Here at Anita, we take complicated patterns and break them up to be user-friendly regardless of one's skill or experience level. For example, we make techniques like paper piecing, bargello Quilting, and Double wedding ring quilts super easy with our broken-down instructions and digitization. 

Paper piecing can refer to two similar styles of quilting techniques: English paper piecing or foundational paper piecing. Both techniques involve using a paper pattern upon which you stitch your quilt fabrics, often used to make complex shapes, motifs, or geometric designs. Because the act of sewing with a shortened stitch length perforates the paper, the paper can then be torn away at the end, leaving a beautifully stitched design behind. Historically, quilters have used things like newspapers, old letters, or other scrap papers for paper piecing, and some old quilts can be placed in their historical context because the dated newspapers were left inside! We wanted to create a way to honor this traditional quilting method while giving it a modern update, and thus, our paper piecing technique was born!

Unlike traditional paper piecing, Anita’s paper piecing method isn’t just for quilt blocks—we incorporate the paper-pieced fabric sections into appliqué shapes and incorporate those paper-pieced shapes into many types of designs in our embroidery and quilting collections. This enables you to fill each section of your appliqué shape with multiple fabric types, fabric colors, interesting prints, or anything you’d like! Then, each paper pieced appliqué shape is finished off with a beautiful satin stitch outline. With our paper piecing method, you can place, stitch, and trim your fabrics all in the hoop, creating intricated designs with crisp lines, no paper required!

Foundation paper piecing is a method of quilting that uses a paper foundation, upon which your quilt blocks are stitched. This method helps quilters obtain a neat finish where seams and straight lines match up and is especially helpful when working with small or irregular shapes with lots of angles.

Anita’s paper-piecing technique takes the hard work and the guesswork out of the equation! You can use your home embroidery machine to create designs with perfectly placed fabrics, clean folds, and crisp lines—all within a specific shape. Our way is faster, and easier, and the results will always look amazing.

Bargello quilts look very difficult to create, but in reality, they are not. The quilts are made in small strips using our folded fabric technique. We used letters stitched onto the stabilizer to represent where each piece of fabric should be placed. The strips are created in a unique way, with multiple strips being created in your embroidery hoop at the same time. They are then sorted and stitched together into a Bargello quilt pattern. Since the strips all look relatively the same when they are stitched, how do you keep track of them all? To solve this problem, each block has stitched numbers in the seam allowance so it is easy to keep track of which piece goes where.  It doesn’t get any easier than this! 

The Double Wedding ring quilt has folds within the rings, seemingly complex but really easy with Anita's 3 step fold process. The interlocking rings are made of paper piecing and are a beautiful symbol of marriage; two people joining together to become one story. This type of quilt has the potential to be a family heirloom that has a lovely story to go along with it. You can even create the folds using fabrics with sentimental value, like old clothing or bedspreads! 

Check out some of these collections that feature complicated patterns that we make easy!