Embroidery Explorations (aka Playtime)

I took this picture on the first day of the 830 training. My friend, Josephine Keasler, was also there for the training and brought this quilt that she had made to share with us. Basically, she was using a tiger fabric -- maybe a panel? -- and what looked to me to be the Harmonic Convergence technique that Ricky Timms has been teaching for quite a while now. Josephine is a very prolific quilter; she retired a few years ago and I think that her passion for fabric shopping and making quilts fills the hours that work used to!

When we got together on Sunday, Chad and Eric digitized the bat and moon block that is part of the Halloween wall hanging that I will be teaching at one of the Nuttall's stores on Halloween day. To check the accuracy of their work, they stitched the block out. Gee, how did they know that pink was my favorite color?

Eric stitched out another sample, using the fabrics that Rhonda and I had chosen for the bat and moon. The bat is a textured black velvet with sparkles in it and the moon is double layered: a sheer gold fabric with sparkles and a gold cotton lame under it for lining. Using the lame adds opaqueness so that the background fabric doesn't show through.

To learn more about the classes that Nuttall's offers, you can go to http://www.nuttallbernina.com/ and see what's coming up! I'll be there October 31-November 4 and then back again in May 2010. To see my calendar, go to www.battsintheattic.com/PrimaryPages/work_cal.html

Sorting through my stack of Halloween fabrics -- my rule is that in order to buy Halloween fabric, it must have at least a 25% bat content -- I think these will work for my project.

I was at one of the Nuttall's stores, in Riverton UT, in June of this year and taught a Trapunto by Machine class. Eric watched my demonstration and thought about how he could do the same technique in the hoop. He also added color to the padded areas using a double layer of polar fleece. The top and backing fabrics are bridal satin. I saw pictures of this project where he had used hot pink polar fleece and it showed through really nicely.

Eric stitched this project out on Monday morning so that I could take it with me. The machine finished stitching, I threw everything into the suitcase, including the seven pairs of scissors I had brought with me -- you never know when you will need curved, or duckbill, or large shears or pinking shears, which I needed and were the one item I didn't bring! Then we all jumped in the car and took off to the airport.

The flights home were uneventful, which I consider a good thing. One thing that was pretty cool is that Southwest Airlines offers free wi-fi on some of their flights; gives you a fair shot at getting some of the e-mail done so that there aren't hundreds and hundreds when you get home.....I'm a big Southwest fan -- my bags flying free is a big, big plus! Just wish they flew to more airports in the southern US!

I'll be back at Nuttall's at the end of October -- see you then!