An Autumn Acorn Tutorial

Autumn is a favorite time of year for me, Kara. I love all the smells and tastes of fall, whether it's a bushel of apples, the smell of a pile of leaves, or all things pumpkin. Visually, I think it is the season with some of the most dramatic color changes, with the leaves changing into the most brilliant yellow, orange, and red hues. On our recent visit to Maine, the colors were just starting to come out, and signs of fall were everywhere. On one of my many walks through the Wells Reserve at Laudholm, I passed under a large oak that had begun to drop its acorns. I had been wanting to make some wool acorns for some time, so I collected a baggie of the caps to bring home with me.

Since we are now in the heart of the autumn season, I thought I would make a few of the acorns just to see how they turned out, and I am pretty happy with the results. First, I gathered my supply of wool in a fall palette, along with some of my Gentle Art Simply Wool thread and Valdani pearl cotton.

I made my pattern from a piece of card stock folded over about an inch. I drew half of an acorn shape on the fold and then cut it out.

The length is about one inch, and that seemed to work for most
of my acorn cap sizes.

This burnt orange wool from Shakerwood Woolens seemed like a good choice to start with, so I traced three acorn parts using my template.

With a strand of Burnt Orange Gentle Arts wool, I brought my thread through the bottom of the first piece on the inside.

 I then aligned the edges and blanket stitched the first two pieces together from bottom to top.

I tied off at the top and proceeded to add the third acorn piece, starting at the bottom again.

Two sides finished and ready to stitch the third.

Once all three sides were stitched together, I used some hand quilting thread (because of its strength) to make a series of gathering stitches all around the top of the acorn.

My gathering stitches

When I had finished going all the way around the top with the quilting thread, I left the needle threaded and stuffed the acorn with polyfill. Once I had enough stuffing, I pulled the gathering thread tightly and made a few straight stitches across the top to secure the gathers.

Stuffing 

The tied off acorn 

All that was left to do was use a little E6000 glue on the top of the wool acorn and add the cap. I did hold the acorn and cap tightly together for about a minute to give the glue a chance to set.

My first acorn

I liked the look of the matching wool and wool thread, but I thought it would be fun to experiment with contrasting colors and a different type of thread. So, for my next acorn, I chose a thicker burnt orange wool from Primitive Homespuns and a Valdani, pearl #12, and I decided to add a little embroidery on all three sides of the acorn. I added the embroidery once I had two of the sides put together.

The contrasting pearl cotton for the blanket stitch

The embroidery is finished, and I am getting ready to gather it.

The finished acorn with embroidery

Once I started making these, I had to force myself to stop. I experimented with different threads and wools to see what effect I liked best. 

The start of my collection

It's hard to stop at just one!

These would be lovely displayed on a small plate, or turned into a necklace, or even as an acorn garland. Hopefully, you will enjoy making these as much as I did! If you decide to make some, please send us pictures, as we would love to see where your creativity takes you. Happy Autumn!

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Marcia's Flowers

In July, Kara shared The Story of an Inspiring Jacket with you. Today, I (Teri) will show you what we have each done with the design created from that jacket. These projects have been such fun, and we hope to share the joy with you. We are excited to teach this class at Primitive Homespuns Wool & Needleworks in October, in Frederick, MD. 

When we first met Kathy, the owner of the shop, she asked if we could design a wool appliqué piece that could be used to top a wooden box. Kara had already started working on this pattern in bright colors by Shakerwood Woolens, and we took it in to show to her. Kathy thought that the design would be perfect, so I selected a palette of colors from her shop to stitch my model. As I love warm colors, my model has a very different look from Kara's. Our two examples show how the same pattern, with the same embroidery stitches, can look so very different! 

Here are a few side-by-side detail shots for you to compare. 

  

Sometimes a different look is achieved because of different thread choices, or even because of the density and weave of the wool. The purple wool on the outer petal of the above flower, left, held the scalloped cut. The teal, on the right, however, was a looser weave, so I chose to fray it with the back of my needle, so it would look more feathery.

