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 . . . 

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?

Once Upon a Time...

We are wrapping up our ornament series this week with the quintessential beginning phrase common to most fairy tales: "Once upon a time." As we were putting this series of ornaments together, we didn't feel that it would be complete without including these famous words in the form of an ornament. So we promised four ornaments in this series, but here is a bonus! (We told you there might be a surprise...)

I (Kara) had recently seen a method of transferring an image to a background using Glad® Press'n Seal wrap. Since I wanted to embroider the letters in a particular font (Apple Chancery), I thought this method might be perfect.

My Uni-ball Signo white pen was perfect for this since I would be working on a black background.

I laid a piece of Press 'n Seal over the pattern . . .

. . . and traced the letters using my white pen.

Once I had finished tracing the letters, I centered the press and seal over my black circle. I trimmed the excess plastic wrap so it wouldn't get in my way while embroidering.

And now for the fun part! I chose to do small chain stitches for the fatter parts of the letters and straight stitches for the thinner. I started with the "O" and did chain stitches all the way around it, and then I came back with another row of chain stitches for the fat parts. I used a stem stitch for the vine and french knots for the flowers.

For the embroidery, I used a Valdani 12 perle cotton for the green vine and Painters Threads 12 perle cotton for the letters and flowers. The not-so-fun part was pulling the press and seal off after the embroidery was finished. Pulling it off needs to be done carefully, so as not to disturb the embroidery. It was a bit tedious, but a pair of fine-tip tweezers were the key to getting the little bits out.

Once the embroidery was finished, I put a piece of Timtex between the two circles with a glue stick dab to hold the parts together and then proceeded to secure them with the knotted blanket stitch, with beads in between the knots.

For your free pattern for this week's ornament, please click here: Once Upon a Time Ornament. If you missed any of the free patterns you can find them here:

UPDATE: Thank you for stopping by here! A detailed pattern will be available at a future date at www.needleseyestories.com

Cinderella's Slipper

Little Red Riding Hood

Sleeping Beauty

Snow White's Dwarf

We hope you have enjoyed this ornament series as much as we have enjoyed creating it! If you have made any of our ornaments we'd love to see them.  Feel free to post them to our Facebook page or to our Google + page.

Sleeping Beauty Ornament

Week three of our Fairy Tale Ornament series brings you Sleeping Beauty. This ornament is perfect for anyone who loves stitching, even your knitting and crocheting friends.

Once upon a time, there were a king and queen who longed for a child of their own. When at last they had a daughter, they were overjoyed and held a celebration for all the kingdom. They invited all the fairies in the land to the party to give their blessings to the princess; however, one of the fairies was thought to have died and did not receive an invitation. All were surprised to see this old fairy arrive, and they worried that she seemed unhappy at her omission. The youngest fairy hid behind a curtain so that she could give the final blessing and undo any harm the disgruntled old fairy might bring. The princess received blessings of beauty, kindness, grace, and talents. When the old fairy spoke, she declared that the princess would one day prick her finger on a spindle of a spinning wheel and die. The youngest fairy stepped forward and countered that the princess would not die, but fall asleep for a hundred years.  Fifteen years later, the princess stumbled upon a hidden spinning wheel, and as foretold, pricked her finger and instantly fell asleep. The youngest fairy got word and travelled by dragon-drawn chariot to the palace, where she put all the servants to sleep, so that when the princess awoke, she would not be alone. The palace was immediately covered in rose briars so no one could enter. When the hundred years had passed, a young prince heard the story of the princess and vowed to get into the palace to waken her. At first glance, he fell in love, kissed her, and she awoke. Everyone else woke too, and they held a feast, marrying the prince and princess, who lived happily ever after. 

The day I (Teri) made this ornament, I invited a friend to come and learn how to stitch it with me. First, we gathered materials we would need: the pattern, a 3.5-inch circle template, black wool for the background, hand-dyed brown for the spinning wheel, and bits of green for leaves and red for the rosebud. I also had needles, marking pen, beads, and thread for embroidery.

We first marked the circle on the black wool, cutting out two of them, one for the front and one for the back. We traced the spinning wheel on the freezer paper and pressed it onto the brown wool, which I had backed with Soft Fuse.

Now I had to really study this to determine the best way to stitch the units of the spinning wheel. If I were stitching it with cotton, I would likely stitch each unit separately, but I was thinking the wool might look a bit lumpy, so I decided we should cut it as one unit. 

I carefully cut around the outline of the spinning wheel. To cut the inside of the wheel, I cut through the wheel along the side as pictured on the freezer paper above. After removing the freezer paper, I took the paper off the Soft Fuse on the back of the spinning wheel and ironed it in place on the background circle. Once the piece was stitched down, it was not evident that it had been cut. I whip stitched the spinning wheel in place with matching silk thread. One caution: I have a tendency to pull my stitches a bit too tight; to be sure the wool doesn't pucker, try not to use too tight a tension. (I learned this the hard way.)

My friend, working on her first appliqué. I can't wait to see her finished ornament!

         

I chose a wool thread that matched the spinning wheel to outline the spindle. I cut and whip stitched the rosebud in place beneath the spinning wheel.

I placed the leaves. With my Sewline white marking pencil, I sketched the vines as a guide for my embroidery. After using the stem stitch with wool thread for the vine, I whip stitched the leaves in place. (You could do these steps in either order.)

Again, using my Sewline white pencil, I sketched the spokes in the wheel and used the matching thread to stitch them. I also outlined the arm of the spinning wheel, which covered the place where I had cut through to the inside of the circle. I stitched a wooden bead in the center for an axle.

Using a few dabs of glue, I placed a piece of Timtex interfacing between the two black circles to stabilize the ornament. I stitched a small hanging ribbon to the interfacing before stitching the circles together.

Using a knotted blanket stitch (see tutorial here) and adding a bead between each stitch, I finished my ornament. I used perle cotton #12 and #6 glass beads.

We hope you are enjoying stitching these ornaments. For your free pattern, click here: Sleeping Beauty. If you have made Cinderella's slipper or Little Red Riding Hood, we'd love to see some of your examples. You could share them on our Facebook or Google+ pages. Or post your photos on Instagram and tag us (@needleseyestories). 

UPDATE: Thank you for stopping by here! A detailed pattern will be available at a future date at www.needleseyestories.com

We are so glad you have stopped by to visit our blog. Bet you can't guess what next week's fairy tale will be!