Thursday, July 29, 2021

And the Winner is...

We were thrilled to see so many wonderful flowers listed in our giveaway! It is great to know that so many stitchers out there love flowers as much as we do. Lilies and tulips led the way as the most popular flowers, but there were quite a few that piqued our interest since we hadn't stitched them before. Flowers have been our mainstay to stitch since we began our little business, and we thought it would be fun to show some of the ones that we have stitched—along with a few that are now on our stitching radar. And of course, we will reveal who the lucky winner of our Botanical Beauties quilt kit!

Bias silk ribbon tulips
A wired ribbon lily


And an appliquéd lily

Wired ribbon violets
Wool Hydrangeas

Sunflowers three different ways

Wired ribbon

Silk ribbon
Wool

A rose is a rose...



Seam binding rose and leaf

Poppies!

From our Hopeful Bluebird Stitching Smalls
A wool lapel pin














Cotton Appliqué

Pansies

Seam binding
Bias silk ribbon



















Sweet Peas

Wool
Wired ribbon



















A few of the flowers mentioned that we have in the works



And while we haven't stitched these yet, here are a few of your suggestions—we even had pictures of them already!

Hollyhock
Nasturtium
Bee Balm


Coneflower

So that is a different kind of walk in the garden than we did before and we hope that you enjoyed seeing our passion for flowers in stitching form. 

Now onto our lucky winner...

Lorianne Alvesteffer

Congratulations Lorianne! Please send us a message with your address and we will put your Botanical Beauties kit in the mail to you. 

Thank you to everyone who participated in our giveaway, and if you would like to purchase your own Botanical Beauties kit, you can find it and many other flower-themed projects available there.


Thursday, July 22, 2021

"In the Garden" Again: A Final Walk and a GIVEAWAY

What better way to wrap up our revisit In the Garden than with a giveaway? We have been thrilled to see some of the blocks you are creating with these patterns, and are so grateful to those who have shared their progress in our Hopeful Stitchers Facebook Group. It is never too late to join our garden visits. Printed patterns with ribbon are still available, as are digital PDF downloads, and we have shared our original post below, which includes photos of each block.



To celebrate our gardening, we thought we would offer a free pattern set for another of our garden quilts, Lovely Botanicals. This quilt set comes with tons of ribbon and thread—everything you need to create this little quilt except the fabric. We appliquéd it in cotton, but there are no rules saying you couldn't do it in wool. In fact, we would love to see it!

Lovely Botanicals

To enter our giveaway, leave a comment on the blog below telling us what flower you would like to stitch in a garden. It can be one you have already stitched or one that you want to try. Just tell us your flower!

For extra entries, leave a comment on our Facebook and Instagram posts (and please like our pages if you haven't!); if you tag a friend that might be interested, you'll get even another chance. That's up to five chances, if you tag different friends on FB and IG. Just remember to tell us the flower you want to stitch!

Selections will be made at random next Wednesday. The drawing is open until Wednesday at noon, EDT. Help us decide what flowers to stitch next—and share the fun! 


We will announce the winner next Thursday on our blog, as well as on our Facebook and Instagram pages. To read more about this quilt and see lots of close-up photos, check out our website by clicking here

Happy Garden Stitching!!

🌿🌷🌼🐞🌸🌻🌹🍂🌺🐝🍃




Friday, February 8, 2019

A Final Walk "In the Garden"


I (Teri) thought it might be fun to take a walk together In the Garden and revisit each block. Below the block is a link to the original post, so you can review any special skills covered for that block. Enjoy!














This quilt was such fun for us to design and stitch, and it's even more fun to teach. Happily, a new round of classes has started at the wool shop, so we will be gardening again! Last month, we started with the Cardinals and Holly block, and we'll be stitching the Rose on Saturday. 



We would love to have you join us In the Garden! If you have stitched any of the blocks, it would be a great joy to see pictures. You could share them on our Facebook page.

Patterns for In the Garden are available in our web store, both individually and as a set, so you can pick and choose if you only want a few of the blocks. 

We have really enjoyed this garden journey. Are you wondering where our next stitching adventure will lead us? We shall see!

Friday, July 16, 2021

In the Garden Again—Wisteria Border and Quilt Assembly

We have come to the end of our walk In the Garden with the border and assembly directions. This lovely border could stand by its own as a separate project—especially for someone who loves gardening—but it is the perfect topper for our garden focused quilt. Sari silk wisteria and silk ribbon blooms frame the wool script and how it was done is all in this post for you to reference. Have you been making our In the Garden blocks? We would love for you to share them in our Hopeful Stitchers Facebook group. If you haven't joined, the link is below, and we hope that you will enjoy our group of stitchers as we share various projects and stitches.


