Machine Embroidered Applique, Without Panty Lines

Machine Embroidered Elephant Applique Pillow

I figure everyone's probably sick of seeing my Jingle BOM quilt project over and over again, so I thought I'd switch gears and write a machine embroidery blog post today.  I did some custom machine embroidery a few months ago for an interior design client's nursery project, and I thought I'd share with you how I worked out some of the technical challenges that arose along the way. 



Panty Lines!  Base Fabric Shows Through Applique Fabric

My client had selected the Graham crib bedding collection from Serena and Lily and I designed a window seat, upholstered cornice, and a diaper stacker to complete this modern nursery.  (Coincidentally, the baby's name is also Graham, so we also did a custom monogrammed pillow for the glider rocker with his name on it).  Serena & Lily sells their crib bedding fabric by the yard, and I planned to use it for a sweet little appliqued throw pillow.  My base fabric, Skittles in Blueberry Sky colorway, is from F. Schumacher's Lulu DK Child collection.  As you can see in the photo above, the embroidered splatter dots on this fabric not only show through the thin quilting weight cotton sheeting fabric, but since they are embroidered rather than printed, they also created raised bumps that I didn't want on my applique. 

I sourced the machine embroidery design for this cute elephant applique from Applique Corner Design, an independent Etsy seller who created the design using Bernina digitizing software -- software that I own, but never digitize with.  I can almost always find a professionally digitized design that suits my project and only use the software to edit, combine designs, and tweak things.  I did need to make some adjustments to this design in my software after I stitched out a sample embroidery.  I added underlay stitching to the ear applique because the satin stitching didn't meet up exactly for me when the circle was complete.  Also, the original design file instructed the machine to stitch the entire outline of the elephant first and then go back and do the tail separately.  In my test sew, the elephant pulled in ever so slightly, just enough that the tail ended up not being attached to the body.  Like pin the tail on the elephant, but without the pin.  I easily corrected that by programming the tail and body outline as a single embroidery object to stitch out at the same time.  Finally, I enlarged the design to completely fill the usable portion of my Mega embroidery hoop. 



Tracing Applique Shapes Onto Fusible Web

Another reason I can't live without my digitizing software (even though I rarely digitize) is because I use it to print out actual size templates of any embroidery file.  This is crucial for an applique design, so that I can precut my applique shapes precisely before stitching them down.  I used my light box to trace the shapes onto lightweight fusible web, trying to keep my pencil line in the middle of where the satin stitching will be.  Note that it's important to trace a REVERSE image of the applique shape -- this photo was an "oops" that resulted in an elephant pointing the wrong direction!

Initially, I had planned to use Dry CoverUp, a vinyl topping product designed for machine embroidery, to prevent the embroidered dots of my base fabric from showing through the finished elephant applique.  However, I tried it in my trial run and I didn't like how stiff it made the finished embroidery.  This was, after all, for a baby's room, and I wanted this pillow to be super soft and snuggly when it was finished.  So I used temporary spray adhesive to hold two layers of my thin cotton elephant fabric together, and then I treated the doubled fabric as one layer.



Fusible Web with Window, Adhered to Reverse Side of Applique Fabric

As you can see in the photo above, my enlarged elephant shape was wider than my fusible web so I had to use two pieces.  Those little asterisks I penciled in are registration marks to make sure I aligned the two pieces of fusible web properly when I ironed them to my fabric.After tracing the elephant shape onto my fusible web backing but BEFORE ironing it to my applique fabric, I carefully cut a "window" out of the center of the fusible web shape.  Again, my goal was to keep the finished applique embroidery as soft and snuggly as possible.  I only needed the fusible web to adhere those outer edges of my elephant in place until the machine satin stitches permanently secured the applique to the base fabric.  Not only does this window technique eliminate a lot of the bulk and stiffness of the fusible web, but it also enables you to carefully trim away some of the backing fabric behind the applique shape after the design has finished stitching. 




Test Fitting Applique Shapes to Printed Template

After fusing the fusible web to my applique fabrics, I carefully cut out my two shapes and laid them on my actual size printed template to ensure that the shapes fit properly within the column of satin stitching along all of the edges.  (That's the smaller test stitchout that you see draped on the pillow form in this photo.  I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but there was a definite contrast between the soft, slightly puckered texture of the background fabric and the stiff, rigid applique).



Fusing the Applique Shape to the Background Fabric

Once the applique shapes have been prepared, a machine embroidered applique design stitches out much like any other machine embroidery design.  The machine stitches an outline placement line for an applique shape, and then stops as it would for a color change.  That's when you carefully remove the hoop from the machine, line up your precut applique shape along the placement line, and fuse it in place.  With this large design in my Mega hoop, I'm able to fit my full size iron inside the hoop to fuse my applique in place, but if you're doing a smaller design in a smaller hoop, a travel iron would be a better choice.  With the applique fabric fused in place, you reattach the hoop to the embroidery machine and then it stitches a zigzag tackdown stitch followed by a satin stitch all along the edges.  WAY faster than the hand stitched applique project I've been working on recently, but of course it's a completely different look.



