A Beautiful Wedding

Hi, as promised I am now showing the dress that I made for my older daughter Karinne who was married on Friday 11 November, 2011.  A date that she says she will never forget!

I have always promised both of my daughters that I would make their special dress so wasn't too surprised when Karinne asked me about hers.  This dress was quite beautiful and relatively simple and I thought it would be sooo easy.  That is until a couple of months later Karinne rang and told me that she had changed her mind and that I would really love the new dress!!!!!  I posted a picture that she gave me showing the inspiration for her new design.  It took a couple of tries to draft the toile ready for fitting and to give me an idea how much fabric would be needed (there were a couple of changes needed - a bigger train for one) and we were then off to purchase the fabric.  Along came the bridesmaid - apparently I was making her dress as well!  Anyway, we ordered the fabric and at the same time Debby (the bridesmaid) saw a fabric that she really liked so we purchased all they had of that too - just as well. 

The cutwork edges were my design and was stitched with a maximum of 3 repeats at a time because of the curves,  the remaining designs were adaptions of OESD 12236 Needle Painted roses embroidery set.  I do not know how many hoopings there were after I stopped counting.  To finish her dress the lining was completely stitched in by hand following the cutwork edges.  I completed the designs with approx 25 gross of hot fix crystals and crystals to complete one of the shoulders.  This section was rebeaded 5 times before I decided to use a light weight fishing line.


Anyway to cut a long story here are some photos and Karinne and Debby were very happy with their choices.  All of the following photos were taken before the final pressing which was not done until the morning of the wedding.

A closeup of the bodice embroidery and cutwork edging

Detail showing the front section and the crystal detail for the left shoulder

View from the back showing the embroidered train (before pressing)

Karinne trying the dress before final details were completed

My husband David and Karinne about to come down the steps.

 Karinne and Terry chose to marry at a small cove just outside the seaside town of Point Turton on the western side of Yorke Peninsula.  They had a perfect day with very little wind but there were quite a few high steps to get down to the beach.  (There happened to be a few people sunbathing at the time so they were treated to our chorus during the nuptials)

During the ceremony - the young man on the left is my grandson Blue

Debbies dress completed

Karinne and Terry had decided to marry at a place where they spend much of their free time.  They also arranged everything - accommodation for all of their guests, a bus to take all of the guests to and from the wedding and a beautiful venue for the reception after drinks and nibbles at a different venue.  A very happy occasion enjoyed by all.

Playing with the Cutwork Software

Hi, I know I have been very remiss these last few months, but working on bridal wear has taken precedent over most other things.  I vowed that I would not make a quilt during this time......Well - that was broken almost at once.  To date I am working on four.  The one I am going to show you is one that I made using the Cutwork Software and my Bernina 830. 

It was inspired by an article I saw in a book about Friendship quilts - one of my Monday girls has the book and I forgot to get the name of it.  I will let you know.

 This is the page that I scanned and used to digitise the design.





All of the applique pieces were cut out in the embroidery hoop taking approximately 4 hours.  The blocks took 17 minutes for each to stitch out and once I was at the quilting stage, the full blocks were stitched in 4 minutes.  Each of the blocks was outlined free motion stitched and I digitised the filler design so that it was stitched in blue on the cream and cream on the blue.  Where the blocks were divided between both the centre and border areas were still stitched with one hooping - I really did have to be careful when I hooped!
 
Placing the applique pieces and removing the paper from the shapes took the most time and I ended up streamlining that by removing the paper for up to 4 blocks at the same time.  All in all a quick quilt.  I scanned the photo of the quilt, in the V6 Designer software, I digitised one of the leaf sets, the diamond and the centre flowers.  Saved these in Exp format and opened the Cutwork software.  Filled the appropriate hoop with each individual design (one hoop for leaves and stems, one for diamonds etc)  It was so quick.  I hooped a heavy tearaway and basted 3-6 layers of vliesofixed fabric with each hooping.

