Has it really been 2 1/2 years???

I cannot believe how fast time flies. I've started reading blogs again and felt the nudge to start blogging after so much time has passed.

This winter has been one of the coldest on records in Northeast PA. This weekend is the coldest yet with wind chills from 25 to 35 below zero. It's impossible to even be outdoors for more than a few minutes at a time. The pic below is not mine but it is how it looks in our neck of the woods. Can't you just feel the cold air?

(Photo courtesy of  Egor Kamelev)

Since I've been "house bound", I decided to try my hand at something entirely new. I absolutely love machine embroidery but have felt somewhat limited to specific purchases. I don't always gravitate toward some of the designs out there and while I do love others, I sometimes am unsure of what to do with them. I mean how many little pillows can someone have? I also do love applique quilts BUT truly dislike anything to do with tracing on double sided fusible, design placement and hand blanket stitching. 

I've watched loads of YouTube videos on machine embroidery especially Power Tools with Thread and AllBrands. Because of the quality of the instructions, I finally bit the bullet and purchased a Brother Scan and Cut through my local(ish) dealer, Pocono Sew and Vac (their customer service is AWESOME).

I had purchased a while ago the software Embrilliance Essentials so that I could take the digitized machine embroidery from my favorite digitizers at Kimberbell in order to do a little bit of modification and wirelessly send to my machine. THEN I bit the bullet yesterday and purchased Stitch Artist 3 from Embrilliance in order to allow me to take applique designs and convert them to machine embroidery.

I think I spent about 8 hours yesterday just playing around with a design by Nancy Halvorsen of Art to Heart. The pattern is from her Bunny Hollow booklet and it is a mini chicks quilt. I followed along with Becky from Power Tools with Thread and WOOHOO...I did it. While it is not perfect by any means, I am over the moon thrilled with how it turned out. This has opened up a whole new world for me now!!!

Below is a pic of the finished piece. Now...what to do with it...LOL!!!

I do need to remember that I have to center the design before starting. The run stitches weren't fun so I will need to learn more about how to do those with better precision. I also realized that I didn't set up the applique in such a way as to remove the stitches that aren't seen and do a bit of trimming of the pieces behind the pieces on top. Overall, I am "tinkled pink" as I've been telling my husband.

Quite a long post for my first one in 2 1/2 years but I'm so excited that I just had to share!

Thanks for stopping by today!!!