Tackdown Stitching Completed, Satin Stitching In Progress



 Here you can see how, after the entire design finished stitching and I removed the fabric from the hoop, I not only removed my tearaway stabilizer from the project, but also cut away the background fabric inside the body of the elephant, using duckbilled applique scissors to ensure I didn't snip into the applique fabric by mistake.  Note that I would not have been able to remove the backing fabric if I had fusible web permanently adhering the entire elephant shape to the background fabric -- that's why I cut that window in the fusible web before I fused it to the yellow fabric:



Excess Backing Fabric Trimmed Away Behind Elephant Applique

Notice that, when I trimmed away the backing fabric, I got a slight puckering to the applique shape that wasn't there before.  For some projects that wouldn't be acceptable, but it's exactly the effect I wanted to achieve with this one.  Now my elephant applique was as soft and pliable as the background fabric, and if I scrunched the whole thing in my hand there was no obvious stiffness to the applique.  It looked and felt as though the applique had always been there, as if this is how the fabric came from the mill.  Perfecto!


Finished!  Soft, Snuggly Applique with No Embarrassing Show-Through

Here's the finished pillow:


Finished Elephant Pillow

Isn't that adorable?  Just the way I had envisioned it!  The yellow chenille throw pillow fabric and the gray matelassé bench cushion fabric are from Fabricut, and all of the trims are from Samuel & Sons. 

The other embroidered pillow for this project was a custom monogram.  When I design monograms for very young children, I like to use very clear, legible fonts.  Although this is for a newborn's nursery, I'm thinking about this baby growing into a preschooler, recognizing his name and his initials on the pillow once he starts learning the alphabet and learning to write his name.  I know I said that I never digitize anything with my embroidery software, but I do use it quite a bit for monograms.  I spelled out the child's name in lower case letters using a TrueType font that I digitized for embroidery in my software.  Then I combined the first name design with a large capital initial "G" that I purchased from Embroidery Arts, my absolute favorite source for machine embroidered monogram designs.  This letter is from their Moderne Monogram Set 5, and I used my embroidery software to enlarge it significantly and changed the satin stitch to a step fill stitch pattern.

I was using that same pesky Schumacher Skittles fabric that already had splatter dots embroidered all over it, so there were "panty line" issues with this design, too -- especially since my large "G" needed to be stitched in pale yellow thread over top of dark blue embroidered splatter dots.  This time, I did use the CoverUp product, and it worked like a charm, making my yellow G stand out boldly against the background fabric and completely eliminating show through.  Since the letter "G" that needed CoverUp was skinny, the stiffness of the vinyl CoverUp was negligible with this design.  I just had to go back and very carefully trim away the little whiskers of yellow vinyl that remained around the edges of the embroidery after I tore the excess product away.



Monogram Test Embroidery Completed

Automatic Basting Function

This design fit nicely into my Large Oval embroidery hoop.  As you can see, I use the built-in hoop basting function of my Bernina 750 QE as added insurance to keep the fabric and stabilizer from shifting during the embroidery process.  With this feature engaged, the machine automatically sews a long basting stitch along the perimeter of the embroidery hoop before it begins stitching the embroidery design.  These stitches are easily removed once the design has completely stitched out, and I use this basting function with every single project.



Finished Pillow: "G" is for Graham

I also did a custom diaper stacker for this project, which doesn't have any embroidery on it, but I just had to share it because it came out so cute:


Custom Diaper Stacker

I used flannel drapery interlining behind that thin cotton sheeting fabric to give it some body and a padded satin hanger inside at the top.  With a diaper stacker that cute, I'm ALMOST nostalgic for the diapering days...  No, not quite!

And here's the whole nursery:


Completed Nursery

The upholstered cornice fabric is Conifer Modern from Kravet and the leather glider chair is Natuzzi.  We also added some Samuel & Sons Dolce Pom Pom border trim to the readymade Serena & Lily crib skirt, to give it a more custom touch and to tie the bedding in with the custom items.
Here's the initial design rendering I made for the client:

 I was really happy with how this project turned out, and more importantly, the new mom was thrilled with it.  All's well that ends well.  Back to that hand applique medallion!

MY TURN: Machine Embroidery Blog Hop and GIVEAWAY with Anita Goodesign Fantasy Birds



Happy Blog Hop, my fellow machine embroiderers!  Today it's MY turn to strut my feathers in the week-long Spring Machine Embroidery Blog Hop hosted by SewCalGal and I Have a Notion, and sponsored by the embroidery digitizing gurus of Anita Goodesign. 

 

I suggest that you get up right now and go to the bathroom, and then get situated with a cup of coffee and maybe even some snacks.  This is going to be one of those blog posts that rivals Tolstoy's War and Peace (in length and wordiness, if not in literary genius), but unlike War and Peace, my lengthy post will at least be broken up with lots and lots of PICTURES. 

