Shades of Blue, Part 2

Welcome to day 2 of our Shades of Blue event, celebrating our beloved friend, Aurifil Designer and Aurifilosopher Wendy Sheppard. Wendy’s latest thread collection, introduced right here on Auribuzz back in December, is a dreamy collection of blues, inspired by her remarkable collection of Blue & White English Transferware.

Indigo features 5 Small Spools of Aurifil 50wt and 5 Small Spools of Aurifloss – the perfect combination for piecing, quilting, handwork and embellishing!

To help showcase and celebrate the versatility and beauty of this collection, Wendy assembled an incredibly talented team of makers. Yesterday, we highlighted projects from Pat Sloan & Susan Ache and today, we get to share the work of Lissa Alexander and Carol Inglis. We’re also be giving away one collection per day, so make sure to click on the button below to enter-to-win!

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Lissa Alexander

My quilting journey began in 1980. My sister and I both got married the same year and then decided to make a quilt for another friend’s wedding. We tackled the quilt as you go method since we lived in different towns and mailed the blocks back and forth. I was hooked! My sister was a home ec major and had sewn all her own clothes forever. I never made anything that fit me so quilts and crafts were perfect for me. 

I did everything old school, hand cutting templates, cutting fabric with scissors, piecing my machine and hand quilting. Then, along came the rotary cutter and strip piecing was my new love. Several years later I was working part time and teaching at the local quilt store.

Fast forward even more and I now work full time at Moda Fabrics by day and sew by night. I have had so many great opportunities including working with many Moda Designers on the Moda All Stars book series and even publishing a few books of my own. Can you tell I am obsessed?

I have met so many wonderful people along the way, including Wendy Sheppard, and I am excited to have been included in this thread hop for Indigo. I love color and I love thread. Most of the sewing I do is machine piecing so when I received this box I couldn’t really decide what to do. The box includes a variety of 50wt (piecing) and Aurifloss so why make just one thing?

First, I wanted to share a zipper bag I made using Nantucket Summer by Camille Roskelley. All you need is a Moda Mini charm pack or a combination of 2 ½” fabrics.

Have you ever used a Hera Marker? It is one of my go-tos! It is a magical tool that marks your fabric without actually marking your fabric. The one shown below is the Clover Hera Marker, Stock #4002. There are a few sizes available but I like this one to also use as a stiletto.

I used it in partner with my Olfa QR-6 x 12 ruler to mark my fabric with the diagonal lines for stitching. In this case, if I’d decided not to stitch on any of the lines or creases they really would have disappeared. 

I had originally planned on doing some big stitch work with the floss but the interfacing I used was too stiff. I ended up topstitching with the 50wt and it worked beautifully! Keep that in mind if you’d like to include any hand stitching on your own bags.

I made this one long and skinny by changing the zipper placement to make it long and skinny. I am making more of these for my grandkids teacher’s gifts so I will change up the sizing and add in some hand stitching where I can!

Once you had made several little zipper bags for all your teacher’s gifts, you will be ready to join in Susan Ache’s (@yardgrl60) stitch along, which launches here on Aurifil (in partner with Moda) at the end of May. I have already started some advance stitching with Wendy’s thread and will get to show you more in early June. I am a beginner stitcher, but love the process an just have to practice to improve, so this is the perfect project for me. Subscribe to Auribuzz and follow @yardgrl60 for more details on this event!

You can find me at www.modalissa.com and @modalissa. Thank you following along and hope you enjoy the zipper bag, compliments of Moda Fabrics.

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Carol Inglis

Hi everybody! My name is Carol and my passion is cross stitch– particularly stitching Christmas ornaments and small seasonal pillows. I’m in my late 60s so it’s getting harder to see those tiny holes in the fabric, but I sure hope to be stitching for years to come… It is a hobby that truly soothes my soul and with the close-knit cross stitch community out there, I’ve made many meaningful friendships with people all over the world!

My dear maternal grandmother was surely the earliest inspiration for my love of needlework… She could do anything with a needle and thread: quilting, smocking, sewing a dress for someone just by looking at them, embroidery, tailoring, and even a bit of cross stitch! I started my own needlework journey in high school in the early 1970s when I began doing simple embroidery on pillowcases which progressed to crewel embroidered pillows. I also sewed some of my own clothes for a few years and even made a few dresses for my younger sisters. 

My passion for cross stitch didn’t begin until the early 1980s when I saw my boss at work (I’m a retired reference librarian) making tiny little x’s in fabric on her lunchbreak. It fascinated me to see a design blooming on what was once a blank piece of fabric! I was immediately hooked and, except for a ten year break when I was at my busiest raising three sons, I’ve been constantly stitching ever since. I do most of my work by hand and then finish my ornaments and little pillows with the sewing machine. I prefer to stitch “in hand,” not using a hoop or frame even for larger projects. I just love the feel of the fabric in my hands and don’t like the extra weight that hoops or Q-snaps add.

I first bonded with Wendy when I found out she had a passion for blue and white like I do. You can find touches of blue and white throughout my home and I’ve been collecting the sweet Dedham bunny reproductions for years. I also have a small collection of lovely Delft pottery from The Netherlands passed on to me by my dear mother. 

I’ve written my blog, Stitching Dreams, since 2009 and was even awarded the 2017 British Craft Awards Blog of the Year in the cross stitch category. Writing my blog has been a labor of love over the past 13 years and a way to journal my stitching finishes, travels, family milestones, and recipes. Although blogging is not as popular as it once was, I truly love having this record of my life. You can also find me on Instagram– @caroling55. Come visit– I love meeting new folks who share my love of cross stitch and other needlework!

Wendy’s indigo threads are gorgeous and I was thrilled to participate in this project when she approached me. I am mostly known for making Christmas ornaments so I chose to make two ornaments and one framed piece to fully showcase her beautiful floss collection. The framed piece is a design by “From the Heart Needleart” called “January Quaker” which incorporates three of Wendy’s Aurifloss colors: 4644 for the darker blue, 5008 for the medium blue, and 2805 for the light blue. It’s framed in a simple pale blue rustic looking 5 X 7 inch frame.

The pillow ornament is “Inverno” from Renato Parolin and Paola Gattiblu which was a free chart on the Ric-amiamo Facebook page. Once again, I used 40 ct. white Newcastle linen with Wendy’s pretty Aurifloss in 5008. I added a few Swarovski crystals to the snowflakes and tree top for interest. 

The small round snowflake, stitched on 40 ct. white Newcastle linen with Aurifloss 4140, is a design from the book “A Rainbow of Stitches” by Agnès Delage-Calvet. This will be a Christmas gift for a stitching friend in December. 

This was my first time using Aurifloss and I absolutely loved it! The coverage was wonderful on this 40 ct. white Newcastle linen and the threads were so lovely, sliding through the fabric with ease. I’ll definitely be purchasing more Aurifloss in a variety of colors! 

Finally… one tip I might share with someone just starting out… I suppose it would be to start your cross stitch journey with a tiny piece just to get used to it. I know a few people who started something very large and totally lost interest in cross stitching due to the daunting size of the project. Start small and work your way up–and always choose a subject and colors you love! It was a pleasure working with Wendy’s truly lovely Indigo collection– thank you so very much for the opportunity!

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Thank you SO much to both Lissa and Carol for these beautiful projects and for taking the time to share them with us! We are so grateful for our quilty/stitchy friends and are looking forward to a week full with Shades of Blue!