The inside of my Embroidery Machine!

Where does the time go! March already! The bottom part of my studio (concrete) had the spray foam insulation done yesterday which meant we had to vacate the house for 24 hours. Everything was held up on the insulation. So now the work can continue with drywall, heating, lighting etc! Can't wait.

I have a few photos of my Brother Embroidery machine waiting for a new motor. The motor is a small one considering the size of this beast. Have you ever seen the insides of one? Have a look:

The motor is behind the mother board

The outside parts

Now for a few links to check:

• A free pattern for a cute bag and for a canvas book bag at Sew Can She
• Spin Me a Yarn Basket 
• Car Caddy Tutorial 
• 20 + Free Basket Tutorial 
• In From The Cold place mat / table runner . . .            

Enjoy!!

Lynn's Quilting Studio

My 10 needle Brother embroidery machine has developed a couple of problems which means it needs a service. I went on-line to discover that just 12.5 km away, in Auburndale, is Lynn's Quilting Studio. Well, Lynn is a Brother rep and services the machines. In fact, her first introduction to servicing embroidery machines, was on one just like mine. After giving her a run down on my machine's problem and the code that was displayed on the computer screen, Lynn was able to pin point the cause of my problem. I hope it will be an easy fix. So, she is making a house call on Monday morning.

I spent the morning in her quilting studio. Her real passion is her longarm Gammill quilting machine which is in the main house. She is up early each morning, quilting on the machine as she has many customers seeking her services.

I am so glad I discovered this little gem of a shop. Her fabrics are quilt lovely and reasonably priced.

If you are a quilter /sewer, then Lynn's Quilting Studio, should be a destination. The shop is on a 90 acre lot and can't be seen from the road, so you have to look carefully for her sign. Even better, put the address into a GPS (which I did) and it's easy to find.

Here's a few photos of her place. Click on the photos to get a closer view.

Enjoy!

Lots of Christmas cottons!

More Christmas fabrics on the bottom

Crazy Quilting

Today was a 'crazy' day! Enough said.

Have a look at this cushion cover. It's been in the upstairs office for years on the old wooden rocker my parents bought when I was born.

Judy, do you recognize this one? You made for me many moons ago and it still looks as good as the day I received it. Beautiful! To the crazy quilters, who do exclusively hand embroidery on their blocks, this one is machine stitched.  Have a look at Today's Crazy Quilting with your Embroidery Machine HERE and HERE.

A few links to Crazy Quilting:

• Crazy Quilting - Wikipedia 
• History of Crazy Quilting 
• Crazy Quilt from Quilters Cache
• Pinterest HERE, HERE & HERE 
• Piecing a Crazy Quilt Block 
• Needle 'n Thread 

Enjoy!!     

Wearable Art Pins

I always make my fantasy fabric base using a variety of glitzy threads and yarns.  When the base is finished, it's hooped and then embroidered by machine. Before I invested in an embroidery machine, all the designs were done by free motion stitching. That was a lot of work!

All my designs are designed in Corel Draw by my husband and then converted to stitch in another computer program. Then it's ready to be stitched out.

Here's another link to my fantasy fabric.

A Work Day

This was a work day! The two embroidery machines were busy all day stitching out snowflake shimmers. I believe there are over 50 of them cut out and ready to be finished. I sold out of these at the craft fair.

I also took a few credit card holders to the Christmas Craft Fair and most of them were sold. Several customers asked if I would have more for the December fair, so below are the results of today's free-motion stitching with Sulky Sliver Thread on embellished fabric (several more to do tomorrow). These pieces of fantasy fabric will be made into business / credit card holders. See some finished ones, from a previous post, HERE.

Check out all the links at Crazy Mom Quilts. Lots of projects to see! (scroll down)
Enjoy!!

Pendants!

I added a few more Fibre Art Pendants to my supply for the Christmas Craft Fair. Here's some of them.

There are a couple more new Christmas shimmer designs that I will share soon. I can hear the embroidery machine doing its thing as I write. My husband creates all my shimmer designs in Corel Draw and then they are converted to stitch in another program. That program can convert the stitch to be used with any embroidery machine on the market.

It's a great team effort!

Sailboat Shimmer

Well, I have another new shimmer to add to my collection - a sailboat. I'm pleased with this one. However, I did have one setback (my own stupidity). I had a whole sheet of sailboats finished. My machine has 10 needles so I can set the colours for each needle, which I did. Started the machine to stitch the sails and left. Went back when the sewing was finished and saw that the sails were green not white! I thought the number three needle had white thread. Lesson learned - wait until I actually see which colour is stitching. As a result, I scrapped those shimmers, at least for the time been.