NOTE: Those of you who soldier through this entire post will be rewarded with multiple chances to win the Special Edition design collection of your choice, valued at $99.95, from our generous sponsor, Anita Goodesign.  I am not going to tell you how to enter the giveaway until the end, though -- I'm gonna make you work for it!  ;-)

 

Tutorial Photo of Appliqued Quilt Block Technique

I was delighted when I was invited to participate in this hop even before I knew who the sponsor was, but when I found out it was Anita Goodesign, I was delighted!  I attended an all-day embroidery seminar with Anita Goodesign at my local Bernina dealer's shop several years ago, and not only was I wowed by their beautiful, high-quality designs (yep, I spent lots of $$ that day), but I was also impressed by the extent to which these folks work to make their designs and projects as accessible and hassle-free to home embroiderers as they possibly can.  In fact, despite how ornate and elaborate many of their projects and designs appear, Anita Goodesign is actually one of the best digitizers for those who are brand new to machine embroidery.  These collections are all designed with projects in mind, thoroughly tested so the designs work perfectly in the project application, and each collection comes with thorough instructions.  My Fantasy Birds collection came with a 72-page, full color PDF tutorial that thoroughly explains all aspects of the project from stabilizing your fabric all the way through assembly and the final binding stitches.  The tutorial PDF includes scores of full color photographs like the one above to guide you every step of the way.  All the guesswork and confusion is eliminated, and even beginners can easily achieve professional results.  I have not seen any other company do this, and it's a huge value add.

 

48" x 48" Fantasy Birds Tiled Quilt Project in Silk Dupioni

I chose to showcase Anita Goodesign's Fantasy Birds Special Edition Collection because this tiled quilt project is a perfect example of an embroidery project that looks impressive and intimidating, but is actually easy to create if you read through the tutorial PDF and follow the instructions.  Always keeping novices in mind, Anita Goodesign includes three different sizes of each design as well as mirror images of each design, so you don't need to have embroidery software in order to create the project, and there is a version of every design that will fit the hoop of any home embroidery machine without resizing.  (However, just in case a customer who doesn't own software wishes to tweak the size of these designs, Anita Goodesign includes a resizing program on the CD as an extra bonus). This collection allows even embroiderers with smaller hoops to achieve impressive, large scale designs by splitting the larger rectangular designs into two separate appliqued quilt block designs that fit together perfectly when seamed together.  How cool is that? 

 

Not only do I love the concept behind this design collection; I also really love the way these designs combine very realistically digitized birds with fanciful, stylized Jacobean floral and botanical motifs, amost as if a real bird flew in the window and alighted on an embroidered fabric branch.  I knew I would have fun playing around with that.  This time I'm using brighter jewel tones for the Jacobean floral motifs, but next time it would be fun to do the birds in full color but do the Jacobean motifs in grayscale.

 

The original project I had planned for this blog hop was a 16" x 78" quilted table runner using all four of the large rectangular bird designs as well as four smaller square bird designs, with the blocks laid out as you see them in the image at left.  Except, as great as I think the split bird block designs are for making the designs accessible to every home embroiderer, I'm not every home embroiderer -- I'm a home embroiderer who recently spent a good chunk of change on a fancy Bernina 750QE machine and a snazzy Jumbo Hoop to go with it, primarily because I have always longed to be able to embroider large, beautiful embroideries all in one hooping.  I am also a home embroiderer who has invested in the v6 Bernina Designer Plus Embroidery Software, and I almost NEVER stitch out a stock embroidery design without tweaking it in my software first.  No way was my first big embroidery project with the new machine going to have seams running right through the middle of the birdies!

 

So my grand plan was to stitch the square birdie blocks at the ends the way they were digitized, as applique blocks, but to sew out the larger bird designs seamlessly in my Jumbo Hoop.  In addition to the 25 quilt block designs in 3 sizes that are appliqued and embroidered in the hoop, Anita Goodesign also includes 48 individual embrodery designs from those blocks with the collection, each in 3 different sizes -- and including the four large bird and flower designs WITHOUT the split, in 3 different sizes, as shown below: 

 

Individual Blue Jay Design from Fantasy Birds Collection

The largest size of these individual designs is 6.75" x 11.75", so I planned to enlarge them in my Bernina software to fill the sewing field of my Jumbo Hoop, which is a little over 8" x 15" on a 7 Series machine (you can sew a design up to 10 1/4" x 15" on a Bernina 830 with the Jumbo Hoop due to the longer free arm on that machine).

 

Here's what this design looked like when I opened it up in my Bernina software, after enlarging it but making no other changes:

 

 

My Fantasy Birds look pretty ugly, don't they? That's because I imported the design in the commercial format EXP, which doesn't contain any information about thread colors so the software assigns colors randomly.  Bernina software will save an EXP design with an additional two files -- one contains the thread color information, and the other is an image file of the embroidery, like an icon.  If this was a simple two or three color monogram, I'd leave the design the way it was and disregard the colors shown at the machine during stitchout, but with a design of this complexity it's very easy to get confused about which color is going where and which portion of the design is stitching next -- I wanted to work out the colors ahead of time and have the correct color numbers displayed on my sewing machine's screen for each color change.

