LE: Stitching Down the Zig Zag Border

Finally, my zig zag border goes down. Last month I spent 3 days pinning down each zag zag against the pattern precisely in alternating shades of light and dark. In that post I showed you how I was hand stitching the seams between the light and dark units together (left).

Some of you reading this blog (but not making or reading the pattern) wondered what I was using on the applique pieces - I'm using Floriani stitch n wash fusible. You don't remove this product, you just keep on working. When washed, it simply goes away. I have used it in many projects previously and I like the results it gives.

Today, I'm taking this half assembled zig zag border, accurately placing it on my background fabric and hand stitching it into position.

Yes, I'll be hand stitching all my applique, all the way. This is a decision I made when I stated LE, it is an heirloom quilt and its one of those 'once in a lifetime' quilts and I'm going for 1790 authenticity with hand stitching and intense attention to details. This is a quilt of flourishes, fussiness and time.

Preparation, repetition, addiction: a true labour of love

If you're making this quilt yourself, remember to add your own LE based blog posts over in the Love Entwined Archive at the top of this blog. We love seeing how every quilter makes LE their own - me included!

WOW: LE Embroidery Stems Completed

WOW = WIPs On Wednesday

My own Love Entwined is really taking shape now. I've spent months in preparation, doing bits here and there, which I now have ready to finally get the center underway. I'm really excited to be at this stage, after all the hard work of this beginning, there's a lot of fun ahead. During the months when I was sitting down doing all the tiny prep work, turning hundreds of pieces over and over, what really inspired me was seeing what everyone else was doing. Most quilters making LE are miles ahead of me and seeing their progress kept me motivated. 

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to add images in the Yahoo BOM Group or on Pinterest. I know uploading images takes time - time most of us just don't have much of nowadays. I'm deeply appreciative of how keen so many of you are to share your journey with all of us. We all need an inspiring boost every now and then. It just reminds me how wonderful it is to make a quilt within a community, and in this case, an online community. What a great place to be. THANK YOU!

What's Your WOW ?

An InLinkz Link-up

WOW: LE Vase Details

WOW = WIPs On Wednesday

I've been spending all my spare time embroidering. My hands are numb! I'm really looking forward to returning to some applique. The vases in these pictures are just pinned in place to help me guide the embroidery, I won't actually stitch them down until my zig zag border is down. It's just a progress shot, but I really love it. Now I just have two more vases worth of stems to stitch down and I'm hoping to get this done today.

If you're making LE, remember to add a linky to your own blog posts over in the Love Entwined Archives.

What's Your WOW ?

An InLinkz Link-up

LE: My Flower Stems

This stitch really appeals to me: it's called a Hungarian Braided Stitch. It looks like a plait and I think it's just perfect for my flower stems. I considered a lot of stitches for the stems and really agonized over my all the available choices. Personally, I think you should select a stitch based on your design and personal taste. The pattern actually has an appliqued stem - and I love that too. In fact, at this stage I plan to applique my stems on my red and white LE. Something about this scrappy style called for embroidered stems in my opinion and I did think about it for a few months before committing. There are so many beautiful LE's being made over in my Yahoo BOM Group that when I started seeing the embroidered stems, they just spoke to me. So I changed my mind. 

I'm combining the Hungarian stitch with free stitching and I'm using two shades for the main stems and the little flourishes and thinner stems branching out.

Mostly I use an embroidery hoop, although I did create a few stems 'freehand' but then it just got too difficult. My zig zag border is precisely pinned to my paper template (below) and ready to be appliqued to this center, but I really wanted to have the embroidery down before I put down that border. I'll repeat here that I used a Pilot Frixion pen to transfer the pattern to my chosen background. I pre-tested this pen before drawing it up.

Now, with the zig zag border, its so important to accurately put it down as there is a lot going on in the center square. Please don't go ahead and 'fill out' your center without the zig zag down first- even though it appears that I am doing that now. I am actually not doing that. I am creating the pattern out of order from the BOM Parts and because of the hoop and handling for embroidery (and potential shrinkage) I wanted the embroidery finished before stitching down the border. The border has to be in place before you place the vases and flowers or else you'll have clashes. I really don't want anyone creating a bad habit because it appears that I am working 'out of turn'.

Each week I select a different area to focus on and I work on whatever suits me at that time; taking into account hand and eye strain. I can afford to do this as I know the pattern very well and am experienced, but if you are working from the pattern I do suggest you stick to the order of the Parts as they are released. There's just so much work - too much- to have to re-do any one part. You don't want to face that discouragement! 

Embroidery stems are not better than the pattern applique stems - they're just different, and whether they will work on your own quilt will depend on the style of your fabrics and your own personal taste.

Here is an excellent YouTube Tutorial to help you learn this stitch, if you are interested in making it yourself.

As for me, I have a lot of embroidery to be getting on with!

