Trials and Tribulations of Mini Irons

When you are working with machine embroidered applique using precut/prefused applique shapes, you really have to use a mini iron to fuse the shapes inside placement outlines.  If you’re dealing with intricate shapes, you need a mini-iron that can deal with delicate appendages because there is simply no room for error in getting those applique shapes inside the placement outlines.  Here’s an example of some placement outlines that need to be filled accurately:

Years ago, I bought  a Clover Mini Iron (I can’t recall what I was going to use it for at the time), and here’s a shot of what my first mini iron looked like:

This version was not a very good mini iron.  First, the little dial on the handle where you chose which level of heat is desired simply fell off the second time I used the iron…not a good sign!  Second, the little iron rest (shown above the iron in this photo) is not only worthless, but it’s dangerous.  I say this because it’s so lightweight that the metal part of the rest easily changes its position and the iron can fall out of it very easily.  The long metal shaft gets very, very hot and it’s easy to burn one’s self, and lastly, the on/off switch that is on the cord itself has some wiring issues.  I know that because over the course of a couple of years, I owned 2 of this version of the Clover mini iron and both of them repeatedly gave me small shocks as I was holding the iron.  The problem, however, is that the concept of the iron and what it’s able to do were very good and also necessary for a number of quilt-related tasks, so I couldn’t just not use the mini iron.  This led me to replace my original mini irons with a somewhat updated version, shown below:

This one had an updated switch on the handle to choose the desired heat setting (great) as well as a protective shield around the shaft to minimize the risk of getting burned.  It still has a poorly designed rest and I don’t trust the on/off switch on the cord to last indefinitely, although I haven’t felt any shocks using it.  But, I’ve barely used this version because the protective cover on the shaft obstructs my view so I can’t see placement outlines into which I need to fuse an applique shape.  Here’s what I mean:

This is my view as I’m trying to fuse inside placement outlines.  So, although that shield really is a safety improvement, it’s created a an obstacle in my visual field, so I haven’t used this iron in ages and it’s going to a friend who can use it for something else.  Fortunately, I then found another version of the Clover mini iron that I really love:

This version has the on/off switch and the level of heat all built into the handle-excellent!  The protective rim around the shaft is gone so I can see again!  (I have simply learned never to touch that shaft, I guess much in the same way that a child learns to never touch a burner on the stove.)  I can easily view details of the placement outline and the applique edges as below:

All of these irons have the same problem with the rest, so I’ve found you just need to devise your own work-around.  Mine is an easy rest to make and it allows me to work quickly and not have to put a lot of time/thought/effort into placing my iron into the rest or taking it out.  You can see my rest at the end of my ironing station that sits next to the embroidery machine.  (My ironing station is a piece of scrap plywood covered with1 layer of warm and natural batting covered with 1 layer of cotton sateen; all staple-gunned to the backside.)

You can see that my iron rest is very low-tech, but it works great and can be made from recycled objects.  The square base is cut from scrap plywood.  It needs to be square as this makes it very hard to topple the rest (as compared to having a round bottom.)  The can is an old olive can and it’s  screwed to the wood base from inside the can (I originally hot glued them together but that only held up for a few months), and I filled about the lower 1/3 of the can with pea gravel from outside.  This gives the rest some weight and also allows the very hit tip to sit in something that won’t be problematic if it heats up. ( You could also use something like sand, though.)  Bottom line is I LOVE my mini-iron setup and have been using this version for a year now and couldn’t be happier.  If you bought one of the earlier versions, know that there’s a better version out there and it’s worth giving it a try.  And here’s a shot of that 22 inch block all embroidered, thanks to my Clover Mini Iron:

This block may be familar to you from last year, but I needed to test it out again because I wanted to switch out the edge stitching on the feathers:

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On the Design Wall

This looks a little disjointed, but it will be the center section of a quilt I’m working on and this center section will be roughly 54 inches square.  I’m still designing a  border design that will wrap around it, but there’s a lot I want to do before I even piece this center section together.  These are all machine embroidered applique shapes that were cut from Appli-K-Kutz dies using my Sizzix machine.  Die cutting has completely spoiled me and I wonder what I did for all those years before I knew about it!

There are 2 types of flower blocks in this section.  First up is a 4-patch block of what I’m calling “Flower C:”

There are actually 2 different versions of Flower C.  The shape of the flower and stem are the same, but the way they’re embroidered is different.  Here is Flower C1:  (Don’t you love how creatively I’m naming things?!)