 

So my next order of business was to go through the thread chart for this design in my software and individually assign each of the Madeira rayon embroidery thread colors specified by Anita Goodesign for this design.  There are only 13 thread colors in the design, but there are 34 color changes in order for each component of the embroidery to stitch out in the correct sequence.  Although Anita Goodesign specifies Madeira thread, I already own almost every color Isacord makes and I wanted to use what I had on hand.  So, once I had manually entered the Madeira colors, I simply chose "Isacord 40 Numerical" from the drop-down menu, clicked "Match and Assign All" and, in seconds, all of my thread colors had converted automatically to the equivalent thread colors in Isacord polyester embroidery thread.  No need to hunt down a thread color conversion chart online or try to match up the colors manually!

 

I still wasn't finished with the software stage yet -- I spent another hour or so playing around with different thread colors for the Jacobean floral portions of the design.  I left the blue jays alone because I loved how realistic they looked and didn't want to mess that up, but I wanted to do something brighter and more vibrant with the "fantasy" part of the design, so the flowers wouldn't blend into the background as much and so the design would coordinate better with the assortment of silk remnants in my fabric stash.  This is what I finally came up with:

 

 

By this point, I was really getting really excited about the project!  I put my son Lars, the best 12-year-old embroidery assistant ever, to work digging through five large bins of embroidery thread until he had located all of the appropriate thread colors and lined them up for me in stitch order. (This task was assigned to him as penance for falling asleep with silly putty in his bed a few nights ago.  Laundry will be EXTRA fun this week!) 

So I was ready to start embroidering, and I was going to start with this blue jay design! I knew it would take awhile to stitch out, and I figured I could use that time to enlarge and edit stitch colors for the subsequent designs.  I had assembled all of my supplies and notions, cut out Jumbo Hoop sized pieces of silk fabrics, and prepared my fabric pieces as per Anita Goodesign's tutorial instructions. 

 

Silk Dupioni (above), My Kravet Glittered Silk Shantung (below)

My base fabric is a gorgeous, very unusual glitter-embellished 100% silk shantung drapery remnant from Kravet -- the pattern is called Sparkle, the colorway is Ivory, and it retails for a sickening $121 per yard.  I have several odd-sized scrap pieces of this fabric that were left over from one of my interior design clients' projects several years ago, and I have been saving them just for a special project like this! 

 

Silk shantung is a lightweight, flimsy silk that is similar to the silk dupioni that Anita Goodesign used for their quilt samples, except that it's a bit more refined, with a smoother surface, a tighter weave, and a much less pronounced slubbed texture than what is characteristic of silk dupioni, as you can see in the photo above.  So I thought it best to follow Anita Goodesign's recommendations for stabilizing my silk for these dense designs.  I fused Pellon Ultra Weft interfacing to the reverse side of my silk first.  Then I cut a piece of plain cotton muslin large enough to fit comfortably in my Jumbo Hoop, and adhered a piece of Pacesetter Midweight Tearaway embroidery stabilizer to the back of the muslin with my 505 spray adhesive.  I then sprayed the top of the muslin with 505 and adhered that to my interfaced silk.  Finally, I spray-starched the right side of my silk with Niagara Original spray starch.  My fabric sandwich was as crisp as cardstock when I hooped all of my layers.  I intended to use my sewing machine's hoop basting feature to secure all four layers around the perimeter of the hoop prior to stitching, but alas, I could not find the screen with that option, and I was impatient about getting started...

 

Well, I plugged that USB stick into my sewbaby, opened up my design, attached my hoop, and pressed the start button -- and almost fell on my ass when I saw that the estimated stitching time was 220 minutes.  I grabbed a calculator to check my math -- yep, this baby was going to take almost four HOURS to sew out, not counting the additional time involved in rethreading and trimming jump stitches between color changes, or the time I'd spend removing stabilizer and cleaning up the completed embroidery design once it had finished.  Eek! 

My enlarged design was 13 1/4" x 7 3/4", had 69,639 stitches, and was going to burn through an estimated 161 meters of bobbin thread and 4-6 hours of my time.  And, considering that it was already 5 PM on Tuesday evening when I made this discovery, I realized that not only would I be unable to complete my entire table runner project for this post, I wasn't even going to be able to sew out the entire first design in one evening.  Dinner and bed time stories with my children trump sewing projects any day in the week.  So I embroidered about half of the design after I put the kids to bed on Tuesday night, and when I stopped at 11 PM I put my sewing machine in Eco Mode to conserve power while ensuring I could pick up right where I left off on Wednesday morning. 

 

Finally, around 2 PM yesterday, my blue jay design had finally finished stitching:

 

Ta Da!

