Blog Archives - Nicola Foreman Quilts

Workshop Projects

31/7/2024

The ladies that were attending Gail Pan's workshops at Poppy Patch were making an assortment of projects. The needleturn projects were beautiful, and some ladies were lucky enough to be there for more than one day, getting lots of tuition from Gail...

...some of the ladies chose to stitch hand embroidery projects. Gail had provided iron-on transfers to save same tracing the stitchery designs, which was really helpful...

...this was my project - the Dilly Dally bag. Gail suggested making a start on the appliqued flower for the pocket, and I'm really pleased with my result! Needleturn applique is a tricky technique to learn, and following Gail's advice, I'll practise a little bit, including a circle, every day. Gail had several samples of her work on display which were all beautiful - I've got lots of practising to do before mine are as lovely as hers!

World Embroidery Day 2024

30/7/2024

Are you celebrating World Embroidery Day this year? I'm watching Mr F play cricket while I'm stitching a new hand embroidery project - this one is Bird in a Basket by the Australian designer Lynette Anderson, and also includes English Ppaer Piecing, along with some hand applique. And folllowing on from my needleturn applique workshop with Gail Pan last Saturday, that's the method I'll be using, once I've had a bit more practise. But for now I'm going to carry on with the hand embroidery, with some gorgeous variegated Valdani embroidery threads.

Meeting the Friends in my Phone

29/7/2024

Part of the enjoyment of workshops is meeting up with like-minded people, who enjoy the peacefulness of stitching and creating. While I was on the workshop with Gail Pan at Poppy Patch on Saturday, a couple of the ladies that I met also follow me on social media - and I follow them too. It was so lovely to finally meet up, and give each other a hug and say hello properly. Jill and Cheryl it was really special to meet you both - hopefully we'll meet again soon!

Workshop with Gail Pan Designs

28/7/2024

I spent a wonderful day at Poppy Patch yesterday with Gail Pan - Gail is an Australian designer who stitches the most beautiful needleturn appliquedand hand embroidered projects. I've made several of Gail's over the years - bags, quilts and wallhangings - but I've always struggled with hand applique, preferring to use the Appliquick method. So I decided a workshop with Gail would be the perfect way to try to improve my skills! Gail is an excellent teacher, she was very friendly and patient and very generous with her time. She was very encouraging, and all of the ladies on the workshop enjoyed themselves. I'll share some pictures of our projects tomorrow.

Workshop at Poppy Patch

27/7/2024

I've just returned home from the most fantastic day at Poppy Patch in Great Doddington. It was my first visit to the shop, and Sam and Mary were so friendly and welcoming, they really looked after us all so well. The reason for my visit? A workshop with the Australian designer Gail Pan whose patterns I've enjoyed making for quite a while. I was hoping to improve my needleturn applique skills and I'll share some pictures over the next few days of my project.

Running Reindeer Table Topper

14/7/2024

Last year I bought this lovely kit from Coast and Country Crafts and Quilts here in the UK. The pattern is Running Reindeer Table Topper by the Australian designer Lynette Aderson, and the kit included a selection of fabrics also designed by Lynette. The stitchery fabric is a tone-on-tone stars print by Makower UK, and the embroidery threads are by DMC and were also included in the kit. Once the patchwork blocks have been prepared and the borded added, the stitchery design is traced onto the background fabric, ready for the hand embroidery. My favourite pen to use for tracing the design is a Micron Pigma pen, in a pale brown (sepia) colour, in the finest nib - size 005...

...I've used a lightweight fusible interfacing on the wrong side of the background fabric, to give the fabric a bit of "body" and I also use a wooden embroidery hoop to keep the fabric taught. Two strands of embroidery thread are used for the hand embroidery, and very simple stitches are used, just back stitch, satin stitch and running stitch. The finished piece of work is then pressed, and layered with the background fabric and wadding, ready for quilting...

...I've quilted this very simply, in a cross hatch pattern over the star blocks. Simple machine quilting is continued around the outer border, and stitch-in-the-didtch for the inner borders. A narrow binding is added along the raw edges and mitred around the corners. The binding is then folded over to the back, and hand stitched in place using a ladder stitch...

...obviously I needed a small hand embroidered label for my table topper. Usingf one of the hristmas trees from the original pattern, I traced this onto the centre and added my own words. As always, I've used a Micron Pigma pen, and used 2 strands of DMC embroidery thread to stitch over the tree and the words in back stitch. I pieced together some leftover scraps of fabric from the star blocks, then using Karen Kay Buckley Bigger Perfect Circle templates, I made an outer border for the embroidered label. The embroidered circle and the border were then hand stitched to the back of the table topper, making sure the stitches just went into the wadding, and didn't go through to the front of the topper...

...and here's the completed table topper, ready to use over the festive period. Now I can get back to my long list of kits, and chose another project - maybe it will be another festive one?

Magic Pins

10/7/2024

On a recent trip to Kis Quilting Ltd I couldn't resist buying another pack of pins to add to my collection. These Magic Pins should be easier to pick up, as my poor old arthritic fingers have been struggling recently. I'm planning to try them at the weekend, so will give an update then!

Roxanne's Basting Glue

9/7/2024

Roxanne's Basting Glue is my first choice when glue-basting appliqué shapes into position before stitching them down. The Dip and Dab container was purchased from Kis Quilting Ltd and both the 2-way applicator and regular bottle were purchased from Oh Sew Sweet Ltd - now I've stocked up on my glue products, I can start another applique project!

Poppy Patch Valdani Thread Club - Month 6

6/7/2024

The final set of threads for the Valdani Thread Club arrived in the post from Poppy Patch yesterday and these threads are absolutely gorgeous. These gently variegated threads are lovely for hand embroidery. Now I've got another 36 skeins to add to my collection, I'll need to get a bigger box for my threads! The colours supplied this month are as follows-

O550 - Caribbean Blue
JP4 - Pale Petals
JP9 - Herb Garden
M63 - Early Spring
O126 - Old Cottage Grey
M42 - Summer Sky