A Lettering Tutorial

Well it has been about a month since we wrapped up our Flora and Fauna of Germany Stitch-Along and I (Kara) have been diligently sewing the blocks together. I put together the fabric blocks and even got the border on them, but I felt it needed a little something now that I could see them all put together. Lettering popped into my head as just that something. Since each block has a name, inking that on the block—reminiscent of the old botanical prints—seemed like a good idea. It was a bit of a gamble because once done, it cannot be undone. In spite of that I forged ahead and thought I would show you how I did it.

My handwriting is certainly not nice enough to freehand the blocks, but Microsoft Word has all sorts of options for fonts. I created a document with all the block titles on it in the Edwardian Script font. This font seemed to work best for that vintage look. Two columns with a line down the center  of each allowed me to line them up, correctly centered on the blocks as you will see further on.

The next step was to spray the whole paper on the front with a temporary adhesive. I used 505 as it doesn't get too sticky. 

Next, I cut out each title and put them aside while I prepared my blocks. Ideally, you would do the inking before you put the blocks together but I wasn't going to be taking mine apart just for this. The blocks finish at 6" square so I found the center, made a small line, and then drew a line 1/4" from the bottom edge.

Ready to line it up.

Once my lines were drawn, I turned on my light-box and positioned my paper title underneath the block. I double checked multiple times to make sure I had the right title for the right block. 

Lined up  and ready to ink.

The temporary adhesive on the paper holds it to the fabric without having to worry that it will shift while inking. Before I inked on the blocks, I practiced a bit on a piece of scrap muslin. I then took the plunge and traced over the letters with my Micron pen. 

Micron pen in size .05 and color #117

The best advice is to go slowly and gently. Downward strokes are usually easiest and I tried to write with a light hand.

A nice bright light-box is essential! 

I took my time on each one and I tried not to hurry. After you are finished, you need to let the ink set for a couple of hours before you try to remove your blue marking pencil if you used one. Here are a few of the blocks once they were finished:

The inking is a subtle detail but I think it adds that little something to all the blocks. I have only inked the cotton blocks because the light box I had borrowed was not bright enough to shine through the linen background of the wool blocks. It may be that the wool version will be sans inking! 

If you would like to ink your blocks as well, you can download the titles HERE, Let us know if you have any questions about inking.

Soon we will show all the blocks together, both cotton and wool. If you have created any of the blocks, we would love to see them! 

A Floral Wreath, The Secret Garden, and a new website!

Click here for the catalog!

This has been an exciting week! On Monday, the 2017 Class Catalog for the Academy of Appliqué in Williamsburg, Virginia, run by Barbara Blanton, was posted. Kara and I (Teri) can't begin to express how humbled and honored we feel to be a part of this amazing group of teachers. Please check out the catalog to see the opportunities offered in this wonderful week of appliqué! It is such a fabulous experience to gather together with others who share the same passion; an immediate kinship is felt with your fellow stitchers. Having been a hostess at the previous Academy, and then a student last year, I can attest to the fact that it is a warm and comfortable feeling to be surrounded by so many stitching sisters. (Even for an introvert, like me!) The Academy offers something for everyone: beginners to veterans; basic appliqué, wool, crazy quilting, ribbonwork, embroidery—you're sure to find something to tickle your needle fancy!

The Academy is located at the lovely Kingsmill Resort. Kara had to stop to take a picture of the daffodils,
which opened the week we were there this past year.What a great way to welcome spring!

We have taunted you a bit over the past few weeks with a few detail shots of the blocks we will be teaching, but today, we thought it only fair to share the full blocks.

Floral Wreath class with be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, February 28 - March 1, 2017.

Our first class is a Floral Wreath, based on a poem called "The Use of Flowers," by Mary Howitt, from the book Floral Poetry and the Language of Flowers, published in 1877. The last verse of the poem is inked in the center of the wreath; if you'd like to read the poem in its entirety, click here.

Each bloom in the wreath began with a photograph of a flower that I took. (See Flowers—The Appliqué, Ribbon, and Embroidery Way.) This is a mulit-media wreath: cotton and silk fabrics, various threads, and lots of ribbon. The class kit includes everything you need to create these lilies, clematis, pansies, roses, and jasmine. You'll be amazed how a couple of pieces of silk ribbon becomes such a realistic pansy! So much easier than it looks.

Our main conference class is based on a children's classic: The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, published in 1911. Kara and I wanted to create a block that reflected two of our loves: stories and flowers. The Secret Garden was the perfect inspiration for this block.

The Secret Garden is our main conference class, held Thursday-Saturday, March 2-4, 2017.

The garden walls are appliquéd with cotton fabric, sari silk transforms into a gnarled wisteria tree, and embroidered flowers fill the garden. Silk flower swags frame the garden, with an inked quote from the book. We will be using lots of silk ribbon and threads to create this beauty! Everything you'll need to stitch this block (except your background) will be included in your class kit. That makes packing easy! 

To add to the excitement of the week, Kara and I were invited to present our lecture, The Stories in Our Quilts, to a local quilt guild. What was especially fun about this lecture is that we both were members of the Four County Quilters Guild when we first started quilting. Life got busy, and our memberships lapsed, but it was wonderful to be back visiting a lovely group of ladies, many of whom taught me a lot about taking risks to learn new skills.

