Embroidery makes me happy.  I spend countless hours with a needle, floss and hoop in my hand.  And, I’m a big fan of Meg Hawkey’s Crabapple Hill Studio.  Her patterns are both beautiful and whimsical.  I envy her skill.  Each year for Christmas, my birthday, sometime in my Easter basket, my husband gets me patterns and floss kits.  Two year ago, he got me the Farmhouse Window Sills Embroidery Pattern and floss kit.

Last summer, while my husband was our of town, I painted our once wood paneled pantry vanilla ice cream white.  Our house is old, an 1860s farmhouse.  So some things about it maybe don’t make sense.  For example, the pantry is between the kitchen and our main bathroom.  So this paint job left a small patch of off-white wall just begging for something to fill it.  Farm House Window Sills Embroidery.  I stitched through swim team practices, violin lessons and horseback riding lessons.  And, I worked through all 4 of the Farmhouse Window Sills Embroidery Pattern panels.  They so fit with our current style.  Can you say mason jars?  (By the way, my husband totally didn’t care about the paint–it was more to be a happy surprise.  Like “Look what I did while you were gone!”)

The Problem

Many of Hawkey’s patterns are big.  Too big for the spaces I have to hang quilts.  The finished pattern of the Farmhouse Window Sills Embroidery Pattern is 54 inches square.  Unfortunately, the space where I envision this quilt is about 26 inches wide which means the quilt needs to be about 24 inches wide.  What’s a girl to do? Adjust the pattern, obviously.

The Solution

I started out by making the trimming my embroidery panels down to 9.5 x 11.5 so that the finished they would be 9 x 11.  The freezer paper technique that is described in the original pattern worked perfectly for this.  Then, I cut two 9.5 x 2.5 border pieces for the middle horizontal border.  I then cut three 2.5 x 24.5 inch pieces for the three vertical borders.  I finished it up with 2 more horizontal borders at 2.5 x 24.5 inches.  This makes a finished quilt of 24 x 28 or so.

The Moral of the Story

I still have to quilt it and put the binding on, but I thought I would share because sometime the ladies I sew with are afraid to deviate from the original pattern.  It’s okay, to make the quilt work for you.  I didn’t change the original artwork, I simply adjusted the sizes for my space.  Oh, and I love the fact that it now looks like a four pane window.

Doing the same is in the works for Hook, Line and Sinker.  All the embroidery is done, except my husband and I decided not to include the large panel with the creel and rods.  That means we will be playing around with spacing and borders.  And, it will fit our space better.

PS.  Crabapple Hill Studio is not an affiliate.  I get nothing but joy from sharing Meg Hawkey’s beautful work will you.

Can you make a French Knot?  The truth is: I can’t.  Even when I can kind of “get it,” they are too loose and I don’t like the way they look.  I needed a good French Knot Hack which I actually discovered almost by accident.

Designed in Canva

My grandmother, sweet Catherine, taught me how to embroider when I was about eight.  I remember that I got a sewing kit for Christmas that had embroidered handkerchiefs (even at the time I wondered who would use such a thing), but I learned a back stitch, lazy daisy, chain stitch and the like.  And, on and off for the last 30+ years, I have been embroidering.  The only problem was the French knots.  Both she and my mother tried to teach me how to do them.  I followed their directions, however, mine always pulled all the way through, and in the end, someone, either my mother or my grandmother, did them for me.

In the last few years, I have rediscovered the joy of handwork.  It’s great for when my kids are at their extra curriculars or in the rare few minutes that I get to watch TV.  I tried English Paper Piecing and have a beautiful, almost finished, quilt for Sunshine. However, about three years ago, I returned to one of my early joys: embroidery.  Crabapple Hill Studio entered my world and I have never found handwork more enjoyable.  But I still can’t do a French knot.

The first piece I worked on was Autumn’s Call.  I took a class with my mother-in-law at our local quilt shop.  While I followed the coloring directions, I didn’t purchase the Cosmo Floss in the directions, but used instead what I had on hand, which was mostly thread I had purchased for redwork–not embroidery floss.  It was in all different sizes some 8, some 12 and when I had to purchase a couple colors they ended up being size 5.  And that was when the magic happened.  There are a series of blackberries in the pattern that required French knots. Oh no!

Originally I had planned to do a satin stitch.  That would have worked, but it wouldn’t give me the texture I desired.  To my surprise, I found that because I was using the thicker thread, if I pull that size 5 thread up on the spot which called for the French knot then put the needle back down right next to it without pulling the thread tight, I get something that looks a little like a French knot.  The great thing is that doing this still gives the texture you would want from a French knot.  Never again will I feel guilty about not being able to make one!

So now, the hardest part of the French knot is threading the needle!

French Knot Hack

Designed in Canva

 

When you are ready to do a French knot hack, thread your needle with all six strands of embroidery floss.

Bring the needle up on the spot where you want the French knot.

Pull the thread all the way through.

Right next to where you brought the thread up, put the needle back in.  Pull the thread through, but this time leave it just a little bit loose.

Hint:  It is easier to do the French knot hack if the fabric is taut on the embroidery hoop.

These photos are from my current Crabapple Hill Studio Project:  The Mystery of the Salem Witches Guild Panel 1. (This is an Amazon link because Crabapple Hill does not have their own affiliate program.)

PS.  This post contains affiliate links.  If you decide to make a purchase through this link, we receive a small payment.  We would really appreciate it if you use the links on this page.  It helps us to keep our website up and running!

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