Hearts and Loops

My twin sister is a grandmother! I'm not sure who is more cute the baby Ruby or my sister Peggy. I made my sister a baby quilt when her first child was born and when he had his first child, of course I had to make another.

Peggy likes bright fabrics so this little quilt comes from all my bright kiddie scraps and it's quilted with hearts and loops. As little Ruby gets bigger she'll be able to play "I spy with my little eye" with the quilt and look for doggies, and icecream cones, flowers and strawberries, lightning bugs, lady bugs and butterflies. I hope they'll have hours of fun together. 

There's a gorgeous red heart flannel on the back which makes the whole quilt soft and cosy. 

Here's the quilt loaded on our 6 foot New English Quilter frame.

I'm using a JUKI TL98P straight stitch sewing machine because it's got the space under the arm and the 1500 stitches-per-minute speed I need to get a lovely flowing line of stitching.

I'm using a pretty pink variegated thread from Superior Threads' Fantastico range called Giggles and I've used bright red Bottom Line pre-wounds in the bobbin so it will blend in to the backing flannel.


I just love how this lovely light reflecting tri-lobal polyester thread runs through my machine without any trouble, even at high speeds through multiple layers. This thread is cross-wound on a large cone perfect for long arm quilters and any machine quilting. 

Here's a detail of the hearts and loops quilting design.

And here's another. Even though this is a simple basic design I still use it as an all over pattern. 

It works so well on children's quilts. The hearts and loops design covers lots of ground quickly 

and lets people know that you love them too.

Here I am sewing on the binding on a visit home to America 

with my brother I'd not seen in 22 years!! 

I'm so happy to get to spend time with Pat and Peggy!

I'm using the bright red Bottom Line to hand stitch the binding. 

This fine thread blends in perfectly and it doesn't knot!

Pushing the Needle

Source: Uploaded by user via Martha on Pinterest

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.