My Version of the Snowflake quilt

Detail

Detail

Centre blocks and quilting

In the hoop Applique detail

Centre Block

Border Block

 Hopefully you enjoy looking at this project.
Chris

Cutwork fun

 I watched a webinar that Bernina made highlighting the 830 machine.  The project featured a drawstring bag embellished with cutwork embroidery designs.  I didn't have those designs, but I did have others.  I also used a lace design and added cutwork to that as well.
The designs stitched during the webinar were manually cut out.  I decided to use the software for Cutwork that Bernina released last year.  It is so easy to use and the machine cut beautifully.  The first design I stitched did not cut out as well as I liked but once I changed the cut fabric to velour, voila!!!

I also tried my hand at digitising my own cutwork from an illustration.  Unfortunately, my photography is still not too good and it was over exposed - lots.  Any way the photos will give you some ideas on how easy this software is to use.




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Inside design 1

Inside design 2

This design was originally a fsl lace design.  I digitised the outline for the star and then the centre circle applique.

Inside of the bag showing the whole design area stitched

Some fish

My husband loves fishing and with his friend spent many a day out on the water.  This is a wall hanging I made for him.  The background was a curved piecing technique I taught and these were some pieces left over from another project (another UFO).  The fish are all free motion embroidered/thread painted onto organza and then appliqued to the background.  The water reeds and seaweed featured several different dimensional techniques.  I finished the quilt with free motion quilting and some beading.

Another version

Hi,
Finally another quilt.  This was an original variation of a drunkards path and was the first one I stitched before I was sidetracked when one of my class students asked if there was a way to do something similar but smaller.  The smaller quilt has already been posted and is a more traditional setting.
This quilt used 2 x charm packs, 1 x layer cake and a jelly roll.  I did add a monotone for the final border and used the leftover jelly roll strips for the piped binding.
It was a wonderful way to use the decorative stitches of my 830.  I chose a palette of approximately 9 thread colours and used the same decorative stitch for all of the pieces stitched onto each of the layer cake squares.  Some of the seams were stitched with just one decorative stitch whilst others were stitched with two rows.  All of the small straight edges leading into the curved sections were stitched with blanket stitching.  The ability to use the history for stitches made this so quick, well almost.
I finished the quilt by ditch quilting both sides of the sashing and border and then quilted the squares and borders by using the jumbo hoop.  The block and border designs are my own digitising.  Thanks Otto for the great photos.  As you can see he gets them lovely and straight (Not like my last lot - the floral visions version)

Chris

Something a bit smaller

Hi, I fell in love with these two designs from Embroidery Library With the ability to stop embroidering at any stage and resume when ever I came back, I placed two designs together and stitched these two panels using the 830 jumbo hoop and only one hooping for each panel.  I remember that one of the designs was over 190,000 stitches, the other a mere 182,000 stitches.  I starched my background fabric heavily, used iron-on fusible No Show Mesh (Floriani) and added a medium tearaway.  The designs stitched without any puckering or movement.  When I purchased the designs they were shown in one colour way with an alternate version.  I chose to use the alternate version but my way (again!).  Both embroideries were completed a while ago.  With my usual way of being side tracked, one cushion was completed at the time and the other sat there only needing the ruching to be made and the backing put on.  Finally this weekend saw both finished and out of my workroom.  I love these designs.

Floral Visions my way

It has been a while since I last posted.  I had not photographed the projects that were finished.  Still haven't for most of them but I decided this morning that it was time, especially with a new year just starting.  So here are the photos of my version of the floral visions quilt.  Stitched on my 830.  I also added some computerised quilting designs in the wide sashing between the blocks and around the centre medallion.  I finished these sashings with free motion echo quilting.  I decided to outline quilt the outer borders and finish these with stippling.  All of the blocks had the designs outline quilted and finally free motion quilted the background for the blocks.  I had a lot of fun designing different styles for these and again what a joy to quilt using my 830.  By the way for those who want, use the dual feed and reduce your foot pressure to 30.  Works like a dream.

With the New year, my daughter has finally set a date for her wedding so for the next months I will need to work on her dress.  Her phone call to tell me that she had changed her mind and that I would love the new dress style she wanted left me wondering what.  Here is a photo of the type of dress she wants.  I don't know how it will turn out, but here's hoping.  This will be quite a departure from the type of things I have made for a long time.  If I can pull it off she will look as gorgeous as the original in the photo.