Trees and Leaves Autumn Jubilee 2020

It is week 2 of the quilt along for Autumn Jubilee 2020. This week we worked on row # 2.

This was fairly fun and fast to make using a small leaf print and a variety of background fabrics. It took me longer to decide on background bits than cutting out all the leaf fabric. I bought this leaf fabric a few weeks ago, specifically for this project. I like all the variety of colors in the print.

I bet I rearranged the few background pieces 10 times, and cut lots of extras! I do like the way this came together. Pattern is located at https://frommycarolinahome.com/2020/10/09/autumn-jubilee-quilt-along-week-2/

Another project for Autumn Jubilee 2020 this week is the Machine Embroidery Wall hanging.

Details at https://frommycarolinahome.com/2020/10/12/embroidery-wall-hanging/

When Carole announced that she was incorporating some machine embroidery into this years Autumn Jubilee, I got very excited. I have SO many designs saved on my computer, and they are sorted by categories like Seasons, or Holidays, and sub-sorted by specifics, like FALL or Thanksgiving etc. For two or three weeks I have been going through those folders and looking at all the Fall / Autumn designs I have, along with continuing to download ‘free’ designs from lots of places. I narrowed it down into 8 designs.

I decided to use some interesting stitch patterns from a digitizer called Sew Sweetly. I get a freebie every day, and of course, I can’t help but window shop. They have a series of fall designs that I liked, and have some great prices. Rather than order the complete set (Fall/Autumn Bean/Vintage Stitch Embroidery Design bundle) https://www.sewsweetly.com/embroidery-and-applique-design-bundles/3408-fall-autumn-bean-vintage-stitch-embroidery-design-bundle , I picked just 4 of the designs since Carole recommended stitching out 4 blocks. (Don’t tell, I have all those designs, but bought a few more….)

I decided to use one fabric for all 4 blocks, and my 8″ x 8″ hoop on my Janome 11000. Since I don’t know what the “assembly” or “finished piece” is supposed to look like, I felt like the “one fabric” would give my blocks some continuity. I have a couple of other prints set aside to use for possible borders. (I am keeping out my fall fabric container, and my Autumn Jubilee bin in close reach for the “next set of instructions”.)

As I matched threads to the design worksheet for the first block, I decided to keep those threads out and try to use them in each of the 4 blocks.
My first design really defines the grouping –

I find it fascinating to watch the machine do the work. Don’t kid yourself, machine embroidery has a huge learning curve, and I am continually learning. I’ve learned a lot about stabilizers, hooping, basting boxes, floating fabric, floating stabilizer under my hoop, tension adjustments and more. The most important thing I have learned is to LISTEN to the machine. I can tell if something is going wrong simply by the change in sound. It may have sounded like noise to you, but to me, the sound in the video below was the sound of everything running right.

My second block was one I called a “swirl” of leaves. I did a little rotating of the design on the screen and some slight increasing of the size.

Swirl of leaves

My third block tells the story of what happens when the wind blows.

When the wind blows

The last block I played with quite a bit in my machine options. I had the colors from the previous 3 blocks lined up on the ironing board next to the embroidery machine. When I brought the design in to the machine, I decided to “duplicate it” for a total of 3 designs. I rotated the designs and positioned them in a way that I felt was fairly balanced. I did some minor increasing on each of the 3 designs, and when it looked good on the screen, I decided I was happy with it. This really filled the space in the block and made it more interesting .

15 colors, 22,443 stitches, 7.4 x 7.9 inches

starting the final grouping of 5 leaves

As each group of 5 leaves stitched out, I adjusted the colors to keep them balanced with the previous group.

Autumn leaves come in all colors

When the “next” round of directions come out for this wall hanging, I will make the choices on other fabrics that will compliment the blocks I have made.

It’s been fun to do these 4 blocks and I can’t wait to see what Carole has planned next on her blog https://frommycarolinahome.com/

Are you stitching along with #AutumnJubilee2020 ??

