I'd been doodling some ideas for a quilt label for my Say it with Flowers quilt (by Lynette Anderson Designs) and decided to use a selection of fabrics for the embroidery backgrounds. These were all used in the Say it with Flowers quilt, and are from the Corner of the Woods collection, also designed by Lynette. Once I'd picked the final design, I traced over the pencil lines with a fine Sharpie pen, as when I'm tracing the design onto fabric using a light box, the Sharpie pen shows up better than pencil. I pinned the design to the first background fabric, taped the fabric to my light box, and just traced the part of the design that I needed using a Micron Pigma pen with a fine nib. Once the design has been traced, I fuse a small piece of lightweight interfacing onto the wrong side of the background fabric. When I'm hand embroidering, I always use a wooden embroidery hoop to keep the fabric taut, and have a selection of hoops in various sizes...
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...I've used Karen Kay Buckley Perfect Circles for making each shape. The fabric is cut larger than I need it to be, stitch a running stitch around the outer edge. When the template is placed on the back, the two ends of thread are drawn up and the fabric is pressed. When the template is removed, the threads are drawn up again, and you are left with a nice smooth edge. The circles were then layered up and hand appliqued on top of one another....
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...the hand embroideery was stitched using a selection of variegated Valdani hand dyed embroidery threads. The subtle shades go perfectly with Lynettes fabrics. The centre circle has a small appliqued watering can, hand embroidered flowers and some really teeny tiny Suffolk Puffs. I was inspired by the decorative edging that is on block 4 of the quilt and wanted to use that around the centre of the label...
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...and here's the completed quilt label! It measures just 5.5" in diameter (the centre circle measures 3" in diameter) and has lots of elements from the front of the quilt incorporated into it. I haven't actually finished making the sashing and borders yet, but once Say it with Flowers has been pieced together and quilted, this pretty label will be hand appliqued onto the back of the quilt.
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