 

Well, I now truly appreciate the value of owning a machine that can embroider up to 1,000 stitches per minute.  Even if my old Artista 200E/730E could have embroidered a design this size (which it couldn't), at its maximum embroidery speed of 680 stitches per minute it would have taken approximately FIVE hours and forty minutes to stitch this design.  (I've been practicing Pre Algebra with Lars -- this would make a good word problem for him!)  Uff da!  Clearly, a large, densely-embroidered quilt project like this is a major time commitment, not the quilt-in-a-day scenario I had envisioned.  After all, other than embroidered quilt labels, occasional monogram projects, and quilting "in the hoop" with speedy outline quilting designs, I really don't have much embroidery experience, and I've certainly never tackled any designs of this size before.

 

I really love how beautifully this design stitched out, and I'm looking forward to continuing my project.  Above are some of the other silk fabrics I'm considering for borders and/or for the appliqued fabric strips on the smaller blocks.  Wouldn't it be fun to cut out the big butterfly from that silk Robert Allen print and fuse it into this design as an applique, secured by satin stitching? 

 

After unhooping the design, I carefully tore away most of the tearaway stabilizer.  Then I sat down with a bright Ott light and tweezers and painstakingly removed the stabilizer from all of the nooks and crannies.  Next, with a duck-billed applique scissors for safety and holding my breath the entire time, I trimmed away most of the cotton muslin fabric from the back of the design, as though the muslin was a cutaway stabilizer.  I really wanted to restore the soft hand and drape of the silk now that the embroidery process was complete.  When I was finished, the back of my design looked like this:

 

Back of Design, Tearaway Removed and Muslin Cut Away

 

Now that I've stitched out this design, I keep thinking of other applications besides table runners, quilts, or pillows.  Wouldn't this design be gorgeous on the flat sections of a box pleated or pelmet-style window valance? 

 

Can You Imagine These Designs on a Window Treatment?

Of course, as soon as I got that idea, I had to import the photo of my completed embroidery design into my interior design software to try it out.  Why do I suggest embroidery for the valance, but not for the drapery panels?  Well, with a top treatment, you wouldn't have to embroider 15 yards of continuous fabric and drive yourself nuts trying to space the designs with an accurate pattern repeat like you'd have to do for a pair of drapery panels.  You would just overcut each flat section, embroider the design, and then trim the piece to the appropriate size afterwards.  If you're really ambitious, you could even use some of the other standalone designs in this collection, maybe some of the Jacobean floral elements, to embroider banding for the lead (inside vertical) edges of your drapery panels in place of the solid brown banding in my rendering. 

 

You know, embroidered silk drapery fabrics that look like this go for hundreds of dollars per yard, yet you're limited to the thread colors chosen by the mills.  By embroidering your own silk base fabric, you can have your dream fabric with embroidery thread colors custom selected to match your oriental carpet, your other fabrics, or anything else that tickles your fancy.  Just add English bump interlining, a heavy cotton sateen drapery lining, and you'll have a gorgeous custom window treatment unlike anyone else's, anywhere.

 

It's probably a good thing I didn't finish my table runner project, because I've been going on forever and I still have dozens of photos and three more pages of notes that I had planned to include in this blog post, just from sewing out the first design.  So, expect a follow-up post within the next few days where I will share the Trouble-Shooting Journey to Eliminate Thread Loops with an Unusual Needle, my Three Favorite Embroidery Tools that Don't Come With Your Machine, and My Final Verdict on the Final Steam Pressing of Embroidery Designs.  In all honesty, I probably won't finish my project until several months from now, considering that it was just last week that I finished the project I began for the Fall Machine Embroidery Blog Hop I participated in back in November!

 

So, have I lost everyone, or are you still with me?  Because I did promise a giveaway!  Anita Goodesigns is giving away FREE Special Edition design collections worth $99.95 each (winners choose which of the 15 Special Edition collections they want to win). 

 

For the Cheeky Cognoscenti giveaway, you can earn ONE chance to win by visiting Anita Goodesign's website here, drooling all over your keyboard at their gorgeous designs, and then commenting on this post to tell me which Special Edition design collection you would choose if you won and what ideas you have for using those designs in your own project. 

 

You can earn a SECOND chance to win by following Cheeky Cognoscenti via either Networked Blogs or Google Friend Connect (on the side bar at the right side of this page, scroll up) and then leaving a second comment telling me that you're following.  Important: If you are a "No Reply" blogger or an Anonymous commenter, be sure to leave your email address [eg. Sally(at)hotmail(dot)com] in your comment so that I can contact you if you're the winner! 

 

That's right -- not only am I giving away a free Anita Goodesign Special Edition design collection, but each of the other eight bloggers in the hop is also giving away a free Special Edition design collection this week as well.  If you haven't done so already, be sure to stop by each of the other blogs before the end of the week so you can see more beautiful embroidery projects, pick up more embroidery tips and tricks, and collect even more chances to win.  Each blogger sets their own rules for when they will choose a winner, so if you missed any of the blogs from Monday through Wednesday you might not be too late to enter!

I plan to select a random winner from all comments on this post on Monday the 25th.

