Adventures in Cricut-ing

May 18, 2018May 18, 2018 | wildboho

This week I’ve been procrastinating on a bigger project by working on several smaller, not-super-important-to-get-finished-right-away projects!!!

There are lots of features that I haven’t touched yet with my Cricut Maker and so this was the week to try two of them: writing with a washable fabric marker and using the bonded fabric blade to cut Heat n Bond-ed fabric.

Both were a success!

First of all, the washable fabric pen. I wanted to have several lines of text printed on fabric that I will then embroider. In Design Space, I was able to customize the text (by the way, the new feature to curve text is amazing!)

If you look super closely, you’ll see that I lost an i because I didn’t realize it wasn’t attached when I hit Go! That is easily fixable and will remind me next time to check what is printing before I actually print it!

I was also worried that the fabric pen would somehow bleed on the fabric and my words wouldn’t be clear, but that didn’t happen and they are crisp and clear and ready to stitch!

Here’s my Instagram story showing my first try!

So then on to the bonded fabric blade. I wanted to cut several flowers for this collage hoop:

Normally, I sketch out what I want to cut on Heat n Bond and then iron it to the fabric and cut from there. So this time I wanted to see if it would be any quicker to set-up a bunch of flower shapes in Design Space and then cut them all at once.

Using the bonded fabric blade, I ironed the Heat n Bond to the fabric and then placed the fabric face down (heat n bond side up) and cut my flowers.

I even timed my efforts to see how quickly these would cut! (1 minute and 7 seconds, in case you were wondering!!)

So there you have it! Now I should probably stop procrastinating and get on with my other projects!

This post does contain affiliate links. It also contains lots of opinions, all of which are mine!

AGF Rayon Blog Tour

October 16, 2017 | wildboho

Welcome to week 2 of the Art Gallery Fabrics Rayon Blog Tour! Check out the hashtag #agfrayonbloghop for the beautiful projects made from these soft and buttery rayons!

Buttery?! Can that really describe a fabric?! It can! In fact, its the only way I can describe how absolutely soft and smooth these rayons are! If I were a maker of clothing instead of embroiderer of fabric, these would absolutely be a staple of my fabric stash!

Being thinner than a quilting cotton, which is what I’m used to using for embroidery, I wasn’t sure what I was in for when I began this project.

Note: It’s a really good idea when you’re not sure how your fabric will react to adhesives and the high heat of an iron, to test a swatch and make sure your fabric is not at risk of being ruined.

I’m excited to share what I made with my April Rhodes rayons, not having worked with rayons much before this. I loved the challenge of straying from the comfortable world of quilting cottons and venturing into the sleek world of rayons! And, you didn’t expect me to whip up a skirt or dress, right?! Okay, good, because I didn’t!

Fabric designs from April Rhodes make me feel like a world traveler. To me, they embody the spirit and colors and visuals of exploration and adventure. I wanted to capture that sense of adventure in my project, the Polaroid Photo hoop.

Combining the rayons with quilting weight cotton worked really, really well. If anything, stitching though layers of fabric (when one of those layers is a rayon!), went better than I had planned. Working delicate stitches on several layers of cotton can be tedious at times, but the thinner weight of the rayon worked great with the stitches and beads and sequins that I layered onto the fabric.

Here’s a closeup of each Polaroid picture:

I love how photos, and especially Polaroid photos, capture a moment in time. These “photos” of fabric have a vintage vibe that captures the essence of exploration.

Working with the patterns of the fabric, I embellished with like colors in my favorite Eleganza Threads and with one of the brand new seed bead palettes from Fusion Beads. I love using seed beads and jumped at the chance to try out a hand selected palette of bead colors! This one is Autumn Colors and went perfectly with my fabrics.

*Note: these are size 8 seed beads. If you are new to using beads in your embroidery, I would suggest starting with a size 8 or the slightly larger size 6 seed beads.

I hope you enjoyed my stop on the rayon blog tour! Be sure to check out the links below to see the beautiful variety of projects created with Art Gallery Fabrics Rayon!

