other larger objects sewed firmly to a heavier surface. The point of this type of embellishment is that it is the dominant subject. It speaks loudly and asserts itself.

The most important thing to consider is what your design needs to communicate, how it relates to the theme, how the structure will hold a certain item and how the objects will enhance the design as intended.

I do think that a good story to illustrate something you are trying to get across helps enormously. The comparison with garnishing food is an excellent example of this.

I like to do some embellishment on my quilts, but I’m not a great fan of OTT bits and [...]]]> My next activity was to embellish a quilt. I didn’t want to make another quilt just to do some embellishment so I looked through the work so far and decided to use the pumpkin piece from Module 1.

I like to do some embellishment on my quilts, but I’m not a great fan of OTT bits and bobs on quilts, so it was quite hard to decide what to do. I looked at my original painting of the pumpkin and decided that the seeds could somehow be added – hence the beads, which are larger than I would usually use, but look seed-like to me. They are also the colours of the seeds as I had painted them. I added them to the quilted pumpkin rather than to the main pumpkin shape as they would have been lost there. I felt that they would draw the eye to the quilted pumpkin and catch the viewer’s attention and cause the viewer to look at that area too.

The seed-shaped quilting in the main shape was not so eye-catching as I would have liked, so I decided to add some foiling there. It would not be immediately obvious – depending on how the light falls on it – but would also draw the viewer in to look at the quilting there. I tried to add the foil within the seed shapes using powder glue. I was mostly successful, but some of it got away – outside the seed shaped area. Using the glue powder needs more practice I could have tried scraping it off, but experience tells me you end up making more of a mess than accepting serendipity.

Originally it had been my intention to only use one half of the background fabric [...]]]> I spent quite a few evenings this week hand embroidering the edges of the leaves on my broderie perse piece. It was quite hard work sometimes where the acrylic paint was quite thick and I ended up with a blunt needle.

Originally it had been my intention to only use one half of the background fabric but when I saw the photo up here on the blog I decided that I liked the effect using the whole piece of fabric. It needed a little something to balance the 2 sides and as I had one leaf motif left over I put that on the right hand side. To make it a little different I added some veins to the leaf in stem stitch, again using 2 strands of stranded embroidery thread.

Here is the whole piece with all the embroidery finished:

And here are some details:

I like the finished piece so much that although I’ve done all that was required for the activity on the C&G course I think I will bat it and quilt it too. This one is a piece that is more than just a sample. It wants to get finished.