The insides of the petals here have swirls and although my closeup doesn’t show the stem portion, it has some pretty teardrop leaf shapes for internal embroideries.  This is in contrast to Flower C2 below:

You can see that the petals are embroidered differently and you get a tiny glimpse of the stem structure, and it has a different internal embroidery design as well.  Next up is another 4-patch flower block that’s composed of smaller Flower A blocks:

This is a simple flower but I am in love with it’s splayed curviness:

The other 2 block types are not flower-related.  This next block is a new type of wreath block:

I made this block by first stitching out the original swag wreath block that’s used in the “Christmas is Coming Table Topper:”

…but I skipped all the stitching sequences for the swirls, so this left me with a circle composed of swags with an empty center.  I then re-hooped and stitched the 8 1/2 inch diameter feathered wreath inside.  I still have to make 1 more block of this for the bottom center row but this block stitches up pretty quickly.  My last block is the very center block, and there’s only 1 like it in this quilt:

And here’s a closeup of the center embroidered appliques:

My plan is to do some trapuntoed quilting on each of these blocks before they are even pieced together and I’m hoping to start this next week.  Stay tuned…

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Give Away Winner for Ebony Love's New Die Cutting Book

Holy cow!  Between the holidays and having such a long comment period for the giveaway for Ebony’s new book about die-cutting, I totally forgot to draw a winner!  Congratulations to Nancy B from LA as she is the winner of a free copy of The Big Little Book of Fabric Die Cutting Tips! Email me back, Nancy, and we’ll get that book in the mail to you!  If we don’t hear from you in a  week, we’ll need to draw a new winner!

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2012 Christmas Quilt Show

This is my entry to the 2012 Christmas Quilt Show.  It’s a 22 1/2 inch square wall hanging or table topper that was pretty fun to make.  The center block is a machine embroidered applique block that’s embroidered as an easy 4-part split design.  (This is one of the 4 swag wreath block options from this digital file.)  When I first began learning MEA, I was afraid of multi-hooped designs because I figured that I could never get my block aligned correctly from 1 hooping to another, so my designs would always be off.  With my system, you never have to hoop the fabric block because the fabric is always floated on top of the hooped stabilizer.  Because there are cross hairs stitched onto both the fabric and the stabilizer, matching things up from one hooping to the next really couldn’t be easier.  Here’s a shot of  the center block as it’s partially stitched and I’ve just aligned my cross hairs for the next stitch out:

(Do you see those foam pin anchors?  They have pins stuck through them that are piercing the cross hairs on the fabric and the cross hairs on the stabilizer below; this is how you can be assured that everything lines up perfectly.  Those pin anchors hold everything in alignment and free up my hands, so I can easily go in and place a couple of straight pins to hold the stabilizer and fabric together during embroidery.  I remove the foam pin anchors and the pins inside them once I’ve got my other pins in place, and then I return my hoop to the machine.  See what I mean?  Easy as pie!)

Once that center block has been stitched, the corner triangles are embroidered as a 2-part split design (each square holds 2 pairs of mirror image feathers) and then each square is sliced on the diagonal to yield 2 of the corner setting triangles.  Once done,  I attached corner setting triangles on 2 sides opposite one another:

and then once those seams are sewn and pressed, you attach corner setting triangles to the remaining 2 sides.  I designed these triangles to be over-sized so they could be trimmed to a desired size once they were attached to the center block.  I like a wider binding around my quilts, so I trim to a 1/2 inch edge.  A lot of my friends like to trim it down to a 1/4 inch edging. Here’s a shot of it getting a trim:

Once I got it into a quilt sandwich, I started the fun of free motion quilting it:

…and now I’m quilting a larger quilt version of this design:

And here’s something fun for you: be sure to check out SewCalGal’s blog starting tomorrow, 12/1/12.  I’m the guest teacher for the December posting in the 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge.  My post is all about machine quilting border designs and I’m hoping you’ll like it!  If you haven’t been following the 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge, get into it now!  I’m not kidding…SewCalGal has put together a fabulous array of tutorials throughout 2012 and if you’re trying to learn to FMQ, this is a must-see.  To access all of the FMQ Challenge tutorials, go here.

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A Little More White on White and Divorcing a Quilt

I had a little time to play around some more stitching on white cotton sateen fabric with a shiny polyester white thread and I have to say that there is something so yummy about the texture this pairing creates!  I think it might be impossible to stitch out a design that didn’t look good with this thread/fabric combo, although some designs reveal much more beautiful textures than others.  I’ll start with “ok” designs and end up with the one I like best.  First up is a variation on “seashells:”

It looks very similar to the original Seashell design, but there’s a slight difference.  Instead of repeatedly echoing the first teardrop, I only echoed partially on one side.  This creates kind of a “hook-like” line instead of a pure echo.  This create more movement in the design and also leaves some very small areas with nothing in them, and I think I like having those “blank” zones.  Next up is another variation on swirls:

The difference here is that this really is just freehand swirls done in a continuous line; I did not allow myself to “fill in” any of the spaces that formed between them.  I’m on the fence on this one and thinking that I might end up going back and filling the blank zones with pebbling or something else.  The last one is my favorite.  In my mind, it’s  kind of a version of McTavishing, except I forbade my self to put any swirls or swirl-like structures into it, and instead periodically threw in some units of “plumify it” types of plumes.  I really like the texture created by this one:

I think I’ll definitely be using this one again!  And on a more somber note, have you ever become so frustrated and disenchanted with a quilt that you just wanted to divorce it?  OMG, I’ve wanted to set this one  on fire for a number of days now, but I’ve invested so much time into it that I’m going to finish it.  I’m shipping it off to a longarmer tomorrow to have it basted so I can quilt it, but I’m so glad it will be out of my sight/hands for a few days.

If nothing else, it will keep me from doing something drastic to it!

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