MONDAY, OCTOBER 9 – CRISTY @LOVEYOUSEW_ | Blog here

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10– NICOLE @MODERNHANDCRAFT | Blog here

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11 – SARAH @SARIDITTY | Blog here

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12 – JESY @NEEDLE_INK_AND_THREAD | Blog here

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13 – DANYELLA @MADESEWMODERN | Guest Blog here

MONDAY, OCTOBER 16 – NICHOLE @WILDBOHO | Blog here

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 – CYNTHIA @CNYTZ51 | Guest blog here

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18 – VICKI @ORCHIDOWLQUILTS | Blog here

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19 – AMANDA @PINKMANDARIN.HANDMADE | Guest Blog here

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20 – JENN @JENNROSSOTTI | Blog here

Boho Stitch Along. Week no. 11

March 12, 2017March 13, 2017 | wildboho

Welcome back for Week no. 11! If you are just beginning a piece for the #BohoSAL, check out my previous posts here. And if you are new to embroidery and want to learn the basics, check out my embroidery book, Boho Embroidery for everything you need to get started!

I think by now you know that I love to switch between projects a lot! I have several #BohoSAL hoops going and I work on them depending on what mood i’m in and what other projects I have going for the week!!

This week, I started on a piece of fabric from Flaurie & Finch. I met the ladies of Flaurie and Finch at Quilt Market in October and, besides being super nice, they haven’t designed a fabric yet that I don’t love!

I also really wanted to try out this stunning Silk ‘n Colors thread from The Thread Gatherer. This is a 12-ply thread which means you can use anywhere from 1-12 strands of it in your project. I chose to use all 12 strands just to see how well I could stitch with it. Let me tell you, this thread is amazing. I had no trouble with tangles, the thread easily went through my fabric and the end result was a noticeable raised stitch.

This particular deep purple fabric is from Flaurie and Finch’s Shiny Objects collection and it is called “Menagerie.” I love a fabric that has a healthy dose of metallic shimmer! Butterflies are always a bonus!

So there’s my #BohoSAL for the week. Here’s what else i’ve been up to…

I was excited to be featured on Sue Spargo’s site last week…you can check out the feature here as well as check out the thread pack that I curated in my favorite colors! P.S. You can also find my book on her site now too!

If you’ve been wanting to try Eleganza thread but aren’t sure where to start, the colors that I picked for the Wildboho Eleganza thread pack are a great mix of saturated colors that I use for just about everything!

It goes especially well with the brand new upcoming Alison Glass line, Chroma Handcrafted. Seriously, these colors!!!

Speaking of colors, I’ve had the chance to work with another gorgeous fabric line from Dana Willard (on instagram at @made_everyday) for Angles which is a new-ish division of Art Gallery Fabrics. Dana’s fabrics are just beautiful and colorful and everything you want as a base for embroidery! (P.S. you Boho Stitch Along-ers…any of these fabrics would be really fun if you are looking for a new #BohoSAL piece!)

Her line is called Fiesta Fun and you’ve seen peeks of the hoop I’ve been creating this past week on Instagram.

First off, check out some of these colorful prints! (These are just a few of the prints from this line. For more fabrics and some gorgeous inspiration, check out Dana’s page describing this new line here.)

These bright colors are just what I wanted to be stitching as winter winds down!

For this hoop, I began with the blue and white fabric and then added the first bit of color from flowers that I cut from the colorful version of the same fabric.

Now, I know some of you are all about fussy cutting and will see nothing wrong with what I’ve done here, but others will look at this cut fabric and see nothing but waste!!! It had to be done, though!!!

Once I cut out the flowers that I needed and attached them to the fabric, I could begin adding even more texture and color with my embroidery.

And here’s the finished hoop…I just love how this turned out!!!

I’ll leave you with all that color inspiration for today!

Have a great week of stitching!

-nichole

Heartland Fabrics Blog Stop

November 17, 2016November 17, 2016 | wildboho

I was asked by Amy Friend of During Quiet Time to join in with a handful of other makers for the Heartland Fabrics Blog Tour. Have you checked out Amy’s Gilmore Girls coffee cup sew along yet? Pause here so you can go check out her character inspired coffee cups! Is anyone else as excited for the Netflix reboot as I am?!

But back to Heartland Fabrics! Designed by Pat Bravo for Art Gallery Fabrics, these fabrics are a muted palette of Scandinavian inspired designs. I say muted, because I’m usually all about the color…the more saturated the better! It was a challenge that I welcomed to tone down my usual color palette and work with the palest shades of mint, ivory and pink!

Choosing my threads was easy, having picked up several shades of the newest Eleganza Perle Cotton thread colors at Quilt Market. The newest colors (available very soon!) are based on a more primitive color palette and were just the colors I needed for stitching on these Heartland Fabrics. For the delicate bit of sparkle, I used Cosmo Shabon-dama, which I also picked up at Quilt Market.

I chose to create a hoop art trio from my fabric selections.