Seen and completed in one day - a world's record!

One of the things I've always admired (and been nervous to try to do) is free motion quilting / embroidery.  This morning on Quilting Arts TV there was a short segment on this type of thing that I thought just might be a good beginner project and as an artistic bonus it also involved painting on fabric.

Basic steps were to draw a simple picture (so simple that I copied their dragonfly idea) copy that off onto a piece of fabric which is then placed on top of batting and free motion quilted. Once you do that you simply dilute acrylic paint 6 parts to 1 and go to town painting.  The paint does bleed but I liked the effect.  Once it dries you layer that piece onto felt and use a decorative thread and a nice stitch to stitch to the felt.   

 Thank goodness it was supposed to have a stitchy-sketchy look but if I ever get good at this one day I know I'll probably look back on this example and get dry heaves. Hehehe. It was fun though.  Now I need to take a drawing class because that dragonfly was stretching the limits of my skills in that area and even so it  was copied from the TV show.

Hey, why don't you just go...

 

This is a project that I found on the Bernina blog.
All of the letters I used were purchase from Embroidery Libary.  There are tons of pretty fonts to choose from so if you are interested just take a look and pick three.  I looked for large sized monograms that were approx. 6" tall.
 

 

I did use stretcher bars in two sizes - 12" and 28" and used some wood glue in the joints because I saw that tip on another blog.  The only thing holding this up is 3 thumb tacks in the wall.  Light weight, easy, and a handy reminder.