There are so many reasons why we love Susan Ache (@yardgrl60) and her epic cross stitch, but the biggest one is her passion for the craft. We’ve had countless conversations with Susan during which she excitedly states that she just LOVES Aurifloss for cross-stitch & embroidery and wants to share that love with everyone. If Susan had her way, all cross stitch would come from our little wooden spools and we can’t really argue with that;).
Susan is truly a master of turning various colors of Aurifloss into beautifully stitched masterpieces. She has a remarkable eye for color and makes those tiny little stitches seem effortless in their perfection.
We’ve had so much fun working with Susan this year in particular. We kicked off the Collecting Colors SAL back in January and have been working our way through a pretty epic cross stitched quilt! We’ll be launching the final two block patterns next week and will move on to finishing the quilt from there.
In April, we launched Susan’s Sanctuary SAL, a project that had been planned for Summer, but in light of needing to find new ways to create our own private sanctuaries, she released it all early, giving the gift of self care in the form of stitch therapy. The SAL is available in its entirety on our website with the quilt finishing tutorial on our blog.
Today, we’re excited to revisit a pattern that Susan release in June of 2019, just in time for our Fourth of July celebrations here in the USA.
<<< DOWNLOAD THE FREE PATTERN HERE >>>
Sweet Land of Liberty is charted at 80 x 100 and uses a variety of patriotic colors, artfully chosen and arranged by Susan herself. As usual, she encourages readers to use her chart as a guide — it will look fabulous in the colors shown, but with 270 available cotton colors, the possibilities are endless!
Many thanks to Susan for being not only generous with her time and her talents, but for being such a wonderful stitchy partner! Happy stitching and enjoy the holiday weekend!
SUSAN’s FREE CROSS STITCH CHARTS
Click here for access to download all PDFs. Click here for the Collecting Colors SAL and here for the Sanctuary SAL.
Looking for even more stitching inspiration? Susan has partnered with Moda Fabrics to create a Holiday Stitch-A-Long. Block 3 will be released today and the program runs through September. We are in love and can’t wait to get started on our own Holiday Quilt!! Click here for the kick off post and make sure to follow along with Moda for weekly installments!
ABOUT SUSAN
Instagram — Susan’s Book
A love of color makes it easy for Susan to grab inspiration from her native Florida surroundings. With no grand idea other than knowing she wanted embroidery and nine patches in her first quilt, a new world opened up to this mom of now five grown children. Being self taught with many hours of reading about the makings of a quilt and quilt blocks has made this an a lifelong passion. Susan is always searching for new and fun ways to show off as many colors as she can in a quilt. Most of her quilts are a creative impulse from trips to the garden center, a photograph, or browsing through paint chip selections. “I really never see just the quilt, I seem to see the quilt in the room that it belongs in”. Working in a quilt store for years helped Susan to pursue that passion of color and the fabric inspired life she enjoys while constantly striving to make her next favorite quilt.
Beautiful examples of Aurifill thread uses.