Now, since we couldn't share our Fairy Tale Album during our lecture—because it's in Houston!—and most of the pieces we have created using those motifs are rather small, we thought that perhaps instead of just sharing our Academy blocks, we should try to border them, so that they would look a bit more finished. Bordering the blocks is not part of the class, but you can see some possibilities for turning your block into a wall-hanging. Kara chose a scalloped frame with a scrappy pieced border for The Secret Garden, which really pulls the colors from the garden.

Won't this be lovely when it is quilted?!

The wreath seemed to call for a simpler frame, so I thought I would create a flange with the dupioni silk that was used to make the jasmine leaves, and use the rose leaf green for the border. Of course, I knew it would look better mitered, but I wasn't sure how to succeed in mitering the flanged border. I don't suggest using the method I used, if I could even articulate what I did. I had a close relationship with my seam ripper for a couple of days. It turned out pretty well, I suppose, but I will recommend NOT choosing to make a flange with dupioni. It's just too wobbly, and it unravels way too easily. It was amazingly easier to appliqué!

To round out the excitement of the week, we launched our new website. I won't bore you with the details of how I knew nothing about web design or how to do anything more than a blog, but I will tell you that they make it easy enough even for a novice like me. I'm sure that many changes will be made as we learn more about the whole process, but I surprised myself by even enjoying the experience. I'd have to say that it was easier than mitering a silk dupioni flanged border!

www.needleseyestories.com

The website will give us the opportunity to offer patterns and kits as we have them available. So . . . we hope you'll stop by and explore a bit, and let us know what you think. At this point, it mirrors the blog, but we hope there will be shopping opportunities in the near future. (Please be patient with us, though!) I have a few kinks to work out yet, but—we have a website!!

Thanks so much for stopping by and reading my ramblings about our week! We do hope that we might meet you at the Academy of Appliqué next winter. Enrollment opens on Labor Day, and classes can fill quickly, so take a look now.

How about you? What exciting things have you been working on? We'd love to hear about it!

A Little Preview!

As we announced last week, we are going to be teaching at the Academy of Appliqué in Williamsburg, VA, February 27–March 4, 2017. We are currently finishing up our blocks, so our needles are flying furiously! The class list will be posted on August 8th and you can see the full blocks then, but this week, we thought we would give you a little preview of the blocks we will be teaching.

Clematis with appliqué

 Clematis with ribbon

It's amazing how embroidery can transform a simple ribbon rose!

The magic of the bullion stitch

A different type of ribbon rose

Silk ribbon, perle cotton, floss, and wool are combined in this garden.

Wisteria in progress

Can you guess what was used for the trunk?

More ribbon!

Jasmine

A rosebud embellished
with silk thread

If you saw the fabric used for this lily, you might be surprised!

The bullion works perfectly for recreating the lily center.

We are so excited about these blocks—and the fact that we will be teaching them in Williamsburg. Appliqué, ribbon work, and embroidery will all come together in our classes there. It is a dream come true for us, and we hope that many of you can attend. As soon as the details are available, we will share them with you, our readers. Stay tuned!

Baltimore Album Questions and Observations

Today, I (Kara) am going to share the rest of our Baltimore Album block pictures from the Lovely Lane Museum trip. This trip was the first time that I had been in the presence of actual Baltimore Album Quilts that were not behind glass, so I was able to closely look at all the blocks. (Some of us even stood on chairs to get a closer look!) The beauty and intricacy of these quilts were awe-inspiring, yet they also raised a few questions. I thought I would use this post to share some observations and questions that arose from our trip.

One of the things that has always drawn me to Baltimore Album quilts is that they usually contain blocks with very vivid fabrics—unless they spent some time underwater, like the Reverend Best quilt did. So vivid, in fact, that it makes one marvel that these quilts are antiques.

I love the vivid blue and reds.

What a creative use of fabric for the vase

Simple shapes with eye-catching colors

A simpler basket variation with the bright colors 

Another observation is that the inking on these blocks is amazing. Beautiful handwriting is a lost art today (I include mine in that assessment), so to see the detail of the inking on these blocks up close was mind-blowing. Did they ink before or after they appliquéd the block? I know the hardest part of our fairy tale quilt for Teri was the inking, not the appliqué.

Such lovely handwriting

This artist even inked the sailors!

For me, one of the blocks stood out from all the rest: this lovely vase of flowers. The level of creativity the artist reached is truly inspirational. 

This block, from a distance, looks like a painting.

An inspired use of gradated fabric

This rose was done with a single piece of red fabric, but dimension
was added using embroidery and stitching.

Some of the blocks prompted questions among us as we took a closer look. One block led to some debate as to how the artist created the leaf veins.

The whole block

The vines appear to be couched cording.

Were the veins painted on or part of the fabric?

This block prompted us to ask, "Are those jalapeños?"

What fruit are the shapes above the lemon?

While this block begged the question, "Is that a basket handle or a really large caterpillar?"

Did she really stuff all the channels with cord and stuffing? How long did this quilt take to complete?
Who comes up with something this detailed?

All the quilting was done with a backstitch on this quilt.

Great attention to detail was put into so many of these blocks, and I hope to put that same level into my future blocks. It was such a privilege to be able to examine these quilts so closely and to learn from them. We hope we have brought you with us on our visit to the Lovely Lane Museum, and that you have been as inspired by these amazing Baltimore Album quilts as we were.