If you're making LE and you blog, please consider adding your progress over in the Love Entwined Archive at the top of this blog - it's easy to add a link and it allows quilters in the future to see how other quilters made LE their own.

WOW: LE - Embroidered Details Around The Crown

WOW = WIPs On Wednesdays

I've been working on the flowers between my compass crown shapes. I fussy cut the fabrics in the first place and I thought they were so lovely. But then, I decided to embroider them too. I don't know why I did this, I hadn't planned to. I just like how it looks.

When I first started creating the pattern, I was interested to see (from the black and white image in 'Patchwork'), that the original looks like it has embroidered spots and flourishes in any spare spots. That really spoke to me. After all, is is a busy quilt! For me, I just felt like embellishing these. I guess you could call it a 'warm up' because I am going to embroider my stems on this quilt too. I don't know what I'll do with my red and white version yet, but having seen how embroidered stems look, thanks to the ladies sharing their images over in my Yahoo BOM Group, I've fallen in love with the look. I think it works especially well with a scrappy style LE too.

My hand embroidering has a distinctly naive look to it, and that's fine with me. I haven't embroidered this much work in years and I definitely needed a refresher. I love how LE is making me use all my skills, in whatever level they fall, at this stage in my life. It's a challenge and I love that.

What's Your WOW?

An InLinkz Link-up

WOW: LE Zig Zags

WOW = WIPs On Wednesdays 

I'm making progress on Love Entwined. The Zig Zag border is so important. It sets the colour tone for much of the middle fabrics and you need to get it down accurately before you can fill in the center or else your pieces won't fit. It is a busy center and the borders really balance out the applique.  

To make sure that all my zig zags are accurate, I am hand sewing the pre-prepared pieces into position and aligning them with the master template I created. This helps me stay on track. It's vital. I know some of you were thinking about piecing this border for accuracy and line (and I know some of you did and it looks great) and whilst I completely understand this inclination (I thought of that myself!) I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It has to be all applique. All the way. 

Love it! I'm really looking forward to spending the day progressing with Love Entwined

 What's Your WOW

An InLinkz Link-up

LE: Ziggity Zag!

No matter what other project I tinker with, and I do love to start new things, my mind keeps wandering back to Love Entwined. Once you start LE, you can't stop for very long. It wont let you. I always said there was something special in the makings of this pattern and the longer I spend with it, the more sure I am that this is true. I've been progressing with my zig zag border.

As mentioned in the pattern, I think a contrast of light and dark shaded fabric is the way to go. Mind you, I did start out with a plan to make my border in just two tones; that of light and dark blue, but LE changed my mind and the longer I worked on it, the more certain I was that this heirloom wanted to be a patchy style. I wish I'd known that at the beginning as I'm sure I would have made some different fabric decisions. But anyhow, I am settled on this look and over the last few weeks I've been separating fabrics that I thought would work as my lights and darks for this border.

Preparation is key. In everything. LE demands as much work and time in preparation as it does in assembly. Maybe even more. This little box is the result of weeks of fiddly tedious work and I'm only ready now to put it all together. And by 'together', I mean hours of more tedious fiddly work. It's an intense quilt, no doubt about it and every single block demands so much attention and skill but I do think there is something so special in working on a creation like this. I am making another red and white LE and thinking about that quilt all the time too (although I haven't made much progress on it yet). I do wonder if when I get to my red and white quilt - if I commit as much time as I have with this one - or if I will just raw applique the whole lot??! I have no idea. I'm just going to do what feels right at the time. I know I'm never going to make another quilt like this again - I don't think I could. It's a once in a lifetime quilt.

I will just mention that this month I released Part 14 & 15 of LE however I am making LE in my own time and out of order, so this is not a guide of where the pattern is up to. I'm behind in some ways and ahead in others. So don't worry if you feel confused seeing my 'progress'. At the top of this blog I have added a Love Entwined Archive where anyone making Love Entwined is invited to add specific blog posts linking to their own methods and working progress. Go and have a look at what and how everyone else is tackling each month, its a real treasure to be able to re-visit these posts and connect with other LE makers. And of course, you can discuss LE anytime over in my Yahoo BOM Group. Because I have so many LE posts that are out of logical time line, I am planning on creating my own LE archive in my own working order just as soon as I have completed it, and that too will be found in the archive page above.

I worked really hard in creating distinct light and dark contrasts for my zig zags. Something that interests me is how my natural eye always selects a mid tone to work with in each colour value. Even when I try not to, it happens. I notice over in my Yahoo BOM Group that some quilters have distinct light and darks, some are mid tone like me and some are gentle gradients. I think its so interesting how we interpret colour. Obviously some colour schemes have been selected on purpose, but I can really see my mid tone bias in my selection here. I love it.

 Tomorrow I'll be putting the zig zags into position.