Happy Sunday! We’re excited to feature beloved Aurifil Designer Wendy Sheppard here on Auribuzz today in celebration of her new book, Stitching Pathways. We adore Wendy and are ever in awe of her machine quilting prowess. This new book of hers is absolutely wonderful and promises to be a tremendous guide for new and experienced quilters alike. We hope that you enjoy the sneak peek! Don’t forget to enter into the giveaway at the end of the post! You could be the proud recipient of Wendy’s book + her Aurifil 50wt Collection, Subtle Strings.
Thank you, Wendy!
Hello my fellow Aurifil thread lovers! I hope you have been well, and have been creating amazing things with the your favorite Aurifil threads!
I began using Aurifil threads about 11 years ago when I started delving into domestic machine quilting. Back then, I used exclusively the Mako 50wt cotton threads. I can honestly say, if it weren’t for Aurifil, I wouldn’t have enjoyed domestic machine quilting as much as I have all these years — experience and results.
I started sharing my tips and tricks for working on a domestic machine early in my quilting journey, and they are known as Thread Talks on my blog. I am always thrilled to hear from quilters how a trick or tip I shared helps them in their own quilting journey.
Over the years, various quilting friends have asked me to publish my Thread Talk posts as a book. Many friends expressed that, “It would be nice to not have to go search for a particular post on your blog and just have a book where everything is that I can browse through.”
I am incredibly happy to share with you that such a book is now available — meet my 3rd book published by Landauer Publishing/Fox Chapel Publishing, Stitching Pathways.
A few fun facts about my book:
1. Stitching Pathways won the Silver Winner in the Craft category in Foreword’s 2017 INDIES awards. The INDIES honors the best in independent publishing. Since this is a friend-to-friend book, this win also goes to all my quilting friends.
There is a sprinkling of “My 2 cents” all over the book with just a little blurb about something that might spark a lightbulb moment for the reader, or a trick that might solve a source of frustration in the quilting experience.
In my book showing the stitching pathways (thus the name) of my various go-to quilting motifs (more than 25 of them!), breathing points are introduced! So, you would do quilt and stop briefly at the breathing points, and breath and survey, before moving on to the next pathway. I think that takes away much of the stress for a beginning domestic machine quilter. I have found the breathing points to be revolutionary in my own quilting journey.
4. In this book, I also share a never-shared-before trick on how to get started drawing/quilting feather plumes! If you have known me for any length of time, you know I love feathers. It was the sole reason that I pushed myself to learn to quilt on my home machine years ago. It’s a bit strange, I know… I learned how to quilt feathers first, and then went back to learn to quilt the other motifs.
As I mentioned before, using Aurifil threads made me a very happy machine quilter! What thread you use REALLY does matter! I highly recommend that beginners start with the 50wt. In fact, I curated a collection of my go-to colors that I use in quilting my own quilts. A few years ago, I started experiementing quilting with subtle colors on my quilts — because I got tired of just using white, beige, and light brown to quilt when there are so many other more exciting colors out there! To that end, my Subtle Strings collection was introduced.
A free quilt-along project using my Subtle Strings threads is offered on Auribuzz — Thread Journey. You can easily follow along and make and quilt this quilt!
It’s been so fun to talk machine quilting with you. There’s more to come in 2019! So stay tuned. Meanwhile, the more you quilt, the better you will get!
HANDY LINKS:
GIVEAWAY
To enter-to-win a copy of Wendy’s Stitching Pathways AND her Subtle Strings collection, please leave us a comment on this post letting us know quilting techniques you’re most excited to work on. Entry will close at 11:59pm on Saturday, September 29 and a winner will be announced here on Monday, October 1. This giveaway is open to all of our International friends!
ABOUT WENDY:
Originally from Southeast Asia, Wendy came to the US for her tertiary education. After her degrees in Chemical Engineering, she worked in research in a wind tunnel for a spell. Nowadays, she is a stay/work-at-home Mom to a 7 year old. Wendy’s designs have been featured in major quilting publications, both home and abroad. She is also an author for Landauer Publishing, as well as an online quilting instructor. She is passionate about encouraging quilters to enjoy their quilting journey. During her free time, she loves to read history, and indulges in hand needlework.
ABOUT SUBTLE STRINGS: (Wendy’s 2015 Aurifil Thread Collection)