A note from Allison Stilwell, one half of Artgirlz, and an amazingly creative person:

Spring is just around the corner! It has been a very cold winter here in sunny Florida and even I am looking forward to warmer weather. Here are some of the things I've been up to with my BERNINA aurora 440:

I reupholstered a chair I bought for a dollar. I'd never done that before.

I made a throw pillow with lots of 3D fabric work and lots of freemotion stitching.

I used everything but the kitchen sink in the needle punch piece. Velvet, cotton, wool felt, silk hankies, wool roving, silk fabrics, scrim or painted gauze - I punched it all into wool felt. To make the border I punched strips of different fabrics over felt and then cut them into strips. I then made my first attempt at free form machine embroidery to add some detail.

Artgirlz is now on facebook!

Create a handmade card with your sewing machine!

Layer paper, and use your machine stitches instead of glue to attach your layers. A great way to use your decorative stitches!

If your machine has the capability to create lettering, you can stitch a decorative message.

Get out some decorative paper and give it a try!

February is a short month, if you count the days, but for me it was the longest month away from my cozy bed in Michigan. While out and about traveling across the country, my schedule ended in Puyallup, Washington where I had the priviledge of teaching at Sew Expo. During one of the classes I was chit-chatting with a new sewer who was sharing her latest project with me. She had a challenging time doing a ruffle for the skirt of a dress she was making for her daughter. While listening to her describe this experience, I recalled many a dress I also sewed for my daughter not too many years past. She loved ruffles, and the more the dress had, the prettier she felt, coupled with a slight coy shyness. A princess-like feeling that young girls have when they wear something that is pink and frilly.

Memories of the piles of fabric that I would have to gather into a skirt reminded me of a technique that my BERNINA Mastery Class teacher taught me long ago - gathering over a cord using Buttonhole Foot #3/3C. As I sat and ate my lunch at Sew Expo later that day I realized that one of my most versatile BERNINA presser feet is Buttonhole Foot #3/3C and that I use that foot for "3" different techniques. So over the next three months, I will uncover each of these techniques - starting with gathering using a double cord.

To start, you need a cord that is twice as long as the piece of fabric you will be gathering. I also add about 6" so I have a bit extra at the start and finish. I like to use crochet cotton because it is easy to find at most craft stores.

Attach Buttonhole Foot #3/3C to your machine.

Assuming your final seam will be 5/8", line up your fabric on the 1/2" mark on the needle plate. With your needle in the center position, lower the needle into the fabric but do not lower the presser foot.

Fold the cord in half and place it around the needle, one strand at each side of the needle.

Then tie the two ends in a knot behind the needle.

Pull the cord all the way to the back and place the loop at the end over the center toe of Buttonhole #3/3C.

Lower the presser foot. Once the foot is lowered, make sure the cord is LAYING in the grooves under the foot. Then pull the cord back TOWARDS you. The knot you made at the back will act as a stopper when it hits the back of the foot.

Select the gathering stitch on your machine. (Did you know there was a gathering stitch?)

As you sew, hold the cord slightly above the foot, keeping the two strands of cord separated behind the center toe. The two grooves in the sole of Buttonhole Foot #3/3C will help keep the cords separated.

Because of the anatomy of the stitch, it will sew over one strand of cord and then the other. The even spacing allows for more uniform spaces as you gather the fabric. It is also easier to stitch as you join the gathered piece to another fabric.

Remove the fabric from the machine. Holding one end of the cord, slide the fabric along the cord to form gathers. Adjust to fit the flat piece of fabric you are attaching the gathered piece to. Stitch using a 5/8" seam allowance. Done!

OESD has just released a brand new collection available at your local Embroidery TakeOut Dealer. It is #12288 - Cutwork Bouquet. Bunny Gates, a BERNINA Educator, recently used a design from this collection to embellish a collar. She used an Isacord Embroidery Thread in a very similar shade to the blouse for a tone-on-tone effect and it turned out gorgeous!

Stitching cutwork designs with the embroidery machine is so much faster than the traditional cutwork technique. First, hoop a water-soluble stabilizer such as AquaMesh Plus (just stabilizer, no fabric). Score just the paper and peel away the paper backing to reveal the sticky surface. Attach the garment to the stabilizer and smooth in place. Attach the hoop to the embroidery machine and sew the guideline stitches. Remove the hoop from the machine and very carefully trim away the fabric from the area inside the stitches. Return the hoop to the machine and finish stitching out the design.

All of the cutwork designs in the Cutwork Bouquet collection come in two versions - one for cutting away the open areas with scissors as described above, and another for trimming away the fabric with the new BERNINA CutWork Accessory and Software. The CutWork tool does the cutting for you!

Sewing machines are a bit like cars - not only are they both useful machines, but they're both constantly being updated with new features. Think about cars from the 1950s - automatic transmission had just been introduced, and air-conditioning was available only in a few models. 60 years later we have airbags, keyless entry, hybrid engines, even GPS systems that talk! The history of sewing machines runs a similar course. In the 1950s zigzag stitches, automatic buttonholes, and a free arm were relatively new features. All of these were part of the BERNINA 530 model shown here. Nearly 60 years later, sewing machines like the BERNINA artistas have touch screens, built in consultants and tutorials, more stitches than anyone in 1954 could imagine, controls for manipulating those stitches, and even a device that reads the movement of the fabric to improve your freemotion stitching! 

If you've taken a peek at the BERNINA 8 Series machines - the 820 and 830 - you know that the designers and engineers included every feature a seamster could dream of having. BERNINA collected feature requests for years and years, then incorporated all that information in the design of the 8 Series machines. Okay, they didn't include the espresso machine I asked for, but other than that I can't think of anything they missed. There's even an alarm clock to remind me when it's time to feed my dog! If you haven't seen the 8 Series machines, you can take one for a virtual tour by downloading the BERNINA 820 and 830 Simulators from the 8 Series website. Just look at all those buttons! One for securing seams, one for presser foot pressure, one that remembers all the stitches you've been using, one for stitching in 16 directions 720 directions in half degree increments (what was I thinking!), one for adjusting tension,... there's even one for setting up your screen exactly the way you want it!

But the contest isn't about the old 530 or the new 8 Series machines - it's about sewing machine features. Which feature on your sewing machine do you absolutely love? If you could design your own machine, what feature would you be sure to include? I learned to sew on a straight stitch machine, and later sewed on a machine that had a extra stitches for techniques like blindhemming and overcasting, but no decorative stitches. So when I bought my first machine, one of the features I really wanted was a feather stitch. That was a long time ago - before I knew about BERNINA's Free Hand System. Now I can't live without having that FHS lever for raising and lowering the presser foot without using my hands!

So tell us what your favorite sewing machine feature is, or think of something new and exciting that you'd like to have on your machine. To enter the contest, just leave a comment to this blog posting before midnight EST, April 11, 2010. The winner gets a box of fun stuff from BERNINA, OESD, Benartex, and Brewer!