Here's the lineup with links, one last time:

Monday, March 18th:

Kelly - I Have A Notion
SewCalGal

Tuesday, March 19th:

Cindy - Sew Cindy
Trish - AllThingsCrafty.com

Wednesday, March 20th:

Marjorie's Quilting Bee
Margaret - The Average Quilter

Thursday, March 21st:

ME! ME! ME! ;-)

Rebecca Grace - Cheeky Cognoscenti

Fri., March 22nd

Gene Black - Alabama Artist
SewCalGal

 

Once again, I want to extend a HUGE thank-you to SewCalGal and I Have A Notion for organizing this hop and for inviting me to participate, and an even bigger thank-you to Anita Goodesign for graciously agreeing to sponser the event, for supplying the designs featured in all of our blog hop projects, and for donating such generous prizes for our lucky winners.

Well, folks, I had glorious plans of not only finishing the entire table runner yesterday, but I also planned to complete this blog post before my kids got home from school and schedule it to publish automatically at 7 AM.  Since it is now after 2 AM on Thursday morning.  I'm going to do one thing AHEAD of schedule -- I'm going to go ahead and publish it right now and then head straight to bed.  Happy Thursday, everyone, and good luck in the giveaways!  May the best stitcher win.  ;-)

UPDATED 6/17/2013: I didn't make this into a table runner, but I did finally layer it with batting and quilted the piece, and it came out so beautifully that I was doing a happy dance all over the sewing room!  You can see those results in this post.

Tips and Tricks: Custom Drapery Sewing Like the Pros

Faux London Shade Valance, Interlined, with In-Seam Bead Trim

These days, I send most of my clients' drapery projects to my wholesale drapery workroom for fabrication, but when I was first starting my business I sewed all of them myself and I still do small window treatments and accessories like throw pillows for clients occasionally.  My workroom experience makes me a more successful designer, because I have a much better understanding of how things are made and how different fabrics and trims behave than designers who don't sew. You will never see me bringing an upholstery chenille to my workroom, asking them to make it into a swag valance!  Since I had just gotten my new sewing machine right before this order was approved, I decided it would be a great first project on my new Bernina 750 QE.  Remember how I was neurotically matching this large-scale botanical bird print fabric a few weeks ago with the help of my machine's dual feed feature?  Now that the drapery valances are finished, out of my studio, and installed in the client's home, I thought I'd share a few tips and tricks for achieving professional results sewing window treatments at home on a domestic sewing machine. 

Rule #1: Beware Drapery Panels!  I know what you're thinking.  Drapery panels are easy -- they're just rectangles with hems on three sides and pleats at the top!  The problem is that they are HUGE rectangles that have to be cut perfectly straight and perfectly square.  If you cut them crooked, they are going to hang crooked.  For a 102" finished length drapery panel, you will be cutting your fabric into 118" lengths.  Single width panels tend to look very skimpy at the window, even if they are just stationary side panels and not operable, so you will need to seam at least one and one half widths of your 54" wide drapery fabric together for each panel.  Now your rectangles measure approximately 80" x 118" (for 1 1/2 width panels) or 107" x 118" (for double width panels).  A professional drapery workroom has huge padded work tables to accommodate projects of this size without anyone having to crawl around the floor, "tabling" the drapery panels to measure for an exact finished length.  Considering that drapery panels are among the most economically priced custom window treatments to have professionally made, I strongly suggest you leave the panels to the pros.  Believe it or not, the more complicated looking valances or "top treatments" are much more manageable to make at home because you will be dealing with much smaller pattern pieces.  My longest cut lengths for these shade valances were 48", so I was able to roll my fabric out on two side-by-side 3' long utility tables, which were clamped together from the bottom to prevent them from moving apart as I was working.

Cutting 54" Wide Drapery Fabric on TWO 72" long Tables

Rule #2: Stay Away from "Big Four" Pattern Company Patterns!  Trust me, that gorgeous swag valance you saw in Veranda was NOT made with a McCall's Home Dec pattern!  I recommend M'Fay Patterns because they include excellent instructions and detailed yardage guidelines.  Pate-Meadows Designs has some pretty window treatment patterns as well, but they tend to be more complicated and, unless you're planning to make your pattern exactly as shown in the picture, it can be much more difficult to calculate how much of each fabric and trim you will need to complete your project with these patterns.  I didn't use a pattern for my valances, because I've made treatments like this many times before, but M'Fay London Shade pattern #9316 would be very similar.

I know people love to see "before and after" pictures, so here you go!  My clients had recently purchased this home when I met with them, and they wanted to get rid of the previous homeowner's window treatments and paint colors in this kitchen:



Client's Kitchen Before: Dark, Heavy and Dated.  And no, that isn't my Starbucks on the counter...

Here's my design proposal for the client (below).  The old treatment, which spanned from window to window across the top of the French doors, felt heavy and oppressive to me, and emphasized the width of the room while visually lowering the ceiling.  I proposed treating the windows individually with mock shade valances mounted above the windows, just below the crown molding, to open up the space and add a splash of color without that visual weight, and to display decorative plates in the space above the French doors.  

