Sunday, March 6, 2011

Embroidery Resources for Crazy Quilts

Photobucket

My newest sewing project, the crazy quilt picnic blanket, has been a great way to try out new embroidery stitches. I was very fortunate, also, because just as I finished piecing the quilt together, my boss asked me if I'd like this very large collection of embroidery floss (along with other embroidery supplies).

Photobucket

I've really been learning a lot from the tutorials I've found on-line.

Embroidery stitches in alphabetical order:

http://www.victorian-embroidery-and-crafts.com/embroidery-stitches.html








I have found both of these library books to be very useful. The first book is small and fat and looks like a nature guide for embroidery stitches.

Photobucket

Photobucket

Urban Threads offers embroidery designs for both hand and machine embroidery, priced between $1 and $5 per design. I really like their selection of steampunk designs:

Steampunk Embroidery

Urban Threads also has a small selection of free designs, which at the moment includes a steampunk leprechaun.

http://www.urbanthreads.com/free_designs

Free clip art sites can also provide great inspiration for embroidery designs:

http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/


There are several ways to put embroidered designs on the quilt. They can be added to the quilt patches before or after the quilt is pieced together. I waited until after.


For some of the designs, I traced a picture onto tracing paper and then basted the tracing paper onto the fabric. Then I embroidered over the pencil lines on the paper.
Photobucket

For other designs, I found it easier to just trace around a stencil, directly onto the fabric, using a regular pencil for light fabrics, and a white pencil for dark fabrics.
Photobucket

The designs can be simple outlines:

Photobucket

or the design can be filled in:

Photobucket

There are also iron-on embroidery transfers available at the fabric store, although I didn't take advantage of any of those. They have special ink that can be used more that once to transfer designs onto the cloth, which can then be embroidered over.

Iron-on appliques were on sale last week at our local fabric store, so I added some of those to the quilt, as well.

Photobucket

Photobucket

There are no real rules for crazy quilts. They don't need to have any embellishment at all, but they are a great way to try out new stitches ( like a fancy sampler) and the extra stitching does strengthen the seams, as well as making the quilt prettier. It would be hard to go over-board with the embellishments. If you take a look at pictures of vintage crazy quilts, they are like multi-media collages, with embroidery, lace, silk flowers, buttons, ribbons, and trinkets. The only limitations I am putting on my quilt, are time to complete it, and I don't want too many lumpy elements on it, since I want to be able to place bowls and plates on it without them tipping over.

Photobucket

2 comments:

  1. WHERE on earth did you find pterodactyl fabric?!!! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. That lovely fabric was my big splurge. It's made by Spoonflower and is not as cheap as the rest, but I ordered only one yard and spread it out over the whole quilt.
    Here is the link to the exact fabric:
    http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/165256

    ReplyDelete