Give An Astonishing Look To Your Quilts With Beautiful Embroidery Designs

Posted by embroideryquilter on May 8th, 2013

I began my sewing career making pillows in sewing class in junior high school. I had dabbled at hand-sewing long before that, but no one took the time to really teach me what to do. My family of avid sewers just told me when I did things wrong. That is not helpful when learning to sew. But, from pillows, we moved on to drawstring bags and, finally, clothing. That was the only sewing class I ever took, but it opened the world to me.

After sewing for about 10 years, I took up the old-fashioned art of making quilts. Sewing all those straight seams seemed so easy after easing in sleeves and adding collars or zippers. It spoke to my very organized soul with its very orderly process. I gave up fashion sewing to pursue quilting non-stop, and quilting supplies quickly replaced fashion fabric in my stash.

In regular sewing, it was known that there were correct ways to do certain things, but even master seamstresses are always on the lookout for shortcuts and quick ways to do difficult tasks. When making quilts, however, even the quick methods had so many rules of the “right” way to do things that made my sewing heart weep. What happened to the normal rules of sewing? Well, it turns out that most non-sewers think that quilting is easier than fashion sewing, which is both true and false.

Quilting actually IS sewing, just of a different type. Straight seems are easy, but the accurate seam width is difficult to master. And, quilters don’t use normal sewing terms like “ease” and “fit” and so make their quilting career painful and frustrating. Pull those seams into line, ladies; it really won’t hurt anything. Rules are made to be broken. If they don’t make sense, it’s okay to ignore them!

When quilt embroidery became more popular, I thought that the purists would have a field day with how wrong it was. For some, it is not proper but, for others, it is not much different than using a long-arm setup to create beautiful thread work on the quilt. I was surprised and happy to be wrong. In fact, machine embroidery quilt designs are quite the rage! I have more than my fair share of them myself and find embroidery quilting to be a very pleasant change of pace from the physical work of using my long-arm.

What I like best about quilt embroidery is that it is a lot easier for the casual quilter. Creating fancy feathers or intricate medallions can be very difficult without lots and lots of practice. Instead, with embroidery quilting, anyone can stitch these beautiful designs with the help of their embroidery machines. And, they don’t have to break a sweat to do so. Bonus!

If you want to learn to quilt, and have no sewing experience, it can be done. Take it slow and easy and learn as much as you can, never forgetting that it’s not as easy as some make it out to be. Take a fashion sewing class if possible to learn terms and techniques that will make your quilting fun. Add new techniques as your skill level increases. And, always remember that there is only one right way to do any of it; your way!