For our class at Primitive Homespuns, we will be using the warmer palette and making a lovely box that would be perfect for storing sewing supplies, threads, or even used as a project box for appliqué or embroidery pieces. I went to the shop yesterday to work with Kathy to secure the finished piece on the top of the box, which she had painted a lovely brick red. First, I backed the finished piece with muslin, using SoftFuse Premium™ as my fusible. Then I trimmed it to size, and we backed it with Shurtape® double-sided carpet tape. Kathy has this process down to an art; I was impressed watching her trim the tape to the size of the appliqué, and methodically remove one strip of backing paper at a time to carefully secure it to the box with proper placement.

 

We auditioned several examples of trim, including discussing a blanket stitch around the edge of the block, but we settled on a lovely vintage chenille yarn, which we glued down using Aleene's® Original Tacky Glue®. The color matched the pale yellow used in the block and gave it a nice, finished look without distracting the eye from the design.

   

While I was stitching up my model, I put a photo of my embroidery on a Facebook group and was astonished by the number of requests there were for the pattern. So we decided that it only made sense to write up directions and create a formal pattern. We have been working hard to get it ready, and it should be up on our website by October. But in the meantime, if you live in the Frederick area of Maryland, come join us for some Saturday fun! (For more information about the class, please check our website, by clicking here.) 

We thought it would be fun to put our two projects together for a photo session; here they are sitting on a chair together in the shop. You can see that Kara decided to stitch hers into a pillow, and she just happened to have the perfect fabric to match her appliqué! What would we do without such an extensive fabric stash?!

Marcia's Flowers

The Story of an Inspiring Jacket

Inspiration can be found in many places: nature, architecture, museums, and sometimes even clothing. About a year and a half ago, I (Kara) was at a Baltimore Appliqué Society meeting when a lady walked by wearing a gorgeous linen jacket. I loved the way the colors and design worked together, and my first thought when I saw it was, "Those flowers would be amazing done in wool appliqué!" Mind you, I had never met this woman before, but I really needed to get a picture of her jacket. Do I try to take a picture on the sly and look like a stalker, or do I find the courage to ask if I could take a picture of her jacket and endure what would probably be a very strange look? Oh, and did I mention she was the president of the BAS at the time? I decided to go with the courageous option and meekly tapped her on the shoulder. I complimented her lovely coat and mentioned that I would love to recreate the design in wool someday. 

Marcia's beautiful coat!

She graciously allowed me to take a picture and didn't look at me too oddly. I even went so far as to buy wool from Shakerwood Woolens specifically for this future project. Fairy tale quilts and teaching got in the way of going forward, so the wool sat in my closet awaiting its future purpose.

During the almost two years since that awkward moment, I've gotten to know Marcia—the owner of the jacket—through various BAS activities and was able to spend time with her at the Academy of Appliqué in Williamsburg, VA, this past February. Marcia just recently completed her two-year tenure as president of the BAS, and I thought I would make good on the wool inspiration of her coat in honor of her last meeting as president.

One can never have too many needle books, so I thought I would use one of the flowers on the jacket for the cover. Using EQ7, I was able to put together a simple flower and leaf pattern, and at last, my wool came out of the closet. I transferred the pattern pieces to my wool and got ready to stitch the pieces down.

Ready for Stitching

Wool appliqué lends itself to endless embroidery opportunities, so the embellishment is my favorite part. 

Lazy daisies for the leaf veins and a braided
chain for the stems

The blanket stitch was a good edge stitch
for this leaf

"M" for Marcia

The cast-on stitch was perfect for the scalloped edges on these petals

Once the cover was finished, I chose to use the bright turquoise color for the inside of the needle-book. I put the lining and the cover right sides together and sewed around the edge, leaving an opening to turn it right side out in the middle of the back cover edge. Before I sewed the opening closed, I inserted a small hair elastic halfway into the opening, and then stitched all around the book making sure to catch the hair tie in my stitching. I then attached a piece of wool, cut slightly smaller than the size of the book, and sewed it down the middle.

