A New Year and a fresh start

How time flies! I can’t believe it has been almost two months since my last blog post. I am truly sorry for not documenting my creations, and definitely intend to keep my friends posted.  The year started with a beautiful collection “Baroque”. I’ve always loved the intricate meandering patterns of Baroque designs and always wanted to re-create them in my own way. Baroque designs were originally heavily embroidered motifs, often done with gold thread. In my representation, I tried to capture the same but with a “light weight” hand in the actual embroidery. The final look is the same but with a definite twist. Baroque is another step towards pursuing my dream of converting vintage embroideries to machine embroidery format for our future generations.

Continuing along the same lines, my second collection for the year is one that I’ve worked upon, on and off, through the last several years. The concept was always there but something was not clear. I hate to admit defeat…and that is the reason I had kept the designs on a back burner, until the perfect method just happened! Really! The method came out of the blue to me….I have witnesses, LOL.

One of my dearest wish was to re-create the Double Wedding Ring Quilt pattern on the embroidery machine. I had tried various methods over the years to re-create the pattern but the possibility always eluded me! No more, no more… The Double Wedding Ring Quilt pattern has been referred to as many other names in the past and reading on the history was so very enlightening and surprising. I had always thought that the pattern existed from quite a long ways back, only to find out that the actual pattern and name came out around the 1920′s. A great online read can be found here.

I learned a lot during my visit to the Baltimore Museum of Arts, which has become one of my stomping grounds!  One of the best and most delightful escapades for me on the East Coast, are my visits to the hundreds of Museums in the area. Sadly, some are not open on weekends…but I do enjoy learning and seeing the vintage textiles and arts.

As much as I wanted to name the collection by it’s original, the name “Lovers’ Knot” kept coming to my mind. A lovers’ knot could be an engagement or a clasping of hands suggesting marriage, or the ritualistic custom of tying of the knot. I liked it and more so when I decided to add a bit of meandering vines with hearts border design to the collection. The idea came to me while perusing the quilts at the Baltimore Museum, and it was a perfect addition to this collection.

The applique method is applied in creating the arc’d pieces forming the Wedding ring and a new technique of quilt as you go is an added bonus. The Lovers’ Knot collection is almost complete. My original plan was to release it before Valentine’s Day, but I am going to have to be satisfied that at least I released it during the month of February!