Christmas Present Ideas

Are you frantically sewing for Christmas and the holidays? Are you trying to get all the sewing done in addition to the other daily projects? Things can get a little crazy for stitchers around the holidays. We want to give our best to our family and friends, but we all probably wish we had started these projects sooner. Regardless of the late hour, we will stitch till our fingers are sore, and we will be happy when each gift is finished. After all the holiday stitching, wouldn't it be nice to sit with a bunch of your friends and just stitch in a relaxed atmosphere with no deadlines (and no laundry)? Well, have we got the place for you! 

The Academy of Appliqué in Williamsburg, Virginia, is just the right spot for a few days—or even a week—of stitching with old and new friends. You will get to learn a new skill or two, someone else cooks and cleans for you, and you get to meet like-minded stitchers. The Kings Mill Resort location is beautiful, and the class selection is varied, taught by world-renowned teachers. We just found out that there are a few spots open in both of our classes, Botanical Beauties and Lovely Vase. Though the classes are separate, the two projects can be combined to make our quilt, Lovely Botanicals. We just found out that the quilt has come back from being quilted by Bellwether Dry Goods, and we are so excited to see how it turned out. We promise to post pictures!

Botanical Beauties

Lovely Vase

Lovely Botanicals

While we would love for you to take our classes, there are many other wonderful classes still available. All you have to do is go to website, Academy of Appliqué and take a look.

It's not too late to put "a trip to the Academy of Appliqué" on your Christmas list. Who needs more underwear when you could stitch for a week! Or maybe you just want to treat yourself after a long year—you deserve it, don't you? No matter the reason you go, we think you will have an absolutely wonderful time, and we would love to see you there!

Fleurs & Blumen: 2018 Academy Classes

Do you have a passion for appliqué, or perhaps embroidery? Do you enjoy creating lovely pieces of handwork with fibers and fabric? Have you wished there were a place where you could sit and stitch with others who share your love of hand-stitching, forming a bond with "sisters" from around the world? (Indeed, there are a number of attendants each year from around the U.S., Canada, Ireland, even Australia!) And finally, when you get to the end of a long winter, don't you feel like you could really benefit from a bit of "me" time? Well, this is your opportunity! 

Kara and I (Teri) were delighted when Barbara Blanton, proprietress of the Academy of Appliqué in Williamsburg, Virginia, invited us to return in 2018 to teach. Our creative sides kicked in immediately to determine what we would be stitching in our classes. We both were inspired by vintage/antique pieces, and flowers are always part of the mix. Take a closer look and see what we will be creating. We'd love to meet you!

Oiseau et Panier (Bird and Basket)

Class: February 26-28, 2018

Some time ago, Kara purchased this panel from someone on eBay. She wasn't sure of the age of the block, but the seller indicated that she had sourced it from France, and it clearly had some age to it. We are hoping to dig up some more information about the history of the piece, but that will be a future blog post. Kara began to design a block pattern based on the birds and basket, and we searched for just the right materials. That is always one of the most enjoyable parts of the process for us. Kara always loves to put on bird on things, so you can see why she'd be drawn to this design; she opted for one bird, however, rather than two.

Let's explore some of the details.

L'Oiseau (The Bird)

The sweet bird has a rather coy look, don't you think?
The embroidered accents add much to the bird's body,...

...as well as some frilly tail feathers! 

Le Panier (The Basket)

The basket has a bit of woven dimension.

Lace and pearl blooms at the basket's base

Les Fleurs (The Flowers)

Hand-dyed silk creates this lovely bloom,...

...as well as this elegant rose.

Gathered velvet posies

A fussy-cut fabric flower

A wired-ribbon rose

Some dainty blossoms

Rosebuds

This class will be held from Monday through Wednesday, February 26–28, 2018. Registration opens on Labor Day.

Crazy Quilting by Numbers

As I (Kara) mentioned in last week's post, Welcome to Germany: Quilter's Style, buying fabric to pad my stash before leaving for Germany made up most of the purchases I made in Houston. But as Teri and I were wandering through the booths, we came upon Sew Cherished. What caught our eyes, were not just the beautiful wool and wool projects, but the crazy quilting stitches that were incorporated into many of the patterns. We explored the booth and came across what looked like crazy quilting stitch guides. I was intrigued and asked the shop owner, Dawn, for more information.

The complete set of Crazy Stitches (petite size)

The guides were sheets of sticky, water-soluble paper with about 7-10 different crazy quilt combination stitches printed on each page. You choose which stitch you would like, cut it from the paper, trim it to size, stick it on your seam, and then stitch. I thought they would be interesting to try and bought the petite set. I love crazy quilting and the fun of coming up with all sorts of combination stitches, but I thought these sheets had some potential for a variety of reasons. 

