Aquamarine Ambience Block One Done

Using the cross reference line command from Embird I have one block completed!

From Embroidery Designs

The only problem I'm encountering now is that Jenny speeds up in the small detailed designs and it's eating my threads.  The small yellow leaves in the center kept shredding my thread because of how fast she had them stitching out.  I finally gave up in the center design and will leave them as open circles.  I know you can change the speed on the Topaz I just wasn't sure you can do it while stitching out and I wasn't about to find out until I finished this block.

I'm going to have to take a trip up to Omaha and get more thread as well.  

Alignment Stitches With Embird

I had someone ask what fusible fleece is.  Fusible fleece is a thin batting that you fuse to your fabric.  It's not fusible batting which is much thicker.  

Here's what I was talking about when I was using Embird to make an alignment stitch.  Sticky stabilizer is like contact paper and is used if you don't want to hoop something.  For the quilt block I am working on, hooping each design over and over would stretch out the fabric and distort it.  However; I think I'm doing a good job of that on my own.  LOL.  Here's what sticky stabilizer looks like:

From Embroidery Designs

On the first test out I drew horizontal/vertical lines on the stabilizer but it didn't work as I was still off.  I tried several times to line with the lines I had drawn on the fabric to the lines I had drawn on the paper.  Then I realized the lines I had drawn weren't done right with the marks on the hoop as I did the alignment stitch on it.  Sigh.

Here's what the fabric looks like on top of the hoop.  You can see the references lines I've drawn.  My design HAS to be perfectly aligned with those lines or it won't fit.  I know the lines aren't perfectly straight when I placed it on the stabilizer either because I'm not that good.

From Embroidery Designs

In Embird I can do an alignment stitch that does a horizontal/vertical set of stitches so I can double check my if my marks are exactly centered on the hoop.

From Embroidery Designs

Errr...  I think I'm just a little off.  If I just guessed my design would have gone over into the other design.  Sigh.  I'm really pathetic at lining this up.  LOL.

I take out the stitches and I get needle holes in the stabilizer for exact placement.  I thought about doing that first, but it actually works better if stitch over the fabric first.

From Embroidery Designs

I put the my fabric lines up with the perforated stabilizer and it works perfectly every time.  And yes; I have tried it with the grids on the lined paper.  You still need center marks on the sticky part. 

It would be totally awesome if the machine gave you this option.  Or if the overpriced 4D Extra would do this as part of their editing.  If you are looking for embroidery software, buy Embird.  The name brand software programs aren't awful, they are just extremely limited in what they can do and they force you to keep buying up until you spend a fortune on their TOL software.    

Fireworks Anyone?

It's been an ummm... beyond crazy couple of days.  My sister eloped yesterday and caused a huge explosion of fireworks.  Since I live 13 hours away I missed most of it.  I spent yesterday helping my husband's family as some things came up while my parents dealt with the aftershock of it all.  I'm hoping things have calmed down some between both families. 

 I hope that her and her husband are very happy together.  He has a daughter that I know of and my sister has 3 kids.  The funniest part is that his last name is very similar to mine. His is Frederick and I'm Frerichs.  That's gonna mess up whomever does genealogy a hundred years from now.  It's going to mess up everyone in this time period too.

My book, "Vintage Garden" came and I spent some time looking through the designs and the quilt.  I'm thinking of doing mine in blues and yellows.  However; some rich reds would look lovely too.   

  

From Quilted with Love

I got my magazine today for the purse I fell in love with.  I don't know anything about the kind of embroidery on the purse, but it's stunning.   The hardest part seems to be the design.  The magazine had several beautiful projects.

From Quilted with Love

I've been quilting my horse as well.  I'm getting closer to getting done.  

Don't Mess With A Quilter

My Aurifil thread card came today! Now it will be much easier to find the colors I want. 

From Quilted with Love

I also found out why finding Jenny Haskin's fusible fleece is impossible to find as the factory she uses has shut down.  I wish websites would just say that.  While in a fabric store today I bought some Pellon fusible fleece to try out.  Apparently the store used to carry Jenny's but it was so expensive they refused to buy it anymore.  Maybe that's why the factory shut down??

