BFC Creations – Where Thread comes to life!
These wall hangings are made from the BFC120 Undersea set. I was going to make a large wall hanging but things happen so made 2 small hangings and mounted them on canvas boards. The pieces were done separately and attached to the back ground when done.
Sandy
I love groupings of things on walls so I think this is perfect! Suz
This Baby Animals of Africa project is a machine wash/dry softbook for our first Great Grandchild, Emma Jean. Our granddaughter wants lots of books for Emma so this will be the perfect gift for her first birthday, November 19
These baby animals are SO cute; please don’t require me to pick a favorite! When I purchased the design set and saw the colors, I immediately knew what I would make with them and remembered this beautiful batik in my stash; colors that blend yet soft enough for the embroidery threads to show. I am not one to obsess over color charts, but did the best I could with the (many!) BFC colors and Isacord colors I have on hand. I am thankful for Suz’s conversion charts! To say I’m pleased with the result, is an understatement!
I’m fortunate to have super embroidery software so I put the designs into the software and added the animal name at the bottom of each. For the cover I found an image of Africa and used Heat N Bond to iron on the appliqué shape and embroidered the cover title.
To prepare for embroidery on cotton, I always iron on Pellon Soft Flex SF101 interfacing to the back; helps keeps the fabric from stretching and reduces puckering, but is lightweight and allows the fabric to keep a nice feel. I hooped two layers of cutaway stabilizer (It could also have been tearaway) and adhered the prepared fabric with basting spray. I like to use a basting box to start embroidering designs. This further reduces in-the-hoop fabric movement while stitching.
The designs were a joy to embroider…and you know that excitement when you get to see the final picture. I have to say that expert digitizing is the key to truly enjoying machine embroidery. Susan Makalinaw is among the best! Thank you for the excellent work, Suz. I only had one issue and it was totally User Error; I skipped a color and wondered why the design seemed “off.” I finished it though, and can still use it, but I wanted this book to be perfect so only had to redo this one.
After embroidering I backed each oversized page with fusible fleece and did various free-motion techniques to quilt the pages. Next I trimmed each page to 8×9” so the designs were centered and each page was the same finished size.
The edging is cork vinyl I got at Hobby Lobby; cut into 1.5” wide, 9.5” long strips to edge the book pages. I used the sewing machine to stitch a strip to the inside edge of two joining pages. (The designs are in alphabetical order, because, well because!!! Lol.) Then I folded the cork strip in half, matching up the two page and sewed around the entire piece, leaving a border on the vinyl edge for hole punching. I trimmed the excess cork along the edge of the pages then enlisted my resident “muscle” to use an awesome antique leather punch that was a gift from his mother. The tie is a multi-colored organza ribbon with ends like a shoelace (I can’t even remember how many years I’ve had this :)). Oh, and I purposely left the edges unfinished; love the casual look of raw-edge that will still look great after washing and drying.
Pictured I show you the cover page and how the book looks laced up and tied, along with the inside-back label page that I created in my software. The second photo is two random inside designs to show you how the book looks when open. The third photo is of all the stitched out designs. The final book is six front and back pages.Only two months until I get to present this unique gift to our beautiful great granddaughter. I can hardly wait; even though I doubt it will be in person. We’ve only seen her once, but for a week, in February of this year, then the world-wide pandemic hit. Our granddaughter makes our days by sending us a Snapchat of Emma almost every morning. She wakes up smiling and is one busy little girl!
I have Soooo many of your designs, Suz, and I just want to tell you (again) how much I love your art and digitizing. Just HAD to download the three dance masks today and when I looked, I have at least two other folders of masks from you! We collect masks, and we have some from every country we’ve visited – Fiji, Costa Rica, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico – I just counted – 13! Of course Ron had the final decision, so no wall hangings for me, just masks. However, in my Woman Cave (spare bedroom), I do have four wall hangings – one of Geishas you designed (and the back has your Samurai Warriors!
Beautiful job Sunny! I love that this is hanging in your Woman Cave 🙂 Suz
B
I usually put a link to a set used, but I thought those of you that like Geisha Artwork might like to see all of our geishas:
https://bfc-creations.com/?target=search&mode=search&substring=geisha&including=all
Hi Suz ! I hope is wright address to send my contribution to the Scrappy Flower quilt contest. Thank you to give me the possibility to be with you .
