Holiday In-the-Hoop Wall Hangings

By Vanessa Fromm
on March 10, 2022

These holiday wall hangings were one of my first attempts to include quilting in the block. We lost my mom at the end of 2020 (not to Covid) and it was very hard as my parents had been married for nearly 70 years. My 85-year-old dad does a lot of my embroidery samples and although he has a Baby Lock Solaris, he decided he wanted a 10-needle. He ended up with a pre-loved Baby Lock Enterprise and loves it. I had been toying with these in-the-hoop squares and now dad had two embroidery machines to help me make samples.

Fall Leaves was the first wall hanging and originally, I only made the larger squares – 6 ½” x 6 ½”. I had made a version of this wall hanging for my own house a few years before and had quilted it on my long arm. I liked the leaf motif I had used for the quilting, so I decided to digitize it and make it part of the in-the-hoop blocks. Dad made two more – one for him and one for my sister. I then decided to add the smaller version of the squares so they would fit in hoops that are only 6 ½” wide. Dad stitched these out and they looked great.

Stars and Stripes was the second in-the-hoop wall hanging. This wall hanging can be used several times a year for all the American holidays.  There are two layouts in this pattern.

Then, at the end of 2021 my dad decided to move to a wonderful retirement community nearby my sister and me. His house was too big and was too full of memories. Once settled, we could see that other residents hang paintings and wreaths and all sorts of things outside their apartments as they each have quite a bit of wall space. Dad and I talked, and he said he wanted to hang some of his smaller quilts. We decided that he would make his door-front holiday themed and thus began the designing more holiday themed projects.

Christmas was too busy so that wall-hanging will have to wait a bit. The next wall hanging was LOVE.  As the word LOVE is four letters, I thought it would be fun to add that word to the bottom of that wall hanging. It uses four of the letters from my Lil’Elemenopea alphabet. Dad has had that wall hanging up since the beginning of January.

As dad is getting quite a bit of foot-traffic by his door front, he decided he needed to be ready for St Patrick’s Day in March.  That wall hanging went together quickly. I love the colors – it is so bright and cheerful. Again, the letters come from my Lil’Elemenopea alphabet.

I have two more less specific holiday wall hangings made but have not yet written the patterns. I think that Easter is the next one we have to design!

Prickly Blooms Wall Hanging

By Vanessa Fromm
on November 12, 2021

Prickly Blooms Wall Hanging

I needed a wall hanging in my entry way.  As I live in the Southwest, I decided to use both my Prickly Blooms and More Prickly Blooms patterns to achieve this.   The finished wall hanging is approx 39" x 39" and you will also need both of the following patterns if you are going to duplicate this wall hanging.

 

The cactuses in both patterns were originally designed to be centered in their blocks and cross-hairs are used to line each cactus up.   However, I wanted each of the cactuses to have the same base line position for this wall hanging so I had to come up with different measurements.   

Click here to download the PDF with full instructions
and the new measurements for this wall hanging.

Sallie Tomato Faux Leather Tour

By Vanessa Fromm
on June 05, 2020

I was excited when I was approached by Jess to participate in the Sallie Tomato Faux Leather Tour.  Their new line of faux leather is vegan, super soft, and comes in several colors and three different textures - Weave, Pebble, and Legacy. 

I have machine embroidered on cork (and LOVE it) and I was excited to try my hand at designing something to be stitched out on faux leather.  I knew that this would be different because faux leather is much more pliable and I was not sure how it would hold up under dense stitching.

Although I have been working on two new patterns, I decided to focus on my new Bit-O-Color alphabet for this project. I was sure that the letters would look great on the faux leather for the bottom front of the Zippy Crossbody Bag.

Once I got started, I could not stop.   Luckily I had several  Zippy Crossbody hardware sets and more Sallie Tomato zipper tape then I could measure.  I used the Concrete Pebble Faux Leather for two of the bags and the Navy Legacy Faux Leather.  I used the Antique Gold finish for the zippers and the hardware. The sayings I decided on were: BE KIND, AWESOME, and at my daughters' instance...BOSS LADY. 

