Category Archives: fusing

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!

What Can You Design with Embroidery Stencils?

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My friend, Christen Brown, gave me a challenge recently. She sent me a set of her latest embroidery stencils from the Darling Motif Collection and asked to give them a test drive. Challenge accepted!

I’ve never used embroidery stencils before. My usual method of creating hand embroidery designs is to improvise without marking the fabric. But these stencils are so sweet! It wasn’t difficult to come up with a design and mark a piece of my hand-dyed silk fabric using a fine chalk pencil.


This scene from my garden depicts actual events. Our bird friend is thinking, “How am I going to ever fit into that tiny door on the birdhouse?”

After tracing the stencil shapes. The silk fabric is fused to a wool batting using Misty Fuse, a lightweight fusible web.

The hand embroidery follows the stencil lines. I’m using my hand-dyed size 12 pearl cotton threads in a variety of colorways. To outline the shapes, I used chain stitches and stem stitches. The handy French knot makes dots.

Should I stop here? I think not! More stitching to come.

Giveaway Tuesday #4

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Are you a messy fuser? Do you get fusible web stuck to your ironing surface and lament the errors of your ways?

Then maybe you need a Teflon sheet to protect your ironing surface from that sticky fusible web mess.

Here you see a handy Teflon pressing sheet saving my ironing board from the glue. You could be a lucky winner of that very Teflon sheet this week!

In celebration of my first online class on Creative Spark, called Little Bird and Daisies! I’m giving away items for the workshop every Tuesday until the end of the year. Leave a comment below, and you may be the lucky winner of today’s giveaway!