Anna is Adding Decorative Stitches!

Anna Joyce, local applique artist, founder of Anna Joyce Designs, and teacher at MD, brought home her very first BERNINA sewing machine last winter. She was able to choose a machine just right for her, the Aurora 450. This machine has loads of decorative stitches, and a 9mm stitch width. Many people wonder why you would want the ability to make decorative stitches bigger or even add them to a project in the first place, but for Anna, those full thready stitches were love at first sight. With her new work, Anna is diving into their rich but not overly done look beautifully. You can learn about machine applique in one of Anna’s upcoming classes. Here, Anna shares some thoughts about her new work.

This new new series of designs is inspired by vintage circus illustrations and has been so fun to create using  machine applique and decorative stitching. After cutting and designing each piece I have been hand drawing all of the details on the animals with a Clover Air Erasable fabric marker and then rendering them in thread, giving each design a unique personality that has been unexpected and really fun to create.

I feel like this new work is giving voice to all of the decorative stitches that my sewing machine (“Bernice”…my Aurora 450)  has to offer, adding a lot of texture and richness to the finished product with such ease. These circus pieces are just the beginning, and I am really excited to see where my work goes from here!