Category Archives: Corel Draw

Busy week filled with lots of projects!

May 14, 2022Corel Draw, Embroidery, Hatch, Home Updates, Hubby's Quilts, Longarm, Sarah Vedelerrev50mstr

This week was a very productive week! There was a ton of learning, quilt piecing, quilting on the longarm, embroidering, and even a new paint job on the house.

I finished up month 4 of my digitizing master class. Our project required using our Corel Design skills, Hatch embroidery digitizing skills, to creation of our cut files and embroidery design files. We then stitched out what we created. This month we are learning all about color.

My sweetie has been busy piecing his own quilts. When he finishes his quilt tops, he passes them on to me for the longarm. This week I quilted another ’fish’ themed quilt, a ”Christmas Doxie, and also a ’Touchdown Football’ quilt. (I will post pictures later today)

I was able to longarm my ”Little Red Wagon” quilt and finish up with binding. This was also a learning opportunity. For the first time ever, my machine threw the thread off the upper tension spring (of course when I wasn’t here watching) When I discovered it happened, it had completed two rows and sewn a pleat in the back. Yes, I really did pick out all the stitching. Since there was essentially no top tension, the bobbin thread was just laying on the back. This made for quick picking. Fortunately, I was able to place my zones again and am quite happy with the result. Thank goodness it was on my own quilt, I would have been panicked if it was someone else’s project.

My other project is my “Simply Dreaming Quilt” designed by Sarah Vedeler. I started this quilt right after my Mom passed away last year. I was able to work on Month 07, one of the outer borders. It was the perfect month because it is filled with lots of beautiful flowers. Mom and I used to spend a day in May visiting our favorite nursery together. With the one year anniversary of Mom’s passing, along with Mother’s Day, these beautiful bouquets remind me of our time together.

We also had our house painted this week – by a company and not us! This was a definite first – paying someone to paint our house. The last time we rented scaffolding, replaced siding, added cedar shingles, and painted. The crew that did the house pressure washed one day and spent two really long days painting. Love our new colors – navy, cream, and light gray!

Month 04 Stitch out…..

May 10, 2022Corel Draw, Embroidery, Hatchrev50mstr

Taking a design from a graphic application, to embroidery digitizing software, and finally to stitch out is a lot of learning! Each time you move from one process to the next, you find areas for improvement. As I stitched my file, I discovered areas to improve my design. Places where there was duplicate stitching, not right type of satin underlay stitches, and missing candle-wicking stamps. As I stitched, I identified the opportunity for improvements to my design. I was able to revise my digitizing then send it back to my machine. I didn’t need to rehoop. I just loaded the new design on the machine, loaded my hoop with the stitching, then moved the revised design to where I was in the stitch out. My design isn’t perfect – all learning is like peeling an onion – you improve one layer, then are able to see what can be fixed next. Before I stitch this design agains, I would like to adjust my placement for the fills on the petals with stars.

Month 04 Digitizing Class

May 9, 2022Corel Draw, Hatchrev50mstr

For month 04, we were challenged to create a design with petals that are overlapping and a center that has interlocked (woven) pieces. With the petals, we learned how to remove the overlaps, reducing bulk. For the interlocking pieces, it is identifying all the intersections, then using colors, changing to give the affect of ’over and under’ for each ring. For extra credit, we were challenged to take our design from Corel Draw into Hatch. From there we used our designed cutting files and embroidery designs to stitch out our designs. Below are my Graphic designs for the petals and center, followed by my digitized design within Hatch. Last up…..to stitch out my design today.

Digitizing Master Class – Month 2

February 16, 2022Corel Draw, Digitizingrev50mstr

This month we are learning to use Corel Draw to design quilts. Our challenge was to create a twin size quilt, with several requirements. They needed to include rectangles, circles, triangles (at least 2 varying sizes for each), pieced blocks, and applique shapes. Adjacent blocks, needed to be different colors. The pieced blocks needed to be the individual pieces and colored. We also needed to have a 4 inch border with cornerstones, and a 2 inch border with mitered corners.

This challenge has kept me very busy! I love the ability to create both pieced blocks and applique pieces. For my six port hole blocks, I am hoping to add embroidery as we move along in class. For the 4 side blocks, next to the flying geese, I am still trying to decide what I would like to do.

I found entering my block sizes and “playing in a sandbox” the best way to work on ideas. For my sand dollars and starfish I played with some of the ‘effects’, ‘object tools’, and ‘property tools’. I have not used a graphic software prerviously and found this software to be intuitive. The trickiest part is trying to keep all the blocks aligned so the quilt will be square. This one still needs some tweaking but I am happy with my first attempt.

Digitizing & Design Master Class – Corel Draw

February 12, 2022Corel Draw, Digitizingrev50mstr

In month 2 we are learning how to digitize using CorelDraw. Below are pictures of my work for the exercises in the lesson. I went through the full lesson and created differing quilt layouts introduced in our lesson. For setting up CorelDraw 2021, I needed to revise the steps and notes due to differences between CorelDraw SE and 2021. Below are the samples of what I created out of the lesson. Right now, the tricky part is aligning the mitered corners. I am so excited to now be able to start the month 2 challenge.