All About the Academy!

It seems like just yesterday that Teri and I (Kara) were showcasing our very first Academy of Appliqué class offerings. It's hard to believe that 5 years ago, we were sharing our Secret Garden and Floral Wreath blocks. For our 2021 class, we are thrilled to be able to show you the first set of blocks in our Village Wanderings Series—Homes.

These quaint houses were inspired by European homes and cottages—specifically from Alsace, France. We fell in love with the old timbered structures and beautiful colors, so we turned them into these four seasonal homes "built" out of wool (or cotton) and embellished with an abundance of embroidery and silk ribbon. 

Spring

Wisteria vine

Pansies and candytuft

Forget-me-nots

Summer

Rose bush

Gerbera daisies, sweet alyssum, and geraniums

Black-eyed Susans

Autumn

Chrysanthemums, pansies, and ivy

Topiary

Asters

Winter

Holly wreaths

Evergreens

Mistletoe

We would love for you to come build houses with us March 4-6, 2021, in Williamsburg, Virginia at the 2021 Academy of Appliqué. Registration opens on Labor Day, September 8, and classes usually fill up quickly. If you want to see our class and others, just click on the link below and it will take you directly to the Academy website. Once there, you will need to click on the Class Catalog link located on the top left, and that will open up the catalog. Our class is the very last one, so keep scrolling until you see our smiling faces!

Full kits—wool, embroidery threads, and ribbon—will be available for purchase in class, or you can bring your own materials. All ribbon and embroidery threads that we used will be available for sale, if you just want to purchase the embellishments you "need" (by which we, of course, mean want), in addition to many of the notions we enjoy using—noted by the starred items on our supply list. We try to create a no-pressure environment in our classroom, and we will work very hard to make sure you walk away with some new skills, as well as some new friends. 

Don't forget sign-ups are on Labor Day, September 8, at 12 noon. We would love to have you join our construction crew next March!

Academy of Appliqué

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

Sometimes you win some, and sometimes you lose some, but during this past year, I (Kara) have actually won some! Usually when I try for raffles and giveaways, my name or number is just not called—not the case this year. 

Barbara Blanton and I with my loot!

Every year at the Academy of Appliqué in Williamsburg, Virginia, two lovely ladies donate a full quilt kit to be raffled off. One year, it was a complete Dear Jane kit, and this year it was Kim McClean's Flower Pots. The kit was full of brightly colored fabrics, and the pattern just really appealed to me. Maybe it was because it was completely different than anything we normally do, but I was determined to make a concerted effort to win this year's quilt kit (the $40 in raffle tickets may have helped). When Barbara read out my number, I know I yelled something in my excitement and immediately ran up to claim my prize. As it was a complete kit, I knew the weight of it—along with my additional fabric purchases from Huzzah quilt shop—would put my suitcase over the 50 pound limit. Barbara offers a wonderful service that allows the Academy attendees to ship their purchases for a flat fee, which was perfect for my new prize.

Sometimes our mail takes a long time, and the quilt kit was no exception. By the time it got to me it looked like it had been around the world and back.

A little worse for the wear...

...but everything inside was just fine!

One of the things I heard as I walked back to my seat after winning was, "Finish it for next year's Academy!" I'm pretty sure that is not going to happen, but I did start it and have one block finished. While the colors are beautiful and bright, I thought a little embellishment would be fun, so I dug into my pearls from Weeks Dye Works.

Some of the Week's colors and a few Painters Threads.

A Pekinese stitch with Painter's Threads shimmer

A stem stitch with #5 pearl

This is a fun stitch!

Spiral trellis circles

The almost finished block!

Finishing the quilt by this March is not very likely, but this is a fun project that I can work on every now and then—I even have the next block prepped!

Prepped and ready to go!

At our last quilt guild meeting, it seemed my winning streak was not finished! Every month we have a Block of the Month drawing for everyone who made that month's block. The block was a polaroid block and most of the members had made 5 or 6, so our total was over 125—a record for the guild. We divided the blocks into two winners, and my name was drawn! I knew this quilt would make a great baby quilt, so I got it started for a new great-niece.