A couple of months ago, I pulled the Crazy Stitch sheets out and put a project together to see if I would like them. I had a bunch of wool suiting samples that someone had given me, so I put together a patchwork wool piece to test the papers out.

A rough layout

The squared-up piece serged and ready for stitching. (On a side note, I am going to really miss my serger!)

Once I had my practice piece together, I needed to pick out my floss colors. I have worked on a crazy quilt project using limited colors, and I have worked on another crazy quilt project with no limits on colors. Surprisingly enough, the project with unlimited colors was much more difficult—too many colors to choose from. Teri and I had just received the full spectrum of Weeks Dye Works, 6-stranded floss, so I knew that I would be choosing my limited color selection from their collection.

All the Weeks Dye Works colors.

My final color selection.

The papers look like this out of the package:

This particular sheet would be great for practicing the basic stitches.

One of the combination stitches.

I counted the number of seams I had in my piece and then went through the sheets and cut out all the stitches and combination stitches that I wanted to use.

The 16 stitches and combinations I picked out

After I had selected my stitches, I decided where I wanted to put my first line of stitching, cut the paper to the right size, peeled the backing paper off and aligned it on my seam. The papers are sticky and if my fabric had been anything other than wool, I think the paper would have stuck better. I used pins to hold the stitch paper in place for the stitch below. For some of the other seam stitches, I lightly dampened the ends once I had the paper in the right place, and the paper stuck to my fabric removing the need for pins. WARNING: don't dampen it so much so that it dissolves!

All ready to stitch!

I started out with a simple stitch and progressed to some of the combination stitches. My needle went through the paper and fabric easily, and I was able to create a neat and consistent stitch.

Sweet little flowers using a blanket stitch, lazy daisies, and French knots

My third and final pass for this combination stitch.

I think the Murphy's law of crazy quilt stitching is that you will always run out of thread right before you finish the seam stitch.

I just couldn't get two more French knots out of this piece of thread.

This product lived up to what I had envisioned as its potential. I still had to decide what stitch to put where and what colors to use, but I didn't have to look through books to pick a combination stitch I liked. I also didn't have to put the brain power into coming up with my own combination stitch, because sometimes I just don't wan't to think too hard. Dawn has done all the thinking for us with these stitch sheets. The paper washed out well, but make sure you soak it long enough to get all the residue out. Also, wait until your piece is completely dry before ironing. I got a little impatient and the ironing didn't do any favors to my stitching

Definitely one of my favorite combinations!

These arrows got a little wonky from my ironing.

I love how the red pops against the tonal wool!

Here are some pros and cons that I discovered with this product:

Pros:

• These would be great for crazy quilters just starting out.
• If you are feeling overwhelmed with combination stitch possibilities, these sheets figure the stitches out for you.
• If you struggle with consistency in your stitch size and spacing, this will help your muscle memory.
• Having these to use when you just don't want to think too hard about what stitch to use would be great.

Cons:

• You have to get your project wet to wash out the paper, so your fabric, threads, and/or ribbon need to be colorfast.

You can purchase the Crazy Stitches sheets directly from Dawn's site, Sew Cherished, here. Type "Crazy Stitches" in the search bar at the top, and I'm sure if you have any questions about the product, Dawn would be able to answer them. 

This sampler probably won't be finished for a little while, because the Williamsburg Academy of Appliqué sample due date is coming soon. (We can't wait to show you our international flair blocks!) My plan will be to finish the rest of the seam stitches, and then possibly put a few wool appliqué designs from our upcoming wool block of the month on a few of the larger squares. Have you tried any new stitching products lately? If so, please share what they are and why you did or didn't like them. Happy Stitching!

(Through the Needle's Eye received no compensation for this post)

Our birthday bash winner is . . .

Many thanks to those who took the time to comment on our birthday blog. It meant a lot to us to hear from you about the posts you liked, and we were excited to read that some new readers found us. We're always thrilled when you share your thoughts with us.

Without further ado, the winner of the Marcia's Flowers pattern and kit is . . .

Eileen

Eileen's response: 

I've loved Colonial Williamsburg since my children were young. So much so that they probably will never go back!! Your first posts in 2015 about Christmas there and all the wreaths, crafts and people are my favorites. I have to admit, I only recently discovered your blog, but have gone back and read every post. You are both very talented writers. :)

Thank you, Eileen, for you kind words and encouragement! Here are links to the posts she mentioned:

A Colonial Christmas

Colonial Stitching in Williamsburg

Eileen, please contact us (click here to email us) before Saturday, April 8, to let us know which palette you prefer for you kit—warm or bright—and we will get your pattern and wool kit in the mail.

Hope you'll join us on Thursday, our regularly scheduled blog day, when we will visit QuiltWeek Lancaster. So many lovely quilts to see!! 'Til then . . . happy stitching!

