Sew Expo ~ Day 1

Today was the first class day at Sewing & Stitchery Expo in Puyallup, WA.  There is no shopping at the vendor booths today, only hands on classes.  It was billed as "The Biggest Sewing Party in America!" this year.  I always look forward to attending the classes there.   Today I took Libby Lehmans's Pinatita Quilt in the Bernina class room.  We were sewing on the new B 580 machines - very nice machines, BTW.   The class kit was made up of Ricky Tims hand dyed batiks, solid black fabric and a firm stabilizer  (all cut to size) and a spool of  Rainbows (variegated thread) and three spools of Ricky Tims Art Studio Colors (bright solids)  from Superior Threads.  Using the circular tool maker attachment, we first created our appliques, cut  out the appliques and then proceeded to have fun playing with the many decorative stitches on our machines and different colors of threads.  This was my favorite class at Sew Expo this year.  It was so much fun to sit and play with the different stitches on the machines. 

Hints:
1.)    Have a piece of fabric (I think a similar colored fabric is more helpful than natural or white muslin to see what the stitch and thread color choice will look like) and stabilizer to try out your stitches on first on.  Don't forget to try out  some of the alphabet stitches, they can be interesting also.
2.)  You may need to adjust your top tension down to a lower number to get a prettier stitch.  This is one of those times when you want your top thread to come to the backside of the fabric.  Test each stitch first.
3.)  If your machine has a "Combi mode or Memory" create some stitch combinations.
4.)  If your machine will allow you to change stitch width, stitch length or elongate the stitch, play with those features on your machine to change how your stitch looks. 

 I can't wait to start again on these blocks using this technique.

Pinatita Quilt

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