The hair tie does the job as a closure

A wool center for the needles

The final step was to stitch a button on for the closure, and my jacket inspired needle book was finished! 

Our June BAS meeting was Marcia's last meeting as acting president, so I thought it fitting to give her the needle book then. While she didn't wear the jacket to the meeting, we were still able to get a picture together. Marcia's jacket was an inspiration to me, but so was Marcia, as she brought some wonderful new ideas to the BAS. Her gracious leadership was inspirational as well.

Thumbelina Dance, Thumbelina Sing

In our post, Fairy Tales Through the Needle's Eye, we showed you our fairy tale quilt and shared the story of its creation. We just found out that it has been accepted into the Houston International Quilt Festival in November! Let's just say there was a lot of screaming, dancing, and jumping up and down going on yesterday. We are still in disbelief that we are going to Houston to see our quilt.

Beauty from Beauty and the Beast

While the quilt top was with the quilter, we decided to work on a few other one-block projects using our patterns and different fabric choices. Teri is working on a baby quilt using the Cinderella pattern, and she will share that project soon. I (Kara) decided to tackle the Thumbelina block, but I planned on stitching it in wool. The Thumbelina fairy tale is by Hans Christian Anderson and tells of the travels and travails of a tiny girl, no bigger than your thumb, hence the name. The block incorporates various elements from that story. You can read the tale here.

This past August, Teri and I went to the Four County Quilters Guild Quilt Show in Frederick, MD. There were amazing quilts to be seen, as well as some wonderful vendors. One vendor that kept our attention was Shakerwood Woolens out of Rock Hill, South Carolina. We fell in love with the colors and the texture of Cathi's wools, and I bought enough for a design that I hoped to create based on a friend's coat. While I haven't made the project yet, at least I have the supplies ready.

This pattern is begging to be done in wool

As I began planning the Thumbelina project, I remembered Shakerwood and immediately went to their website. While it can be difficult to pick colors for a project from a website, the wool color from picture to reality was pretty true. Getting these luscious colors was like an extension of Christmas, and they were packaged so nicely!

I had never worked on a wool project quite this large (15"), but as it was winter when I was stitching, it helped to keep me warm.

And the stitching begins!

Once all the pieces were stitched onto the background, I began the fun part: embellishing the block with embroidery. I knew I wanted to use the Hungarian chain stitch for the cattail stems, and I also went back and did an outline stitch around the chain stitch to give it more definition. Just a few French knots in two shades of brown gave the depth I was looking for on the cattails.

I wasn't as sure about what to do for Thumbelina's hair, so I auditioned an upholstery trim-piece but decided it was a little too crazy.

For her hair I used two different colors of Gentle Arts wool thread and was quite pleased with the way it turned out.

I re-worked the stitching on the swallow about six times and finally went back to my original plan of keeping it simple.

The butterfly received a little bling in the form of a beaded body and some metallic silk stitching.

The beautiful shading of the pink wool meant that I really didn't need to do much embellishing on the lilies. Just a little outlining with a matching floss and a few details using a variegated silk thread were all they needed.

Once the embellishing was finished, I needed to decide on a border. When Teri and I were in Lancaster last year, I found these Moda Regent Street charm packs of lawn. Lawn comes in the most beautiful florals, and these were no exception; however, I didn't know when I bought them how perfect they would be for the Thumbelina project.

The colors in these lawn squares matched the wool perfectly

I wanted a delicate border that didn't overwhelm the piece, so I went with a one-inch blue inner border and two rows of one-inch lawn squares for the outer border.

I enjoy working with wool and the change it brings from regular fabric appliqué, and this project was so much fun. It was nice to see how well our patterns transitioned from fabric to wool, and I hope to do more of them. Do you favor wool or cotton appliqué, or both? Let us know your favorite!