A Magical Year

Once upon a time, there were two friends who loved to stitch—so much so that we decided to join together and become a team, calling our business Through the Needle's Eye. We began designing and creating a fairy tale quilt, started teaching and lecturing, and began our blog.

In 2016, our fairy tale stitching included some fantastic experiences.

We designed several patterns in wool, having started with our ornaments last year. In fact, our first wool appliqué pattern, Marcia's Flowers, is available on our website, as well as at two local shops! Another pattern set is in the planning stages.

We taught a six-month crazy quilting class, including instruction on constructing the blocks, choosing and stitching motif designs, embellishing stitches with ribbon and beads, combination seam stitches, and finishing the project. We learned as much as our students in those creative classes!

We completed our Fairy Tale Album, which was accepted into a special exhibit at the International Quilt Festival in Houston in November, and it will also be included in the show in Chicago in the spring. It was such fun to see it there, especially seeing people study it to discover many of the stitched details.

A new granddaughter calls for a baby blanket, and what better design for a baby named Ella than to blow up the size of our Cinderella block pattern and work it in flannel? A few embroidered dimensional touches were her immediate favorite parts.

Among the many new projects in the works is a redwork quilt—using fairy tale motifs, of course! We were honored to be invited to teach at the Academy of Appliqué in Williamsburg in 2017 and have been busy preparing for that. So many ideas; so much stitching!

Tonight, we celebrate the end of a wonderful 2016 in great anticipation of the year to come, which promises many exciting opportunities, both in our stitching and our personal lives. We can't wait to see how it all unfolds. 

So when the clock strikes midnight tonight, we won't worry that our carriage will become just a pumpkin. No, we will cling to our glass slippers and the sparkling promises they hold for the coming year—the next chapter in our happily ever after!

May you have a happy and prosperous 2017! 

Ella's Cinderella

I (Teri) have written several posts about my grandchildren's quilts. Both of my grandsons, who are about six weeks apart, got Cat in the Hat quilts. [See Thing 1 and Thing 2 and The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.] Unfortunately, my boys didn't get their quilts until their first and second birthdays. I was determined that my granddaughter, Ella, would actually get a baby quilt. I was planning even before she was born and looked to many sources for inspiration. [See Inspiration for a Baby Quilt.] Finally, having completed our Fairy Tale Album, I thought that there could be not a better quilt for Ella than Cinderella. 

A baby blanket should be soft and cuddly, so I decided to use flannel for the appliqué. Off to the quilt shop I went to do my favorite part of the quilt process: choosing my fabrics. Although I was a bit more limited in my choices, since there is not nearly the selection of flannels as cottons, I was able to find everything I needed in one stop. It probably helped that I shopped in the fall, and I was stitching a pumpkin. That, and I love the whole autumnal palette, so it worked out perfectly.

Kara's Cinderella block from
our Fairy Tale Album

When Kara and I made our Fairy Tale Album, we divided up the blocks and each stitched different ones. Somehow, although Cinderella has always been one of my favorite fairy tales, Kara ended up stitching that one. I knew that block would be in my future, so this was the perfect opportunity for me to appliqué our design. I went to the copy shop and had the 12.5-inch block design enlarged to a 20-inch design area.

To do the vine, Kara used bias strips of the greens and wove them as she stitched. Because my design area was so large, I would have needed more than a yard of each of my vine fabrics to use bias strips. So to save money—flannel being more costly than cotton—I decided to do one section at a time. That ended up being quite the challenge, as I had to determine just what overlapped where to figure out which sections to stitch in what order. Good thing I've always liked to solve puzzles and brain teasers! I would definitely just buy the extra fabric and weave bias strips if I ever stitch this again.

Ella's Cinderella block in flannel, a 20" design centered on a 32"x38" baby blanket.

Stitching this was great fun, and quite a different kind of appliqué experience. Such large units were both easier and more challenging at the same time: gentler curves and more straight lines to stitch, yet there was so much more bulk to handle, especially when appliquéing the center of the block. But flannel is a dream to appliqué! If you've never tried it, I encourage you to do so. I expected the fabric to fray, but it didn't at all, and it turned under so nicely. 