My Design Rendering Showing the New Mock London Shade Valances

Eleria in Graphite, from Robert Allen

This young couple wanted an updated, more tailored look that was elegant without feeling fussy, in a color palette of warm cream, pale blue, with darker wood tones and fixtures. The wife really loved birds and already owned quite a few accessories with botanical or bird themes, so the Eleria linen print fabric from Robert Allen was perfect for her.  The wall color is Sherwin Williams Macadamia, SW 6142.  I've used that color several times before; it's a great neutral that works with a lot of fabrics and doesn't go too gray or too yellow on the wall.

These are called "mock" or "faux" London Shade valances because they are inoperable -- they do not go up and down, and they do not even have enough length to go up and down.  The fabrication of fabric shades is very similar to that of drapery panels, with your decorative face fabric, cotton flannel interlining ( to prevent too much light coming through and washing out your fabric), and a cotton sateen drapery lining sandwiched together and blind-hemmed at the sides. 


Blind-Hemming the Shade Panel Sides

For blind-hemming interlined drapery or shade panels on my Bernina 750 QE, I used Blind Hem Stitch #9 with my #5D Dual Feed Blind Hem foot, just like I would use to hem a pair of slacks.  Since I'm dealing with three layers of fabric and a lot more bulk for a drapery panel, I reduce my presser foot pressure, increase the stitch length to 3.0, and adjust the stitch width to around 4.0-4.3.  It's important to test the stitch width on a scrap sandwich of your actual drapery fabric, lining, and interlining, folded back just like the hem on your actual project, to determine the correct stitch width.  If your stitch is too narrow, you will just catch the lining and your interlining and face fabric will not be secured.  If your stitch is too wide, you will see a big ugly stitch on the right side of your hem.  It's crucial that your thread is perfectly matched to the predominant color of your main drapery fabric for the blind hem.  If you don't want to do a blind hem by machine, your other option would be to hand stitch the hems.  NO top stitching!  If your fabric is any kind of a velvet, hand stitching all of the hems is mandatory.

Kravet Strie Ball Trim in Platinum

Because some of the lining is going to show at the bottom of this type of shade, I cut a 9" deep facing for each shade from my main drapery fabric.  I used a Kravet wrapped bead trim for these shades, which I inserted in the seam at the bottom of each panel so only the bead balls would show, not the header -- I think that looks cleaner and more current.  It gives the illusion that each little thread-wrapped ball was attached individually to the shade.  So the bead trim was basted across the bottom of the shade on the right side, with the trim header entirely inside the seam allowance and a LONG basting stitch to reduce the likelihood of puckering (I think the dual feed helped with this as well), and then the facing strip was sewn to the bottom of the shade, RST.  Then the facing was wrapped around to the lining side of the shade, raw edges pressed under about 1", and STITCHED BY HAND to the lining, just like invisible applique, to hold it in place.  I did not want to take the chance that machine blind hem stitches might go through to the interlining or face fabric, even if I attempted to set my stitch width so that only the lining was caught in the hem, because if the three layers stretch or contract with changes in humidity I would get dimples on the front of the window treatment anywhere that a stitch happened to go through all three layers.  If you absolutely cannot bring yourself to stitch this by hand, I suppose you could use that Steam-A-Seam stuff to fuse it instead if you're sewing something for your own home and you're deathly allergic to hand sewing.  I was doing this for a client, so I stitched this by hand with tiny, invisible stitches, thinking ahead to the applique projects I'm planning for later this year!

At this point, the sides and bottom of the shade valances were finished, but I still had raw fabric edges at the top.  I stitched 1 1/2" down from the top for my board line (used to precisely position the treatment when it came time to staple it to a fabric-wrapped dust board), and then I serged the raw edge for a clean finish with no frayed edges.

What next? More hand sewing!  Little white plastic Roman Shade rings were hand stitched to the back of the shade at the sides and in the center of the pleated areas, at 6" intervals, using an off-white jeans thread (for strength) that matched my linen fabric perfectly, going all the way through all three layers.  It took about an hour to an hour and a half to measure, mark placement, and hand stitch the rings for each shade.  It would have taken MUCH longer if this was an operable shade, because then it would have had about three times as many rings going down the length of each shade.

Some people like to stitch their pleats at the top of these shades prior to board mounting, but I like to make the pleats as I'm mounting the valances so I can make any necessary adjustments to get the fabric taut, but not pulling, in the flat sections.  I mark the top of the shade at the center point, and I make little marks at the center of each pleat.  I make corresponding pencil marks on the top of my fabric-wrapped board at the center of the board and at the center of each pleat, and then I staple the center and ends of the valance to my board.  Next, I create each pleat and staple it in place, and then distribute additional staples as needed along the top of the boards.  Additional fabric wraps over the top of the stapled valance edge so that the top of the valance looks neat and tidy, which is especially important in those situations where the tops of the dust board will be visible from above, as in two-story vaulted ceiling great rooms, etc.

Once the board mounting process was completed, I gathered those rows of rings together and secured them with a larger clip ring to form the soft gathers at the bottom of the shade.  Done -- finally! 

Finished and Installed!