I used two layers of heavy weight, tear away stabilizer.  I hooped one layer and then floated the second layer.  I used a Schmetz 11/75 embroidery needle, Glide pre-wound bobbins, and Glide thread. I cut the faux leather larger than the 5 3/4" x 9" necessary for the front bottom so that I could hold it down during embroidery with a basting stitch.   I used Essex Linen for the exterior of each bag. 

Once the embroidery was finished, I cut the faux leather down to size and proceeded with making the bags. I made the bags assembly-line fashion. Jessica's instructions are fabulous!  This is from someone who is not usually a bag maker.   One little tip: when you cut your for 12" zippers for each bag, stitch close to the ends over the coils so that you don't inadvertently pull the zipper tabs off when you are sewing.  

And...here they are!

Masks for Heroes!

By Vanessa Fromm
on March 30, 2020

 

 

After hearing that there were so many healthcare providers that were out of masks during this global Coronavirus crisis, I joined Maskapolooza on Facebook and read about all the fabulous masks that everyone was making. I decided to dive in and help and I picked the A.B. Mask - by a Nurse for a Nurse  because it appeared to meet my criteria: uses ties instead of elastic, and uses darts to to hold the mask on the face instead of wires.  I also had an end taker - Agave Pediatrics here in Arizona. 

 

Over the course of two days, I made 50+ masks. I had the help of two friends, one that traced, cut and marked the masks and the other that ironed the folded ties.

I had to make modifications the original pattern in order to mass produce. 

Click here for the pattern and template for the tie version.:)

Click here for the updated pattern and template for the elastic version :)

Lil'Elemenopea and June Tailor QAYG Christmas Tree Skirt

By Vanessa Fromm
on October 29, 2019

I had a booth across the aisle from Lori at June Tailor this summer at Bernina University. We got to talking and she showed me their new Quilt-As-You-Go patterns.  I was most interested in using them to display my embroidery designs.  The Christmas Tree Skirt caught my eye.
Here is how I added my Lil'Elemenopea letters to the
June Tailor 
Quilt-As-You-Go Christmas Tree Skirt:
First of all, there are 16 panels.   I decided on writing PEACE & JOY which is 9 letters.   I decided to add a snowflake to make it an even 10 embroidered panels and that would leave 3 empty panels at the beginning before the lettering started and then three empty panels after the lettering and snowflake.

I picked 8 fabrics and cut two 9" x 22" panels out of each fabric.  I backed each panel with ShapeFlex 101 - yes, it is a lot of Shapeflex and maybe you could simply put a square of ShapeFlex in back of the area you will be embroidering.
 
I measured up 5.5" from the bottom of each panel and drew a line with a washable blue marker.  I also drew a vertical center line the length of the panel.
These are the lines I used to line up the letters as I embroidered them.  (Follow instructions in my Lil'Elemenopea pattern for embroidery.)



Once embroidery was finished, I used the June Tailor template and lined up t
he bottom of the letter with the second line from the bottom of the template.   I did my best to also use the vertical like I had drawn, but sometimes the letter had pulled one way or another and I first made sure the bottom of the letter lined up flush with the line on the template. 



I traced around the template and then cut on the line I had drawn using a ruler and a rotary cutter. I repeated this step for each panel. 







Once the panels were cut out, I loaded my backing fabric onto my long arm and basted the  Quilt-As-You-Go batting panel onto the backing.  I then used a ruler to stitch and flip each panel down according to the June Tailor instructions while it was still on the long arm.   This was much easier than I had expected.   I did not iron as I went but you could do so.

After all the panels were stitched down, I basted around the outer edge, the inner edge and the edges of the 1st and 16th panels - these overlap a bit.  I don't have exact instructions, just know that you will be cutting between the 1st and 16th panels after quilting and that you will be binding those edges anyway.   



After it is all quilted. Take it off the long arm, trim it down and bind.  Be sure you cut your binding on the diagonal because you will be  binding around curves!
 

Inked - Makers Quilt

By Vanessa Fromm
on August 07, 2018

Today I am so excited to share with you my latest design, my INKED - MAKERS QUILT! Let me take a moment to tell you a little bit about how it came to be!

Read more »

Cutting Fabric with your Silhouette Cameo Video

By Vanessa Fromm
on February 02, 2017

 

Getting ready for Valentine's Day? Here's how to cut 'LOVE' out with the Silhouette Cameo using my Elemenopea pattern 

Make sure to send Fabric Confetti some Valentine's love too--like, comment, and share if you 'LOVE' what you see!