I stopped in the Viking dealer to see if my embroidery case had come in as I was in town.  Nope he said crankily.  What it is with dealers being so cranky?  I was even nice today.  

Oh.  I was talking with a friend about being home alone at night.  I told her:

"Don't mess with a quilter.  I have 10 pairs of scissors, 3 rotary cutters, boxes of pins/needles, masking tape and a 38 lb sewing machine.  I'm not worried".

"Aquamarine Ambience" Block One Test

This is for ytsmom as you don't have your blog settings set so that I can reply.  I got my Janome 6600 table from Ken's Sewing and Vacuum Center off of Ebay.  I believe you can get the table from OK Sew And Vac in Omaha as they sell Janome machines.  If they don't have one in stock, they can order you one.  Or check with Ken and see if he'll send you one.

And yes, it will hold a Bernina but it won't fit into the table.  You'll have to get a board to put over the opening as I've done for my Topaz. I put rubber mats under the board so it doesn't move.  

Block One Stitch Out Test

My first block has been a test block to see how things stitch out.  LOL.  I have ripples in the block as I obviously haven't mastered stabilizing for this block.  

From Embroidery Designs

Here's a close up shot:

From Embroidery Designs

I ran into another problem.  Color.  My second green is driving me crazy.  I love the yellow-green and the aqua green but but I tried 2 other greens with some mixed reviews.  The circles in the center are done in Hemingworth's Caribbean Green.  It's very bright even if it doesn't show that way in the picture.  The green in the left motif is Hemingworth's Wintergreen.  It looks darker on the spool but comes out gray green on the fabric.  

I'm heading up to Omaha next week to check out some other colors.  

"Aquamarine Ambience" And Color Blind

WooHoo!  My book came today!  I can't wait to start.  Here's a pic:

From Embroidery Designs

The instructions said to use silk dupione fabric so while in Lincoln I checked it out.  16 bucks a yard and I needed 6 yards.  ROTFLOL  I don't think so.  It was nice, but even if I was willing to pay that much, the store didn't have a color that I liked.  There wasn't any point in buying the thread colors since my fabric choices had changed.

So I bought some batik green and a print.  It will really change the look of the quilt, but I think I like it.  I only bought two yards of the light print just in case I change my mind.  My thread choices are still up in the air.  I went through my thread collection and through my color book since I'm practically color blind.  Did you remember I have my fabrics labeled to tell the colors?

I realized I have enough chartreuse and spring green to start a store.  Same with Golden-Yellow.  Did you know browns are actually a deep color of orange??  I pulled out a beautiful deep brown and told him it was actually orange.  He didn't believe me until I put it next to the chart.  

I'll pull out the fabric and work with threads tonight and see what works.  I'm hoping I don't have to do a lot of editing as I have one of the larger hoops in the embroidery industry.        

I had a really nice anniversary today as well.

Jenny Haskins "Vintage Garden" Book

I'm torn.  I've recently discovered Jenny Haskin's magazine "Creative Expressions" and have enjoyed it.  I went online to see her site and my jaw dropped.  What gorgeous quilts!  She has a new book out called "Vintage Gardens" that makes a quilt to die for.  Trying to find her books in the US is practically impossible except through Ebetray.  Her site had the book for for 70 AUD with 25 AUD in shipping.  I'm not sure what that translates to US dollars but that still means OUCH in my pocketbook. 

A site called Ericas.com  has the book on pre-order for 69.95.  

Then I got looking at the designs and realized this out of my league.  I'd get so frustrated trying hoop the designs together to work.  I do have a large hoop, the 360x200, but it would still mean trying to line up designs. I hate to spend hours stitching it out and realize that I can't put the other half together.

*Edited as of June 8 2009*

I did buy the book and it's very well done.  I'm glad I purchased it as I've used the embroidery instructions included to work on my "Aquamarine Ambience" quilt.  

Debi Reese over at Sew Creative Cottage carries Jenny's items including her threads.  She was a wonderful help and I got my book right away.    

If I make the quilt, I plan on using blues and yellows.  The fabric Jenny uses sell out right away but I like doing my own thing.  I plan on doing a cream background with yellow/blue fabrics and threads.  I have some other ideas floating around in my head, but I want to get the "Aquamarine Ambience" done.