Feathers are the mainstay of just about every longarm quilter and feathered wreathes really dress up a quilt.

Learn how to create your own feathered wreath using Art and Stitch, a digitizing software for quilters and embroiderers. 

Just a quick reminder that their is a Blog Pop going on.  Lots of fun ideas on embellishing your pop-up and lots of great prizes.  To catch up, check out the complete list of designers here.

My Blog Pop contribution will be posted next Tuesday.  I look forward to having you join me. 

For this weeks feature, I though I would bundle the quilt patterns for two small quilts together.  And then I decided to put the bundle on sale.

Get both Be My Valentine and Smiling Irish Eyes patterns for $12.  Purchase combined bundle here.

Since I have been thinking about heart quilts, I knew I needed to design a pantograph that could be used with these designs.

So this weeks video tutorial will be on using Art and Stitch to design your own interlocking pantograph.  You will hear my thought process as I clean up the pantograph design and see my edits.  (I did speed up some of the editing to cut about 10 minutes from the video.)

Here are a couple of options for using the design.

Did you enjoy drafting your own heart swirl design?  If you would prefer to purchase mine, I have a great introductory sales price. 

Bundled product is on sale for $13 - a savings of $10.  (Digital downloads only.)  Purchase here.​

This week I have been busy catching up on quilting customer quilts.

Since the focus of the week has been quilting, I thought my post would center on one of the quilting designs I created for a customer.

My customer used Kaffee Fassett material and wanted a design with irregular circles on a line.  She didn't want it to look "perfect" -- in other words she was interested in a more random look.  Now this is great news for those with manually driven longarm machines and those working on their domestic machines.  However this presents a bit of a challenge for those of us with computerized machines that don't want to resort to freehand (Warning:  Freehand quilting will atrophy without regular use).

Now for the real magic.  Intelliquilter had a new release about a month ago.  One of the new features is "progressive offset".  Essentially this results in each row being shifted as opposed to every other row being alternated.  Much better for my "random" goal for this quilt. 

For those who have Intelliquilter, you may also be interested in my settings.

We had a beautiful week in Minnesota.  But cold weather is on its way and that means it is time to start preparing for Christmas.

Do you want a quick and easy project for either your house or a great Christmas gift?

Check out the possibilities with my Christmas Presents pattern.

Happy quilting.

​Kari

Sign up for my newsletter to stay current on what's happening in my studio and learn more quilting tips.  As a thank you, I'll send you a FREE pattern for this small maple leaf quilt.​

I received a note on someone asking me for other suggestions for transferring my Come Said the Wind poem to fabric.  In the pattern I provide three suggestions:

• Printing the design directly to fabric using an inkjet printer. (This was the method used in both my samples for the cover quilt.)  I first pre-treated my fabric and then ironed it to a piece a freezer paper that could be run through the printer.
• Trace the poem using a pigma pen.
• Embroider the poem onto fabric.

I've been thinking the last month about putting on the poem during the quilting process.  I finally found a little time to play in Art and Stitch and on my longarm and am really pleased with this option.  

This weeks video tutorial will be about creating a "handwritten" design for your quilt in Art and Stitch.  There were a number of tips I came up with in the process that I would love to share with you.

I was pleased with the final stitch out -- but not so much the photograph.  It probably wasn't the best idea to use a batik background.

I am also thinking that this could work for adding names to baby quilts.  Where would you like to add "word art" to your quilt?

I know that you may be ready to make the commitment to expand your knowledge and use of Electric Quilt.  I have openings in my schedule starting in January and will be taking on a limited number of private coaching clients to work with in expanding your Electric Quilt technical skills.

The program will be formally released next week at Fall Quilt Market -- but I wanted to give my loyal blog readers and newsletter subscribers first shot at obtaining one of these limited number of spaces, including some Early Bird discounts if you sign up by October 31st.

​Read more about the program here.  (PS -- This could be tailored to Art and Stitch as well.)

Happy quilting.

Kari

True confessions.  A number of years ago I purchased a Bernina that had an embroidery unit.  Having never done machine embroidery before, I was very challenged in using the embroidery features on the machine.  After a couple of trips to the repair shop, I decided machine embroidery was not for me and eventually sold the machine.

Now that I have Art and Stitch, I really wanted to give machine embroidery another try.  This time I decided to go simpler.  I purchased a used Brother PE 500 machine (which only does embroidery).  I watched a number of You Tube videos on the machine.  I also spent some time at a retreat last weekend, talking to a machine embroidery expert in the group (who was working on embroidery designs on her machine).

I was ready to try again.  I thought I would start with recreating a small quilt block using embroidery.  I am a big Dear Jane fan and thought that one of the Jane Stickle blocks would be a good start.

I selected the first block to get started.

Here is the Art and Stitch video tutorial on how I created the embroidery design.  Note that I do not have the "Embroidery module".  This was all done with the Art and Stitch Base version!

Here is my finished design stitched out on my Brother PE500. 

The entire process was a lot less painful than I thought.  I think I may try a few other blocks.

Are you starting to think about an autumn quilt for your wall this fall.  Now is the time to get started with Come Said the Wind.  The pattern includes two sizes and the verse can be printed directly on fabric, traced or hand embroidered.  You choose.

Purchase here.

Happy quilting.

Kari

Sign up for my newsletter to stay current on what's happening in my studio and learn more quilting tips.  As a thank you, I'll send you a FREE pattern for this small maple leaf quilt.