☆ What would you like me to show next? Send me a message or comment on this video if you have a suggestion! ☆

Coastal Mist Blog Hop- Secretly a Mermaid

By Vanessa Fromm
on February 01, 2017

Welcome to Day 11 of the Coastal Mist Blog Hop, organized by Tammy of Tamarinis to showcase her fabulous line of batiks for Island Batik

 I was a little hesitant when Tammy asked me if I'd create an embroidery applique design using her new line of fabrics, because I had two other deadlines that I was working towards. However, as soon as I saw the colors. I said yes. 

I was busy making banner patterns using my Lil'Elemenopea letters, so I knew that a banner was what I was going to make.  The question was, what was the banner going to say?  First off, I thought something "beachy," but then my friend suggested something "mermaidy" because mermaids are currently so popular.  We decided on SECRETLY A MERMAID.

When the fabrics arrived I decided to pair them with bright threads. I also decided that I would have Orchid Owl Quilts quilt it because she isn't afraid of metallic threads on her long arm (like me).

I am very happy with the way that it turned out.   Vicki quilted the middle using her signature swirly design and then in the border she quilted scales using metallic threads.   

 

 

Thank you for following this hop!   Check out my previous post to see what the other amazing designers created using Tamarinis' new line!

Upcoming Coastal Mist Blog Hop

By Vanessa Fromm
on January 09, 2017

I will be participating in The Costal Mist Blog Hop, hosted by Tammy of Tamarinis.

The Blog Hop starts January 23, 2017 and runs through February 4, 2017.  My post will be on February 2, 2017.

The schedule is as follows:

Jan 23 Tamarinis www.tamarinis.typepad.com
Jan 24 Izzy & Ivy Designs www.izzyandivydesigns.com/
Jan 25 Swirly Girl Designs www.susanemory.com/
Jan 26 Freemotion by River www.conniekresin.com
Jan 27 Live Originally www.liveoriginally.com
Jan 28 Pink Doxies www.pinkdoxies.com
Jan 29 One Quilting Circle www.onequiltingcircle.com
Jan 30 LC's Cottage www.lcscottage.wordpress.com
Jan 31 Unspooled www.unspooledwi.com
Feb 1 Seams To Be Sew www.seamstobesew.com
Feb 2 Fabric Confetti www.fabricconfetti.com
Feb 3 LoveBug Studios www.lovebugstudios.com
Feb 4 Aurifil www.aurifil.com

 

Please stay tuned in and see all the amazing designs these fabulous designers have created with Tamarinis' beautiful Costal Mist fabric for Island Batik.

Cutting Files for the Artistic Edge

By Vanessa Fromm
on May 01, 2016

It has come to my attention that the .SVG files that I include on my CDs cannot be opened in the Creative DRAWings SimpleCut V7 software for the Artistic Edge cutter. 

At first I thought I was doing something wrong because my current .SVG cutting files open easily in the Designer Edition of the Silhouette software.  When I started playing around with saving these files as older .SVG files, I could no longer open them in the Silhouette software. Thus, this was not a solution.

After a lot of investigating, and Googling, and trial and error, I have a "work-around". This involves saving my cutting files off as .EPS files. 

I have converted all the ELEMENOPEA files to .EPS files and I have tested each one by bringing them into the Creative DRAWings SimpleCut V7 software individually and saving them off as .DRAW files.  

I will continue to work on converting the files for my other patterns to .EPS also.  ( I will not be including the .DRAW files, you will be able to do that once you have the .EPS files.)

While I am in the process of doing this and testing each file, please let me know if you already have one of my patterns and you need these .EPS files.  Please use the contact page on my website and I will get back to you as soon as is possible.  

Thank you!!!!

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From the Blog

Holiday In-the-Hoop Wall Ha...

March 10, 2022

These holiday wall hangings were one of my first attempts to include quilting in the block. We lost my mom...

Read more →

Prickly Blooms Wall Hanging

November 12, 2021

I needed a wall hanging in my entry way.  As I live in the Southwest, I decided to use both...

Read more →