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More fun with Machine Embroidery

I’ve been giving the Janome 11000 a real workout.  I LOVE that I now have twice the hoop size as my Brother PE500.  Going from a 4×4 to the 8×8 is HUGE!  So many things to do.  Last week I saw a pattern on a Facebook group for an “in the hoop” design that I wanted to try.   (In the hoop means the entire project is done without removing it from the hoop) .

The designer was asking what other sizes people would like and so I responded to her with my desire for something just a bit bigger than 5×7; that would fit my 8×8 hoop.  Now, silly me, I should have given her millimeters, not inches. Turns out my 8×8 hoop is NOT 8×8….it is 200 mm which converts to 7.87402 inches.  She added several more sizes of the design and I purchased and downloaded the one for the 8×8 hoop. It would NOT work in my machine!  I was getting this horrible message –

I could not figure out what was wrong.    I tried changing the machine settings to the SQ hoop (8×8) but that didn’t work either. I deleted and reloaded multiple times and finally notified the designer that I was unable to use the product I had purchased.  After a few text messages, and my realization that 8×8 didn’t really mean 8×8 (open user manual and read!!) …she resized the product to fit!

You can see now on the screen that she resized the design to 6.7 x 7.5″ and I was up and running!  I had so much fun making the design and wanted the bigger size to accommodate my big cell phone.

Room to spare.  The phone is 6 1/2 ” long and this has “room to spare” on the finished bag.   I really liked the “wave” on the bag too!

If I made another one of these, I would probably put a tab on both edges so I could make a carry strap.  The pattern source – SunshineStitchesCA Custom Digitizing/Embroidery .  Dawn was a big help to me in resizing adjustments.  I appreciated her customer service!

I’ve made several other items on the embroidery machine this week, and a few of them have to “wait” for gifting before I can share them.

I can share with you some fun ornaments I made.  The design is from Kreative Kiwi, in the FREE section of their website.

There are about 10 steps to the snow globe, and the very last step includes laying down vinyl to keep the little sparkles inside –

Did you see those pins on the outside of the hoop?  I learned that trick on one of the videos that Kay on Kreative Kiwi does.  It helps to keep the stabilizer from pulling into the hoop.  This project took 2 layers of Vilene wash away stabilizer.

My hubby said, after I did the first ornament, that it would be “nice” to put names and year on them.  So, I figured out a way to do that, using BOTH of my embroider machines. What I did was hoop “tear away” stabilizer in my Brother machine; and run the first two steps, then exit the program and use the Brother fonts and stitch out the name & year.  Meanwhile, the Janome was going on the other table with the first several steps of the front of the snow globe.  When it came time to add the backing, I trimmed up the part with the name, used a glue stick to apply it to the back side of the hoop and continue with the stitching.  I think it worked well.  (Note I chose this photo with the date showing but not the name for privacy).

When I get the hubby’s or mine done I will show you a better back!

The project calls for vinyl over the top as part of the last step.  I have a big roll of heavy vinyl and I made a couple ornaments, but it felt really “stiff”.  I was reading online, people were talking about “upcycling” the vinyl bags that sheets and linens come in from the department store.  Well, I have a few of those in the sewing room and cut 5″ squares out of that vinyl.  I had also read that wiping a little Static Guard on the vinyl would help the sparkly stuff to move around better.   I had fun too digging in the crafty drawers for little sparkly things to put in the snow globes.

Here are some close up shots.

My daughter thought they would make fun “place cards” at the Thanksgiving table. I got 8 out of 10 finished before I ran out out the stabilizer I need.  Hopefully my order will arrive early this week.  The last 2 are for myself and my husband, and I may have to “stitch together” pieces of stabilizer to get the project finished!

These were SO much fun to make!! Kind of “addictive” digging through the fabrics and the craft drawers.  They really don’t take much material and it was fun to personalize them just a bit.

What are you working on???