Pieced Brain

All about quilting, knitting, crochet, embroidery, free tutorials, quilting and crafting book reviews.

Embroidery

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I was thinking about my friend Diana this morning. She does beautiful embroidery - delicate, with gorgeous colors, and very precise. It reminds me of the work my mother used to do when I was growing up - Brazilian 3D embroidery. So, I looked around the house for some of that work, but only came across these hand towels I purchased in the Northeast of Brazil. Aren't they great? [Oh, I love when blogger rotates pictures for you! $%%$#@^!!!] … [Read more...] about Embroidery

Wednesdays

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 Wednesday is my favorite day of the week, which is when a few of us from the quilt guild get together and hand quilt a project. Yes, the modern version of the old quilting bee happens at my friend Sue's beautiful home by the Wasatch mountains in Utah. We take turns bringing lunch and desserts, and have a blast as we chat, laugh, and quilt for hours. My husband calls it crazy work (what? you could do it faster on your machine! he says). I call it a weekly retreat... … [Read more...] about Wednesdays

“Thin” fat quarters

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When I buy fat quarters I expect them to be cut to their exact size, 18" x 22". I recently went to a quilt store and bought $55 worth of off-white, light beige fat quarters for a project. As I started cutting them, surprise! I realized that many were missing more than an inch at a corner, resulting in lots of wasted fabric. I also had to buy more fat quarters. Not happy! :-( Does this happen to you? Fat quarters can be folded in many different ways - should we open them before we buy them? Ai, … [Read more...] about “Thin” fat quarters

Medallion

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I love to start a quilt from a random block, and build from there. This time I will try to place pieced borders all around this star block we worked on in a QuiltSmart class. I have already added simple borders all around with another black and leafy green print. I went back to the store and got more of the black, but they did not have the green fabric. I may have fabrics in my stash that will work, although my guess is that I will keep to variations of these two colors. Next step is to figure … [Read more...] about Medallion