Williamsburg's 2017 Academy of Appliqué: A Photo Journal

This functional colonial doll, with her sewing apron,  was as ready as we all were to spend a week with our stitching friends, enjoying the art of appliqué. This lovely lady was found in one of the gift shops in Colonial Williamsburg.
Aren't those hand-dyed ribbons behind her just screaming to be turned in to flowers?!

Kara and I (Teri) spent the day on Monday setting up our classroom in the Resort Center at Kingsmill Resort. Our first class was the Floral Wreath, above left, and the second class was the center block of The Secret Garden quilt, above right.

Our display tables were filled with samples of our appliqué work and a few wares:
threads by The Gentle Art, French wired ribbons, Hanah hand-dyed, silk bias ribbon for pansies,
an assortment of silk ribbons by River Silks, needles, pens, and our patterns and kits.

Fairy tale stitching on display, above left. Our Fairy Tale Album will be in the
Chicago Quilt Festival,  so a notebook of block photos had to take its place.

All ready! Kits, schedule, and goody bags—with chocolate, of course!—are all in place.
(Many thanks to Kristy for helping us set up our classroom!)

When we returned to our room, we were greeted by this welcoming committee,
who just looked at us calmly when we got out of the car to go inside.

We awoke to this spectacular view of the sunrise from our balcony!
The birds were singing, and we were ready for a great day.

On our walk to the Resort Center, we spotted this rainbow;
how could this day be anything but perfect?
(In fact, our whole week was perfect!!)

Such a focused group of stitchers! We started back-basting leaves, before moving on to wired-ribbon boat leaves.
Don't let the serious stares fool you: we had plenty of laughter interspersed with those quiet stitching moments.

Ann is appliquéing her rose leaves.

Gayle, Rosa, and Nancy are busy creating pansies with bias silk ribbon.

Joanne and Ann are gathering wired-ribbon roses.

Joanne's rose and pansy

Janet and Phyliss are stitching clematis petals.

Progress! Phyliss did a lot of "homework" the previous night;
look at all those blooms!

Mila is stitching a jasmine bloom next to her rose.

Rosa is working on the turkey work center of her clematis. 

The first day of the Secret Garden class required lots of appliqué to build the garden wall,
in preparation for "planting" our wisteria trees.

Everyone was excited to start the wisteria, which is made with twisted sari silk, appliquéd to the wall.

Susan, Heather, Sandy, and Kate look on as Kara demonstrates rolling a wired-ribbon rose.
And I can assure you that this class also knew how to have fun; this deep concentration had the propensity to turn to raucous  laughter at the drop of a pin. At times I wondered if the staff would peek in to see how stitching could be so funny.

Our collective bouquet of roses, with a few buds

Breakfast and lunch were served daily, included with our registration.
Each day, one or two teachers would give a short presentation, sharing a few pieces of their work. Pictured above is Rita Verroca, who spoke the last day—the only day I was settled enough to remember to take some photos! After lunch, I took a little tour into the other classrooms and took a few photos.

Kerry Burke, of Simple Bird Studio, teaches prepared-edge appliqué. To read about her Academy experience, click here.

Barbara Carper, from Williamsburg, taught the stunning urn of flowers, far left.

I decided to make one last stop in the Huzzah Quilt Shoppe, owned by Barbara Blanton,
who is also the proprietor of the Academy of Appliqué.
She had some amazing fabrics available that just flew off the bolts!

Barbara Blanton and a friend packing up the shop.
Those big smiles reflect the fabulous week we had all had!

Kathy Richardson of the Suffolk Shaker Shop with her amazing wood items, ...

... including Shaker baskets... 

...and a lovely assortment of stitching tools.

Rita's class chose one of two blocks to stitch, and they worked hard until the very end! 

Judy Severson's class is busy working on their broderie perse projects.
Such creative designing goes on in this room!

Alas! Sunday arrived and it was time to go home. We did get to sleep in a bit, so the sun was up and shining brightly as we left the room and packed the van. We had one more stop to make before heading back to Maryland.

We enjoyed a brisk walk through Colonial Williamsburg, enjoying the sights of yesteryear, ...

... as well as a few sights of spring!

Since my head was more in teaching this year than taking pictures, I didn't even get around to the other rooms during the first half of the week. Therefore, I've only given you a glimpse of half the week. Wonderful classes were also taught by Andi Perejda, Nancy Chong, Marylou McDonald, and Barbara Burnham. (I'm so sorry I missed their rooms!) 

If you have ever attended the Academy of Appliqué, then you know how special the week is: an opportunity to meet new friends and reconnect with old ones. (Rather, long-time friends—many of them are quite young!😊) As Barbara reminded us each day: "There are no strangers; only friends we have not met yet." And what a wonderful place to find friends who share the same passion! If you have never attended, consider putting this on your bucket list. You will not regret it. Hope to see you next year! 

Check it out! It's never too soon to start planning for next year.