A to Z of Machine Embroidery and Quilting

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8 short years ago, if you wanted to make a quilt featuring appliqué, you had to print a template, trace the template onto fusible webbing (making sure you remembered to mirror the template if it wasn’t already mirrored), apply the fusible webbing to the back of your appliqué fabric and then cut the shapes out using a pair of scissors. Definitely time to watch a good movie or get together with some friends for a good chat (and maybe a glass of wine!).

If there was any complexity in your quilt, preparing and cutting all the appliqué shapes could take hours – or even days! The Heather Feather (quilt which I created back in 2009) has a little over 600 appliqué shapes on it – it took about 24 hours to prepare and cut all of them.

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Stitched on a BERNINA 830

Electronic cutting machines, such as the Silhouette Cameo and the Brother Scan N Cut, use SVG files (provided with most, soon to be all, design collections from Sarah Vedeler Designs) and allow you to cut your appliqué shapes very precisely – and reasonably fast too. As a designer, I love the flexibility of being able to provide electronic cutting files. I can design something today and you can be cutting it out tomorrow (OK, maybe in an ideal world!). No manufacturing lead times. Best of all, no limits to the complexity of the design.

Electronic cutting machines were originally introduced into the crafting world to cut paper, but they do an excellent job of cutting fabric too. To learn how to use SVG files with a Silhouette Cameo click here. To learn how to use SVG files with a Brother Scan N Cut click here. The Silhouette Cameo has an easy way to do fussy cutting which can be used to create all sorts of secondary designs in your appliqué. Click here to learn how. For some best practice tips on how to prepare your appliqué fabric for cutting with an electronic cutting machine, click here.

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What I love about this collection… The Garden Party designs were created long before Sarah Vedeler Designs came into existence. You could say it was during my first (mostly unsuccessful) attempt at being in business as a designer! Then one day, someone who I had sent a sample book to many years ago found that same sample book and said “Let’s do something with these designs, they’re super cute!”. Hence the rebirth of Garden Party. Incidentally, the rebirth of Garden Party was the first of my design collections to include SVG files for use with an electronic cutting machine!

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I love the pots of flowers included in this design collection. Make your own arrangements from the individual designs, or use the preconfigured arrangements that can be stitched in a single hooping (if you have a big enough hoop for the larger ones!)

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