Sincere regards Monica Sweden
Yes – the right place!! Thank you Monica – Beautiful Art Qult
Here is my entry. Hope the pictures come out OK. This one is similar to the sample you made, I just added to it a little. I used silks, satins and velvets in shades of whites, golds and purples for the fabrics. I used a medium weight cutaway stabilizer on the bottom and when embroidering over velvet, I added a heat away topping. I also added a 3D lace butterfly, dragonfly and flowers. I went through my mothers old jewelry chest and used old pins to embellish along with beads and buttons. Also, for the eye of the cat, I used a green teardrop hot fix crystal. I added a few freebies (including the cat) that I had collected along the way. Donna
Great colors Donna! (and I love the Cat LOL ) Suz
HI Suz Should be approx 70″ long 60″ wide made of 10×10″ blocks.The boarder is 5″x10″ there is two , the blue is outside and another is lite beige and this will be the internal boarder using 408-18.” see pic” I’ll post as I progress along…its mainly all of your designs … John Deer design with the Lotus.and water effect ripple and the fish are random design selections which I have multiplied to give the shoal effect in SewWhat Regards Doug
Hi Suz..Been a while but I have just stitched all the blocks together hasen’t been pressed yet just thrown on the spare bed ..been in a lock down where we live so I haven’t been able to get padding or choose material for the back….
BEAUTIFUL Job Doug!!! Thank you 🙂 Suz
Because Doug has used several designs here is a link to our Egyptian designs.
Here is my quilting contest entry. I used design BFC 1032 Japanese Fantasy Garden Art Quilt. I did alter the size of a few of the designs. I added a bridge I put together to go over the water. I used aquarium gravel for my rocks and small beads for my flowers. My effort does not do the design justice – but it is what it is.
This was my first attempt at top quilting. I did find out that it does not work well with your embroidery foot. LOL
It took me 5 years. I am kind of slow. And yes you can use it however you like. It is supposed to be a dolphin quilt but I-inserted a few whales. By the way orcas are dolphins not whales. It is kind of heavy. My grand daughter is 10 yrs old. I am working on a sham .
I can identify Vilma – I have more unfinished products than Ihad colors of thread. LOL Suz Fantastic job – i bet she loved it!
I love the designs Laura used for her quilt. They are defnitely fantasy designs with just enough reality 🙂 that’s the way I like my Fantasy!
From Laura:
Howdy, Just wanted to share a picture of the quilt I’m working on. Of course the highlights of the quilt are the unique embroidery designs I have been in love with since the first day you posted them for sale. They are; Fairy Wildlife, parts one, two and three. BFC 1856, 1871, and 1894. They are wonderful! I decided to use colored squares to represent land, sea and air animals, green, blue and light blue. They are all Michael Miller Fairy Frost fabrics, including the copper colored fabricI used to separate the squares. I actually had all the fabric- yeah for stash building. I knew someday I would find a use for it. I still have the backing to put on, { I had to go buy that, bummer}, and the binding to do. That will be copper, like the trim. Also I want to give a shout out to whomever it was that thought up “Quick Bias” fusible 1/4 in bias tape. What a time save! Wish me luck on finishing the quilt. Thanks a million for the wonderful designs. My quilt label will give gratitude To BFC Creations for their digitizing of these great designs.
The quilt pattern is my invention. AS you know, 6 of those 18 designs are horizontal, and 12 are vertical. That in itself was a challenge. Add to that 10 of one color background, 5 of another and 3 of a third color and it took me a while to figure out placement. Before I did any embroidery, I cut my fabric pieces larger than I needed, not knowing exactly what I wanted to do with them. The embroidery designs are 5×7 inches and the fabric pieces were at least 8x 10 inches. The fabric was too pretty to cut off and throw away, so I came up with the idea to frame the designs with the bias tape and use the whole piece of fabric. Great idea but hard to execute- lots of measuring and almost exact placement- to make it all line up. After the fact, I decided it would have been much easier to sew the squares together first, then place the bias tape all at once. Who knew? Live and learn.
Hi Suz, thank you for your beautiful designs.
I am attaching a pictures of them, which I enjoyed embroidering.
Cecilia
They are just gorgeous!!!! Suz
