Sue Spargo: Folk-Art Dreams Reviews

"I am having the best time with Sue Spargo and her designs. I'll admit that I love appliqué. I have done just about every kind of appliqué before learning to do the wool appliqué that Sue Spargo teaches. It is so easy! With felted wool, you don't have to turn under a raw edge, which makes appliqué with lots of turns and wiggles much easier. It's almost like sewing with craft felt, but it's much nicer in color, density, and texture. The stitching around the edge of the appliqués can be plain and simple or fancier. You can use a whip stitch or a blanket stitch or any other embroidery stitch you have fun doing.

You can pay big $$$ in the quilt stores for hand dyed felted wool OR you can go to Goodwill and buy woolen skirts, coats, men's suits, etc. for your fabric source for just pennies on the dollar. Literally throw them into the washing machine and dryer and ENCOURAGE them to shrink. If you can cut your appliqué shape from the fabric and it doesn't ravel, then it's felted enough. Wool garments from Goodwill are just about the best bargain around!

One of my very big attractions to Sue Spargo's designs is that they can be very versatile. You can alter the colors to your own favorite palette. Her shapes and designs are great to use for quilt blocks, pockets, small projects, tote bags, and garments. They beg to be embellished with all that stuff I've collected forever since my needleworking days. I have hand dyed wool yarn for some needlepoint project I'll never do any more, and it's great to use for stitching the wool appliqué pieces. I can overdye rickrack (or not) and make it fit in with Sue's designs. I have kept old buttons and beads. They will now be VERY useful. I have pins and charms that are sentimental for me. They can be used here.

Sue suggests blending cotton fabrics with the wool. Many of her projects are not meant to be washed, but the wool is already washed and felted, so I'm not sure there's a problem.

The EQ Sue Spargo CD can stand alone. You do not need EQ5 or EQ6 to run it.
You can play with block placement and quilt designing with her blocks within the program. You can print out the patterns. And there are videos to offer instruction and an introduction to Sue herself.

I have printed out templates from the CD onto freezer paper for cutting out the appliqués. I iron the templates (without seam allowance) onto the wool and cut. I have also tried some fusing with the wool, and I can print the pattern onto the Wonder Under paper as long as I use an inkjet printer. I have used the EQ product for a plastic overlay (print directly onto the plastic) to use for positioning the appliqué pieces onto the background.

I just wanted to share my great experiences with one of the newer EQ products. Why should I have all the fun?"
- Barb Vlack

"This is possibly one of the best software tools I have had the pleasure of working with. What an amazing value! The ability to integrate into EQ6 is such a great asset and creates amazing opportunities to work with the inspirational format's that Sue gives you in the CD. Any devotee of Sue's work or anyone in general interested in folk applications should love working with this tool. I have had such fun expanding on her base and bringing new students of wool appliqué along while using this format. THE BEST!"
- Lynn Schmitt Cibulka

"This is a great cd. I have only had time to print out one needle case but I know I am going to use this over and over."
- Martha Bilski

"Just spent 2 days playing with Sue Spargo's new CD, if you like folk art this is for you it is great! so many great ideas so little time. Love that you can see all the blocks in EQ5."
- TB, Pittsburgh, PA

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