Technically, this is not really a quilt, because while it does have three layers—a piece of flannel in the middle for the "batting"—I chose not to quilt it, because my experience is that the flannel stays together nicely, even through washings. (I've made quite a few flannel baby blankets.) I toyed with the idea of using a sashiko-style quilting around the appliqué, but ultimately, I was afraid it might detract from the design. I am planning to stitch her name beneath the design before I officially give it to her, however.

Here are a few details of her blanket.

Pumpkin turned carriage

Cinderella's glass slipper
I had to pad the light blue so that the leaves and flowers would not show.
It gave the slipper a bit of dimension as well.

The magic wand

A wee mouse, before transforming to a horse

The bow on the slipper: carefully and securely stitched with beads;
and the center of the pumpkin flower: knots surrounded by bullion stitches 

    

Ella loved exploring her new baby blanket! She especially loved the shoe and the flowers.

And she got it before her birthday!!

Fairy Tales Through the Needle's Eye

. . . upon a time, there were two friends who loved to stitch together. They had taken classes, gone to quilt shows, made wedding quilts, joined guilds, and worked at The Elly Sienkiewicz Appliqué Academy as a stitching team. One evening, about two years ago, they were sitting at a meeting of the  Baltimore Appliqué Society. Just before the speaker began her lecture, Kara whispered to Teri, "Have you ever seen a Baltimore Album-style quilt with fairy tales?" Throughout the rest of the meeting, wheels of inspiration were turning in their heads, as both friends loved fairy tales as much as they loved to appliqué.

As soon as Teri and Kara reached the car, the talk began. Which fairy tales would they stitch? How many should they choose? How large should they make the blocks? They brainstormed during the entire 45-minute ride home. The next day, they had each done exhaustive internet searches to be sure that there were no such quilts. They discussed and finalized the list of stories they wanted to use, including some tales from the Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Andersen. The next weeks were filled with planning. Which blocks would be picture blocks, which would be wreaths, and which would incorporate papercuts? They wanted to stay true to the style of Baltimore album quilts, so they intended to include each of these major styles of album blocks. Designs were drawn, colors were chosen, and background fabric and a few base fabrics were purchased. And the friends began to stitch.

Two years later, the top was completed, and they took the quilt to Bellwether Dry Goods to be hand-quilted. And this past Monday, they went to pick up the completed quilt. The stories had come to life. Kara and Teri were thrilled!

Here are a few highlights from the quilt.

The spinning wheel and briar roses from Sleeping Beauty

Cinderella's glass slipper

Little Red Riding Hood with her basket of goodies for her grandmother

One of Snow White's seven dwarves, in front of the magic mirror

Andersen's Nightingale singing with the emperor's mechanized bird

The Ugly Duckling in the nest

Thumbelina in a walnut shell being pulled to safety by a butterfly

The ship that intrigues the Little Mermaid

Beauty approaching the Beast's castle with the rose her father picked for her

Can you find the Beast hidden in the tree?

Jack climbing the Beanstalk on the left border . . .

. . . with the cow at the bottom

Jack descending the beanstalk with the golden harp on the right border

There is no sashing between the blocks, so the quilting design provides that separation.

Teri and Kara are delighted with the completed fairy tale quilt and cannot wait to share it at the Baltimore Appliqué Society meeting next week. Unfortunately, the Snow Queen interfered with their opportunity to share it at a lecture that they were scheduled to give earlier in the week. They have many plans and ideas for fun projects to continue telling these fairy tales through their needles' eyes. 

The two friends are already discussing their next quilt project. Which fairy tales will they stitch next? What stories would you tell through your needle's eye? 

Kara and Teri don't know what adventures their quilt may have, but they do know that any quilt about fairy tales will surely live happily ever . . . 

And the winner is...

Thank you to all who entered our giveaway last week! It was great fun to read your responses about your favorite fairy tales. The overall favorite story among the entrants was Cinderella, which just happens to be one of my favorites. When I (Teri) was teaching fifth grade, I taught a Cinderella unit every year, reading and comparing versions of the story from around the world. I have a collection of over twenty stories from different countries. Some are quite unique, but all share the same basic elements of the story.  

Rumpelstiltskin came in second place as a favorite, followed by Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Swan Princess, and Rapunzel.

