Broderie Perse

Well, it took me about an hour but I was able to get the tension straightened out on my electric machine yesterday.  I had to fiddle with both the top tension as well as the bobbin tension.  I didn't get my door hangers sewn together but at least I don't have to mess with the machine tomorrow.

I thought I'd talk a little bit today about my goals for Crazy Quilt Quarterly magazine.  First and foremost, I took it on because I wanted to continue on with what Pat Winter started.  She created a beautiful way for stitchers to share projects, ideas, tutorials, patterns and eye candy with other Crazy Quilters.  Let's face it,, we can't have time to stitch and have time to be online looking around constantly.  So the magazine gives everyone a chance to share with each other and learn from each other in a really beautiful condensed format. 

Another goal, a very long term goal and perhaps not even a do-able goal, is to end the debate over whether Crazy Quilting is Quilting or Embroidery.  When I was talking to brick and mortar store owners in regards to the 2015 Crazy Quilt Calendar, the quilt shops looked at crazy quilting as embroidery and the needlework shops looked at it as quilting.  This story I'm sure is quite familiar to many long time crazy quilters.  Neither niche wants to accept it.  I'd like to help quilters to see it as quilting with embroidery and needleworkers to see it as embroidery on quilts.  Again, this may not be do-able or maybe it is.  Rome wasn't built in a day, right?

So in thinking about what steps could be taken to accomplish this mission, Broiderie Perse came to mind.  If you've been following Allison Aller for awhile, you're probably aware of what Broiderie Perse is.  It's really not as fancy as it sounds!  It's simply a type of applique work.  It has a long and interesting history which you can find here at Women Folk.

Since applique work is quite accepted in the quilting community, I thought we would start there.  I have some beautiful chinz fabrics with gorgeous florals on them.  All courtesy of my favorite decorating store who kindly and generously gives me their outdated fabric sample books.  I decided to start working this technique into my crazy quilt pieces and hopefully, other crazy quilters will follow (hint, hint)!

The piece I'm working on right now is my block for the 2016 Crazy Quilt Calendar.  I don't want to share the entire block at this time but I do want you see what I'm doing with the floral piece.

If you're not aware of this technique, I ironed my floral fabric to a piece of fusible web.  I cut the flower pattern out and ironed it down onto my block.  Using YLI silk thread, I did a tiny blanket stitch all the way around.  So not only is it fused, but it's also stitched in place.

To further secure (decorate) it, I'm highlighting the flowers with Kreinik metallic threads.  I'm using the #4 braids.  I've only just started on this step so I will share an update when I have the highlighting complete.

Again, this is not new.  Allie has used this technique many times on her beautiful quilts.  It looks more difficult than it actually is.  In fact, the blanket stitching can be done on the sewing machine.  I love the hand work but there's nothing wrong with sewing machine work either.

Okay, so where am I going with this?  I would like to encourage all the crazy quilters out there to give it a try!  It's an awesome design element and an excellent (easy) embellishment!  I will be using more of this techique on future projects.  But I would like to see other crazy quilters try this and send me photos for the magazine!!!  Let's work together on this goal, doable or not, let's give it a try!  One step at a time!

Okay, with all that said, I would like to point you in the direction of Gerry Krueger's blog.  She was asked to identify some old sewing tools!  I love the history of anything but esp. the history of sewing items.  So please hop over and read this post!!!