This week the Wisteria Border and Quilt Assembly is on sale for 10% off with the code WISTERIA

🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃


Thursday, February 7, 2019

"In the Garden"—Wisteria Border and Quilt Assembly


In November, this wonderful group of ladies completed the final class of our Block of the Month quilt, In the Garden, at Primitive Homespuns Wool and Needleworks in Frederick, Maryland. We had such an awesome time together—stitching, sharing stories, learning new skills, and just having fun. Our last class was a bit bittersweet for me (Teri), as I'd come to look forward to meeting with the girls every month. But there will be other classes.

Our last session focused on assembling the blocks into a quilt, as well as how to make the wisteria border. Kathy, the owner of Primitive Homespuns, always has everything kitted for the classes, but this time, we decided it might be better to give everyone the opportunity to choose the color for the lettering. I was thrilled to see all of the choices. I am a green person, but we had purple, teal, and red letters in the top border—and they all looked fabulous! Every quilt would end up unique and personal to its maker. Some stitched the letters with matching thread, and at least one chose to stitch with a contrasting color thread to make a pop of color. I loved it! Our top is pictured here, with borders and pinned to prepare for quilting.




Here is a brief synopsis of how we worked the wisteria border:

I used a ten-inch square of wool—with a fusible ironed to the back—for my letters and arranged the word patterns on the wool. I stapled the patterns on the wool inside the letters and carefully cut them out, using sharp scissors. I fused the words onto the border strip (pressing on the front and the back) because I knew the long strip of wool would be handled a lot in the stitching process, and I didn't want the words to shift. (Shift happens!) This helped to keep everything lined up correctly. I used a matching wool thread with a blanket stitch all around the edges of the words, which gave a nice clean edge to the lettering. 

I used sari silk ribbon for the wisteria vines, twisting and pinning carefully before stitching.

I used a matching thread and stitched the smaller vines first, and then proceeded to the larger vine, removing pins as I stitched. 

Here, the first smaller vines are pinned down. I folded a piece of sari silk in half and twisted it, pinning so that the raw edges would be beneath the larger vine.

The larger vine is made with a long piece of sari silk, folded in thirds so the edges overlap in the center, as pictured here.

The center section is lightly twisted and pinned, and then the ends are twisted and shaped using the pins to secure.

The tighter you twist the silk, the more gnarled the vine will be. Stitch the smaller vines first, and then the larger one. I added some seed stitches throughout, using a matching 30-weight silk thread, to add more texture to the vines.

I used pearl cotton for the stems and leaves, and floss for the wisteria blooms. The petals are made with bullion-knotted lazy daisy stitches and some French knots for the smaller buds at the tips. 

The pattern includes the sari silk needed to make the wisteria vine and will be available on the website, along with all the patterns for each of the blocks. I know this post is a wee bit—okay, waaaay—overdue, but I wanted to have the quilting finished before posting it. So I hope you'll forgive me for taking so long. A quilter I am not. (Thanks, Yoda!) But I was determined to tackle this one, trying big-stitch quilting for the first time. Valdani #12 pearl cotton was my choice, and I loved the way it stitched.

First, I outlined all of the motifs. Then I used painter's tape to mark my quilting lines for the cross-hatching. I thought it would be fun to add little flowers, sprinkled through the cross-hatching, so every so often, I'd make a little bloom with five lazy daisy stitches and a knot in the middle. After the first row, I made little notches in the tape where I wanted to stitch the flowers. 

One important tip if you quilt using painter's tape: it's perfect because it isn't too sticky, but it does like the silk ribbon, so I found it worked better if I didn't press the tape directly onto the ribbon. I put a scrap piece of tape upside down where the tape would go over the ribboned sections. 

And finally....I have finished!!

In the Garden—a wool and ribbon appliqué and embroidery block of the month series


 

You can purchase all twelve of the individual block patterns on our website. If you purchase all twelve patterns, the Wisteria Border and Quilt Assembly pattern is free. And remember: all the hard copy patterns come with any ribbon needed to create the block. But you can also purchase digital copies of the patterns if you have access to the ribbons yourself. It is never too late to join us In the Garden!