I love how these valances turned out, and more importantly, my client was thrilled with them.  Pardon the mess in the photo, by the way -- ordinarily I would have cleared off the table before taking pictures, but it was an early morning installation and we were rushing so my client could get her children to preschool on time. 

This project reminded me of one of the most important reasons that I continue to occasionally sew some of my clients' window treatments: Every time I do, it takes me at least three times as long as I expected it to, and I realize once again just how much time, labor, and skill goes into every successful drapery treatment.  My drapery workroom is a tremendously valuable resource, and knowing that they can skillfully execute any design I dream up is crucial to the success of my design business, as well as to my own sanity.  Because, when I'm sewing window treatments for clients, I don't get to do ANY of my own projects, and I completely lose my favorite hobby for the entire time that a client's project is in progress.  Sharon and Debra, if you're reading this -- the next one is coming your way!

This week, I need to finish that Dresden Plate quilt for my neice's 5th birthday on MARCH 10th.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend, everyone!

Rebecca's Tips for Sewing In-Seam Rope Cord Trims

If you're looking for a quick decorating fix for your home, you can't beat decorative throw pillows.  Since pillows use so little fabric, they are a great place to splurge on fancy fabrics and trimmings without breaking the bank, and they are not difficult to sew. 

In the Samuel & Sons ad above, all of the top-applied ball fringe trims have been hand-stitched to the pillow covers, and that is absolutely the way any high-end drapery workroom would apply trims with a decorative header.  The rope cord trims, on the other hand, have a twill tape or knitted lip attached to the cord so that they can be sewn successfully by machine.  I don't do a lot of this type of sewing anymore, but I made an exception recently in order to deliver a set of throw pillows to one of my favorite design clients before the holidays when my drapery workroom was backed up.  I know a lot of home sewers have difficulty achieving professional results with decorative rope cord trim, so I thought I'd share a few tips and tricks of the trade.

Kravet Frontier fabric, Habaneros Colorway

When I'm making a throw pillow, I cut two squares of fabric to the size of my pillow insert plus 1", to give me 1/2" seam allowances on all four sides.  I round off my corners slightly using a corner template from M'Fay Patterns.  Next, I like to overcast the raw edges of my pillow top and bottom pieces on my serger, especially when I'm working with a difficult fabric like this one from Kravet -- it has an intentionally wrinkled, puckered surface, and the little motifs that appear to be embroidered are actually a jacquard weave, leaving long floating strands of thread all over the back side of the fabric.  Once the edges were overcast on the serger, this fabric was totally well behaved throughout the rest of the project.



Ruffled Rouche lip cord from Robert Allen

When you're selecting your decorative rope cord, you can save yourself a lot of headaches by avoiding those that are very stiff and/or large diameter.  Why?  Think about it.  You're going to use a zipper foot to try to sew as close to your cord as possible.  If your cord is a rigid 5/8" diameter cylinder and you're sewing it against the flat bed of your sewing machine, there is no way you can get your sewing machine needle to stitch right up against the cord because the cord rolls inward onto the lip in order to lie flat.  With that kind of cord, I just machine stitch as close as I can and then supplement with hand stitching from the right side (after turning the pillow right side out) to ensure the cord is hidden.  With the Ruffled Rouche cord trim I was using for this project, I was able to push it and smoosh it out of the way sufficiently that no additional hand sewing was necessary.

Now, 1/2" seam allowances are standard for home dec sewing, but the header on my rope cord was a lot narrower than 1/2". If I just lined up the cord lip with the edge of my pillow top, my seam allowance would be too small and my pillow cover would finish too large.  I attached the seam guage to my zipper foot, set at 1/2" from the needle, and used that as a guide for my pillow fabric.  Then I just smashed the rope cord trim up against the left side of my zipper foot as tightly as I could as I stitched the trim to the pillow front.  Oh, and I did use a longer stitch length for this, to reduce puckering. 

Cord Ends Unraveled and Woven Together, Ready for Stitching

I should also mention that, when I start sewing on a rope cord, I try to stop and start in an inconspicuous place, on the bottom of the pillow between the corner and the start of the zipper.  I leave the first few inches of trim loose as I begin stitching, and when I get all the way around the pillow I leave a few inches of trim loose to overlap the starting point.  I carefully unravel the trim at both ends and weave the two ends together (this is easier with some trims than with others), pulling the yarn tails into the seam allowances and flattening them as much as possible.  Then I simply stitch across the yarn tails to secure the cord join.

Stitching Across the Yarn Tails to Join the Cord Ends

After Securing the Joined Ends, Trim the Yarn Tails Even with the Seam Allowance

Ta da!  When this pillow was finished, it was impossible to tell where the cord join was.

A few more tips: After I sew the cording to the pillow top, I insert my invisible zipper and then I sew all the way around to secure the pillow front to the pillow back, right sides together.  Then I flip the pillow over and sew around the perimeter again from the opposite side -- this helps get even closer to the cord.

Unfortunately, I was rushing to get these pillows delivered to my client and I forgot to take pictures of the finished pillows once they were stuffed.