Barn Dance

Vicky Lawrence of Prairie's  Edge Patchworks has a series of 12 quilt patterns titled Barn Dance that make a full-size quilt.  They were originally designed for red work by hand.  Now she is having them digitized and they will be available for embroidery machines with very large hoops.  Some barns have two hoopings and some have three.  You can see the alignment marks in this stitchout.  The marks are to be removed after stitching the entire design. The embroidery patterns should be available in the next few weeks. She has allowed me to test-stitch her patterns. 

Embroidery on Hankies

I spent all morning and half of the afternoon embroidering on these hankies.  They all are very old and the fabric needed delicate handling but had to withstand the embroidery needle.  I practiced on some flimsy fabric that I had and decided to try Terial Magic, a stabilizing fabric spray.  I had read that it causes yellowing and I got some water stain looking spots.  But it gets very, very stiff and allows the stitches to lay on the fabric without pulling.  All of the Terial Magic washed out without a problem. I will have to try the stuff again on another project.