Other favorites included:

• Three Little Pigs
• Beauty and the Beast
• Pied Piper of Hamelin
• Pigmalion
• The Girl With the Sulfursticks (The Little Match Girl)
• The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe
• East of the Sun and West of the Moon
• Three Little Kittens
• Jack and the Beanstalk
• The Ugly Duckling
• Snow White and Rose Red

Is your favorite story listed here? Perhaps there are a few that are unfamiliar to you. Fairy tales are typically part of the public domain, and therefore easy to find online. If you don't know one of these stories, do a search and read it. You may find a new favorite! Kara's favorite fairy tale, The Snow Queen, wasn't a favorite listed here, but I'm sure some of you out there know and love that story as well!

So, I'm sure you're wondering why I'm rambling on and not giving the information you REALLY want to know: the winner of the book. Our "random name picker" (really, that's the name of the website tool!) selected the name of:

MaryBeth Little

Her response: I'm not sure if you'd consider The Three Little Kittens a fairy tale, but it's definitely my favorite children's book. The one illustrated by Masha. The illustrations are gorgeous and I read it so many times to my daughter when she was little that we had to tape it several times!! Your blocks are beautiful.

I was curious when I read this response, and I looked up the illustrator. It turns out that I remember having the same book as a child! Such good memories of childhood stories. Wouldn't these pictures make a great quilt?!

Congratulations, MaryBeth! Please email us and let us know where to send you your book. We hope you will enjoy Spoken Without a Word, and that you will delight in its pages of inspiration. And thanks again to everyone for joining us on our first giveaway. We've got some great new ideas of stories to stitch!

Crazy Quilting—Start to Finish

The title of this post sounds a bit intimidating, but it is the goal of a new class Teri and I (Kara) will be teaching at our local quilt shop. We have taught a beginning crazy quilting class that primarily focused on learning the basic embroidery skills needed for seam stitches and motifs; however, we really didn't have time in a one-day class to teach how to piece and embellish the blocks. Quite a few of our students wanted to learn those skills as well, so a 6-month class was born. The class doesn't start until January 16th, but we thought we would bring you, our readers, along with us as we take this crazy quilting journey.

We began preparing for the class by putting together a sample that consisted of four different blocks. Each one is a little different, which allows for a few different techniques in assembling them. Assembling crazy quilt blocks is inherently somewhat random, but the way one person puts them together may make sense to that person and not to another. That's what Teri and I discovered.  I tend to be more exacting in my process, whereas Teri is confident in eyeballing the pieces and putting them together with great results. Our students will get a little bit of both methods, and they will be able to choose the method that best suits them. Here are the four different blocks before embroidery:

We tried to incorporate different fabrics, many of which were sourced from local thrift stores.

We each finished two blocks, but before we started, we put together the 4 patterns and planned out our motifs and embellishments. By doing this ahead of time, we avoided duplicating our efforts.  The side benefit of this "worksheet" was that it allowed me to plan out my seam stitches and thread colors ahead of time.

Some people—like Teri—would rather choose their seam stitches on the fly, (stitching pun intended,) but planning things out helped me to contain some of my stitching chaos.

This is my "contained" stitching setup.

For the motifs in this sample, we chose images from our upcoming fairy tale project. You may recognize a few of the motifs from our December ornament series. I used the press and seal method mentioned here to transfer the images to the block.

Snow White's apple

The Beast's castle

The Nightingale

Sleeping Beauty's nemesis, the spinning wheel and its spindle

The wicked queen's crown from Snow White

The flowers in this piece of silk sari were highlighted and
beaded to help them stand out.

A beaded seam stitch and an antique button

We worked in some beading in various locations. Sometimes we used them in the seam stitches and other times in the motifs themselves.

One of the requests for this class was to learn how to use silk ribbon in a crazy quilt so we incorporated a bit of silk ribbon embroidery as well as an off-block silk flower.

A silk ribbon flower using the ribbon stitch

A gathered flower using French wired ribbon, with embroidered ribbon leaves

Lace appliqués and a bit of French lace trim were used to highlight certain areas of the blocks. We also used a piece of gathered silk ribbon embellished with beads to enhance the vintage postcard center of one of the blocks.

The lace flowers really stand out on the thick brown wool
we used.

The French lace trim and beaded ribbon highlight this
vintage postcard.

There are so many creative opportunities in a crazy quilt, and we can't wait to see how they are used in this class. We are looking forward to this journey that we will be taking with our students, and we plan on bringing you, the readers, along with us. Stay tuned for more updates as the class progresses.

Can you find any other elements from fairy tales in the motifs?