Here's my largest hoop with a finished sheet of shimmers. These photos were taken in the evening. I prefer to take them in daylight. The background in the last photo should be white. I didn't do any colour balance etc. with it. Also the water is a dark blue. Not sure I like that with a black boat. I will experiment more with thread colours tomorrow.

PS: Don't forget to check out all the participants of Grow Your Blog (from yesterday's post)

Enjoy!

Close-up from hoop 

Finished shimmer ornament

Recent Purchases

Here's a few of my purchases from my recent quilt shop treks.

• I couldn't resist getting  more variegated greens for making lots of foliage on organza.
• I have a project in mind for the stripes and dots.
• Wool roving called out to me. It's hard to tell, but the various colours are wonderful!
• Who can't resist metallic cottons.
• More threads but this time for the embroidery machines.

The photo needs to be rotated but my internet connection is slow!! I won't tamper with it. With my luck, I'd lose all the photos and have to start from scratch. Ask me how I know that!!!

Enjoy!

Almost Finished!

Yesterday I chose the base fabric for my row house pins. The next step was embellishing the fabric and stitching all over it with Sulky Sliver Thread. Then the embroidery machine did its work! I still have to trim the threads from the edges of the houses. Have a look:

Before stitching

Before cutting out and snipping threads!

Ready for the backs. I use recycled leather and suede
for the backs of my wearable art pins.

Busy Day

We had more snow today. As a result, I got lots of work done in my studio. Both embroidery machines were working from dawn to dusk - literally! Lots of shimmers are stitched out. Now on to the next step of finishing them.
I recycle plastic containers. This large one holds left over bits of bonded Angelina Fibers which will  be reused in the making of more sheets of Angelina.


Angelina film & cut up bits of netting - used in the bonded sheets

 





Shimmers waiting to be packaged

Cord Wraps

My latest textile creations are Cord Wraps. I use scraps of fabric in their construction. The closure is coloured velcro. I like matching the velcro to the fabric. Most shops just carry the standard black, white and sometimes taupe but I managed to find coloured velcro on my travels.

These Cord Wraps are great for organizing cords from irons, hair dryers, small appliances, cell phones, and tablets. The list is endless. Think about all the cords visible on your kitchen counter or on your desk that would benefit from Cord Wraps. Organize your life!

In keeping with the smaller items I make, they are light weight and can be easily mailed in an envelope. Plus they make great little gifts.

 Have a look!

Made using the embroidery machine and sewing machine.

The Sewing Store

I'm trying to play catch up with some of the places I visited while in the Chicago area. It was difficult to do a daily blog with an hour commute each way to and fro Chicago to our home base at Leisure Lake Resort.

On one of the few days we decided to stay 'home', I discovered The Sewing Store in a small plaza in Joliet, IL. There is a sister store in Morris, IL.

This shop, in Joliet, specializes in sewing and embroidery machines (Brother, Bernina) plus all the necessary accessories to go with them! I took other photos of the shop but discovered they are in a format not compatible with blogger (too big) and I don't have the software with me to convert them to jpg. I discovered this after I was outside thus the sign was taken as a jpg.

What was interesting: another lady came into the store while we were there. She over heard that we were travelling from the eastern part of Canada and got curious. To make a long story short, her grandmother and uncle are from St. John's, Newfoundland and she had visited there as a child. You never know who you will meet!

Robert's Sewing Center: A Quilter's Paradise

 

Robert's Sewing Center was next on my 'shop hop' following Prairie Shop Quilts in Batavia and it happens to be close to the RV Park. What a place! At first glance, you find yourself surrounded by sewing and embroidery machines and accessories. Walking a little further to the right and past the sales desk, is a whole other world of fabrics, books, patterns, accessories / tools and quilts. Two large classrooms are adjacent to the over 7000 bolts of cotton fabrics which line the walls and center aisle! I didn't know which way to turn. Thankfully, my husband met Robert and they had a lengthy conversation about sewing and embroidery machines. In fact, I was finished my exploring and purchasing before they were.

I was permitted to take photos as long as I didn't photograph the quilts on display. The sales staff were very friendly and helpful. I did find a rather large selection of batiks at the back of the store.

There is also an upstairs which looks down on the first floor. Robert has a collection of commercial as well as antique machines for sale. All along the upper wall are beautiful quilts. The patterns are available for purchase.

There are quite a few photos so I think I will show them in a couple of posts. Tomorrow there will be some views from the balcony. Please check out the shop's web site for more photos and lots more!

Enjoy!