Welcome back!

Trying to post to the internet lately has been a most frustrating experience, so I am going to try and trick it!  A few of you may 'get it' but the others may be confused.  I recently taught the final part of the "Sterling Life" class. Many of the ladies decided to make a fall table runner rather than to make the borders.

 Here is Laurie A.'s version in her favorite colors of purple and green!

 

Here is the center flower.   Rather than add the stumpwork center she decided to only used the base so she cut put a vase on her table.

  

Here is Yvonne's version using many of the same fabrics that I used.

 

Wendy M selected a fall border which included all of these colors in her design. 

 

Diana M also had fall in mind when she selected her colors from her 'stash'! 

 

Barbara C and I used the same fall border but we had different backgrounds.  (I copied her!) She selected a light colored batik.

 Here is my version on black linen. ( Finished table runner coming soon.... Stippling now with the BSR)

 Barbara G was continuing on on with her quilt borders and had a mishap along the way.  She was unable to finish as much embroidery as the others.

Jean Z had a border in mind for her design and I snapped a pic of both her stitching along with her border.

There are three other color combinations that I am anxious to share, but not yet.  I will post them as soon as I can!  I hope you have been inspired by our artwork and will give it a try!

 

Bernina DesignWorks Tutorial

I thought I would take a break from "Sterling Life" and work on a video tutorial for the Bernina DesignWorks Divas group.

I am a HUGE fan of Miss Kate Cuttable files which include jpg, png and svg files. I have been cutting her files with my Pazzles for several years now but this is the first time I have ever sewn one!

The free file for today can be found here but if you missed it, you can always purchase it for $.50 in her store.

Here is the video tutorial.  Feel feel to comment or give it a thumbs up!

Anyone have any ideas what to create with this bunny?  Post a creative idea in the comments.

Enjoy and sew on....

Part 1 - The Gingerbread Man Cookie project!

Last week my husband said to me that he would like me to make Gingerbread cookies this year.  Now I have to say, I no longer bake cookies for a variety of reasons but most importantly - I am not bakin' when I can be stitchin'!

So I 'googled' for a recipe and found this one on Taste of Home.com (you can never go wrong with their recipes)!

Well one thing led to another and I decided to make a cutwork gingerbread man using the DesignWorks software.  I started with a line drawing from a coloring page and then started building my guy. (no wonderful smells coming from the kitchen....)

When I design my files, I always add a placement stitch (red line) for the fabric size.  Then I add a tackdown line (blue line) for the basting stitch.  With this file I can cut out up to 6 gingerbread men at once.

I sequence the lines so all of the red stitches cut out first, then the blue lines basting them down all at once.

Here are the cut pieces in the hoop - ready to go!

All cut out and ready to be stitched!

Here is the embroidery finished file... 

I have to add that I added his eyes and smile in the V7software because they were too small to fuss with.. :)

Here he is all stitched out!

Coming next....  Part 2 - The Recipe

Noel Card Holder Wallhanging

At one time in my life, I used to send out 50+ Christmas cards.  Those days are over and I certainly have a tough time sending out the few that I do today.  This card holder wall hanging is an adaption of a pattern by Janine Babich and can be purchased from Brewer or directly from her here.

What I love about it was that it included the cutwork files for all four letters in the mega hoop or two letters each for the oval hoop.  One of our customers stacked four layers of fabric and cut all four letters for the Noel wall hanging at once.  I do hope she comes out with more cutwork compatible files.  Included are different embroidery formats and a file to be used with the Silhouette Cameo machine.

Instead of adding the sashing to the blocks and creating a wall hanging, I added the sashing to the letters and turned them into pockets.  Then I just switched up the background slightly so I could feature each pocket individually.

Now on to make a few holiday cards to send!

Part I - Cutting the files with the Cutwork Tool in "It's A Sterling Life in Berkeley Square"

Well it has been over a month since I last blogged the project I am working on. If you think this is a quick project, hmmmm -it is NOT!

I am currently working on the two houses to the right and left of the center block and I am challenging myself once again.  The first house that I am working on is Prosperity Place. ( I will continue on with that section in another blog post.)

The center block designs were cut with the Bernina cutting tool and if you are missing any files in the original CD, just let your dealer know and they will have the missing cut files for you.

You will have to purchase the cutwork plate as well although many of you may have received it when you  purchased your Bernina.

You may also purchased extra cutting blades but honestly  I have been cutting with the same blade for over a year. ( The tool comes with two blades)

I only printed out the sheets as I needed them but one one of our customers printed out all of the sheets.  Not sure how many there are...

I then cut the appliqué fabric into the sizes as recommended in the instructions. I ironed the Appli-Kay Wonder to the back of each piece and if there were multiples, I stacked them together using a light spray of 505.

The first file I cut was the Yellow fabric.  Unfortunately I was not planning on blogging my experience so I have only a few pictures of the actual cuts.

This cut is 4 layers stacked on top of one another and then cut all at once.

This layer is two separate pieces but cut all in the same hooping.

If you noticed I placed all of the cut outs in a sandwich baggie BUT the biggest mistake I made was NOT to number them on the back.  Be sure to do this as once I was finished I had a ton of cuts that looked similar to the others...

I took me approximately 3 hours to cut out all of the designs and organize them for the center block.  This is actually not bad for all of the pieces that are included in the center block design.

if you have any questions, please feel to comment below and I will do my best to answer your questions.

Coming next...cutting the house designs with the Silhouette Cameo