Pushing the Needle

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We had a great day on Saturday at the Lincolnshire Embroider's Guild Event. Pauline Burbridge, a UK Textile Artist rather famous in quilting circles was invited as the guest speaker. Over 200 embroiders and quilters came for the day. It was a wonderful mix of people.

Embroidered bag by Bronwyn Fleming

People who quilt and embroider use many of the same tools and materials in different ways. Emily and I had been invited to bring our range of Superior Threads and our Art Quilter frames. Lots of people were fascinated to see and try a machine quilting frame for the first time. One lady said, "Isn't that cheating?" I asked her if she was a hand embroiderer and she said "yes" and I asked her to watch more closely. I wanted her to see that I was guiding the needle. The stitches were not pre-programmed or computerized.

drawing with the needle of my JUKI sewing machine on my Art Quilter frame

I was drawing with the needle and the patterns were coming out of my head! The Italians call this 'Fantasia!' which is just another way of saying that the line designs are coming from my imagination. People stitching hand-guided free-motion line designs have much in common with free-motion embroiders. Whether we're piecing, quilting, embroidering or embellishing we are all pushing needles and pulling threads.