All the blocks and the two winners!

A stack of my blocks and the sashing fabric.

Ready to pin baste.

Quilted and ready to cross the pond!

Hopefully, this winning streak will continue to my Fantasy Football team and the Hawthorne Threads giveaway, but for now I am grateful for my recent wins. Have you ever won a quilty giveaway? If so, we'd love to hear about it. Someday there will be a blog post about my completed Flower Pots quilt, but hopefully, nobody holds their breath on that one. 😉

Block of the Month 14—Apple

Thank you for your interest in our Flora and Fauna blocks! They are no longer free but will be part of a future quilt pattern.

What a spectacular autumn we have had here in Germany—warm temperatures, sunny skies, and loaded apple trees! Although we haven't had much rain, the orchard we walk in was full of every shape, size, and color of apple that I have ever seen. 

The dogs and I walk in this area every single day rain or shine. One time, a kind gentleman gave me a bag of apples from his tree. It was a little challenging getting home with two, large dogs and about 5lbs of apples, but it was worth it. There was no question that the apple would make it into our free block of the month series.

Cotton Block

When I decided to do the apple, I remembered a particular fabric at my friend Birgit's shop. I knew it would make the perfect apple. The green is a Van Gogh inspired fabric that has many colors, but the yellow-green section was just the right shade

The name of my perfect apple fabric.

Before I back-basted the apple, I cut out two pieces of thin batting—one slightly smaller than the apple and then another piece about a quarter inch smaller than the first piece. I positioned those in place with a little dab of a glue stick and then proceeded to back-baste the apple. Make sure that the batting is thin so that the apple doesn't draw in the background too much. I fussy cut the fabric so that the little bit of yellow would be near the top right giving the illusion of a highlight.

Batting pieces cut out.

Fussy cut apple ready to appliqué,

Appliqué finished.

The embroidery consisted of straight, stem, and chain stitches. At the base of the apple, I made 3 straight stitches vertically and one tiny, tight one horizontally to draw in the bottom to give it some depth. With the same perle cotton, I chain stitched the stem using 3 chain stitches and then I brought my needle up through the second chain stitch from the bottom and made two more chain stitches next to the previous ones. A straight stitch over the top and the stem was finished.The leaves were done with embroidery floss and a stem stitch.

A tiny, tight, stitch at the top of the three straight stitches
draws the fabric in at that point.

Stem close-up

One strand of floss for the leaf veins.

Two strands of floss for the main leaf vein and stems.

The finished block!

Stitches and Threads Used (Cotton Block)

Leaves—Gentle Arts, Green With Envy, floss, stem stitch

Stems—Painters Threads, Friedrich, #5 perle, chain stitch and straight stitch

Wool Block

During my "Quilty Visit to Rothenburg", I bought a large bag of wool knit scraps from a fashion designer there and one of the red scraps was perfect for my wool apple. It's a little fuzzy which I thought would give the apple an interesting texture—not that I would want to eat a fuzzy apple!

As always, I glued my patten pieces to freezer paper and then cut them out. Then I ironed them onto the wool and cut those pieces out and stapled them in place on my background. Using a matching thread, I stitched them down. I did not pad the wool apple because the wool I used was already dimensional.

Ready to stitch.

Ready for embroidery.

The embroidery stitches are exactly the same for the wool block as the cotton.  I used the same #5 perle cotton and a more olive shade of green floss.

The finished wool apple!

Stitches and Threads Used (Wool Block)

Leaves—Weeks Dyeworks, Moss, floss, stem stitch

Stems—Painters Threads, Friedrich, #5 perle, chain stitch and straight stitch

This has been one of my favorite blocks to create, mainly because I love it when the fabrics and threads come together to make something very realistic to the original. I also think, for me, apples are one of the best parts of fall—the colors, the smell, apple pie, cider, just to name a few. Hopefully you will enjoy stitching this block too!

Only two more blocks to go until the big reveal of all the blocks put together!!