Quilts – Nancy Bronstein

Quilt As You Go Kitchen Mitts

How To Design Your Own Quilt Blocks For Machine Embroidery with Quilt As You Go Method. Part 1

This is obviously one of the oddest looking oven mitts right? Well it is designed to loop over your oven handle when “resting” and your hands are slipped into the gloves on either end when in use.

double kitchen mitt — Double kitchen mitt hanging on stove.

This mitt was designed by me starting with Premier +2 digitizing software for machine embroidery. I used the Quilt Block Assistant wizard which really made the process easy. I then machine embroidered each block using a quilt as you go method by putting the batting and backing in the hoop before embroidering. After that I added the sashing and borders and made the mitts and attached them.

My next post will be on how to use the Quilt Block Assistant. Stay tuned…

Mystery Quilt

I have a couple of sewing friends (friends that share my love of sewing). We decided to try our hand at making a mystery quilt. For those of you, not in the know with quilt jargon, a mystery quilt is one where the pattern maker walks you through constructing a quilt, block by block, and what the finished product looks like remains hidden until the final reveal at the end. Since I did not know if I would like said mystery quilt, I used only fabrics from my stash. Which I feel worked out well. However the pattern I chose was for a double/queen size. I just ran with that not looking at the actual dimensions. Sigh. 64 X 64″ on our queen bed looks like a tiny yarmulke on a big man’s head-like you know it has some significance but adding warmth to the head is certainly not happening. I then started to cook up ideas to add both width and length.

quilt border — Mystery Quilt border with embroidery

I decided to do a turquoise strip and a lime green. Then I made some flying geese and alternated them to form this effect which reminds me of a big ribbon. Then another lime green and a turquoise strip.
Today’s task is to get it pin basted to the batting and backing. I got it about 3/4 done and ran out of safety pins. Even though I have about 3000 of them. Another sigh. We live in a small town, we have no quilt shop and our only department store recently went out of business. Maybe the grocery store?
Addendum-The picture above was taken after basting and doing some decorative stitches with size 12 thread.

My First Appliquéd Quilt

Last March I went to the MQX (quilting) expo in Manchester NH. This is an event where thousands of middle aged women and 3 men attend classes on every facet of quilting. Ok, there were maybe 5 men and a few lost husbands wandering around. I took 2 classes from Mark Sherman-one of the 5 men. One of the classes was on making “stained glass” quilts. Mark is a big fan of Louis Tiffany and he has made some incredibly beautiful quilts. The above is the end product from that class (many hours later). Below is the picture that inspired the quilt. This was my first experience doing an appliquéd quilt. I had done reverse appliqué on a coat (ala Alabama Chanin).

Mark is a great teacher. He is warm, funny, and very generous in sharing his knowledge. If you get a chance don’t hesitate to sign up for one of his classes.

Resources-

-Apliquick-fabric turning video-Applique tool tutorial

-machine applique tutorial- machine applique tutorial

-machine applique video-machine applique video