Category Archives: workshops

Needle Know How and a Give-away

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You’ll find a lot of hand embroidery information in my new online class, Fused Art Quilts: Tiny Homes. In this class, you’ll learn how to create improvisational fused art quilts and how to embellish them as well. I show you how to make various embroidery stitches and discuss thread weights and needle sizes too.

Why talk about needle sizes? It’s important to match your thread with the correct size of hand embroidery needle. Needles that are too small for the thread are difficult to thread and difficult to pull through the fabric. If a needle is too large for the thread, the smaller thread will not be able to fill in the giant hole the needle makes. Here’s a simple chart to help you match your hand embroidery needle to the correct size of pearl cotton thread.

So match your needle with your thread and happily stitch away. Here’s a simple chart to help you match your hand embroidery needle to the correct size of pearl cotton thread.

Win a Set of Hand Embroidery Needles!

Would you like to win a packet of hand embroidery needles like I use in Fused Art Quilts: Tiny Homes?

Then please leave a comment below and you may be the lucky winner!

An Embroidery Give-Away

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One of the embroidery techniques used in my new online class, Fused Art Quilts: Tiny Homes, is repetition of a stitch. Like the cross-stitches, straight stitches, and blanket stitches in the fields above, repeating a stitch builds pattern across the surface of fabric.

And I’m happy to report that Christen Brown, author of the Hand Embroidery Dictionary, agrees with me! Here’s a page from Christen’s new book. It shows how she uses my hand-dyed threads to make netted and laced stitches for patterning on fabric.


Her new book, Hand Embroidery Dictionary, shows diagrams on how to make over 500 embroidery stitches. Detailed illustrations show colorful variations and suggest how you might use the stitches in your artwork.

Win Christen’s New Book!

Would you like to win an eBook version of Christen Brown’s Hand Embroidery Dictionary?

Leave a comment below and you may be the lucky winner.

The giveaway for the free eBook, Hand Embroidery Dictionary, will close on Saturday, Sept. 26 at midnight. Winner of the eBook prize will be notified by email within one week of the giveaway closing. 

Fusing Rules and a Winner!

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The Chicago School of Fusing Rowenta Sports Arena

Be Tacky!

One of the fusing rules I repeat often in my new online class, Fused Art Quilts: Tiny Homes, is fuse tacking. What’s that, you ask?

Fuse tacking is adding just a small amount of heat from the iron for a short amount of time to fused fabrics together. Fusible web is a heat activated glue and too much heat for too long of a time burns the glue into the fabric. Over fused fabric becomes stiff, it’s difficult to stitch and may fall off the design.

So be tacky! Fuse tack your fabric shapes into place when designing your composition.

You can learn even more about creating art quilts by joining my online class on Creative Spark, Fused Art Quilts: Tiny Homes.

And be sure to stay tuned for giveaways as I celebrate the opening of my new class. The winner of our first giveaway, this coveted T-shirt, is….. Liz K.

Congratulations Liz. Press on!