Vintage Miniature Sewing Machines Quilt

A few years ago I entertained myself at an event by stitching out the 12 mid-size multi-color versions of the child’s sewing machines included on the the two Vintage Miniature Sewing Machines using cotton embroidery thread.

I stitched on an off-white pre-washed/pre-shrunk cotton fabric using a wash-away stabilizer. The blocks came out of the hoop looking great but when I washed and dried them to remove the stabilizer, the thread shrunk resulting in irreversible puckers.

I really had my heart set on making a wall hanging with them so I recently restitched all the blocks using Rayon and this time they came out perfectly!

These designs were hand-drawn from antique sewing machines and were originally offered as hand embroidery patterns by Ella & Skyse Designs, an Australian designer. We worked together to reproduce her designs as both single color redwork designs and multi-color versions.

The multi-color versions use only a handful of colors and the same colors are used in all the designs. Each design is available in 3 sizes in each of the two color ways and each of the two collections has 36 design files.

In case you’re wondering, this is not just a matter of digitizing the multi-color version, then setting it to one color for the monochromatic version. Each color way is individually digitized to optimize pathing and keep jump threads to a minimum.

To see this for yourself, try stitching one of the multi-color versions as a single color! Way too many jumps & trims!

When resizing the designs, stitch lengths were also adjusted. Larger versions have longer stitches to keep stitching time down. Smaller ones have shorter stitches to maintain details.

I chose to use narrow floating borders around the block in a dark red and a mini-print on black that reads more like a charcoal gray.

I created a label on the back using my favorite font for labels, Adine Script, which is now available as a keyboard font for AlphaTricks, Embrilliance Essentials, and EmbroideryWorks. (Learn more about these fonts here: What’s Your Addiction?

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