More than 15 years ago, I started putting beads and crystals on my art quilts. I sewed them on by hand, and the process took many hours, but the time spent was well worth it. Then about 10 years ago, along came heat-set crystals and a special wand (that looked very much like an old soldering iron my husband had around for at least 30 YEARS!). I could put heat activated crystals on my quilts with no sewing needed. I was happy, or at least I thought I was happy, putting my crystals on one by one.

Last March at Sew Expo in Pullayup, Washington, I saw a wonderful demo. They showed me how I could bring an embroidery design into a computer program and create my own crystal design. They REALLY had my attention with that capability. When I returned home, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things I could do with that computer program and a new hardware gadget not yet in my tools arsenal.

The next month, George Moore demonstrated the same software and hardware at a Sew Fun Club meeting, and a set was going home with me even if I had to wrestle him for the demo set. The package included Artistic Crystal V6 software, a Silhouette Cameo cutter, and a crystal starter kit with enough materials to make a few designs.

I have had a machine embroidery design by Janet Samson that I have wanted to do for a long time, but I wasn’t looking forward to putting the thousands of crystals on one-by-one. I brought the design into  my new software and placed the crystals where I wanted them on each block. I also created a border design from some artwork. The crystal placement designs were then sent to the cutter to create vinyl templates for the crystals. It was not very long before the blocks were sewn out and assembled (I’ve been doing this type of work for years), and I was wading into the new experience of crystal embellishment with computer enhanced efficiencies I had never experienced.

The sewn wall hanging without embellishment or piped binding is shown below – a little too small to see the many details. So, I will take you on a closer-up look at the various steps and stages of the simplified and less-laborious journey to completion of the project. This is not a full tutorial on how to do such a project from start to finish – that would be way too involved. This is an overview (of the process) that I hope will provide some details that might help you find a solution to a problem or impediment that may be limiting your creativity. Probably, you will see more than one technique or new idea that you did not know is available to you if you have the right equipment.

I stitched out the blocks for my wall hanging and sewed them together. I found it easier to put the crystals on after the quilt was done.

For each of the blocks, I only had to create a template for one corner as all the corners of a particular block are the same. No two blocks, however, are alike.

Let’s look at how the crystal template is used to do a single block corner of crystals so you understand where the efficiency of this process comes from versus individually putting on a single crystal at a time.

Fill all holes in the vinyl template with a crystal. This is done by brushing crystals onto the template and carefully removing crystals not in a hole.

Use the clear transfer tape to lift all the crystals out of the template.

Place the transfer tape with the crystals onto the fabric taking care that the crystals mate well with the stitching design. The tape is sticky, the crystals are not sticky until heated.

Cover the transfer tape with a press cloth to protect your iron. Apply heat and some pressure for 8-10 seconds. How much heat and pressure is determined by the crystal size – practice first, then work on your real project.

Remove the press cloth and let fabric and crystals cool. Remove the transfer tape from the fabric and crystals – the crystals stay with the design if properly heated.

This process was repeated 4 times for each block.

The process for the border is the same. Only one border design template is needed for this project. The border design template is used twelve times – with loose crystals (about 120) added to the holes for each occurrence of the design.

I did not bother to count or calculate how many crystals were added to the wall hanging… there are many (approximately 2400), and they look good, and my project if finished.

Based on past experience, I figure I saved more than 10 hours of work and plenty of hours of recovery from sore muscles associated with manual installation of many individual crystals. Even better than saving time is how perfect each corner and border design came out.

We have only scratched the surface regarding the capabilities of the crystal software and cutter hardware.  These items have potential application in numerous other types of craft projects – not limited just to fabric and sewing… and we will leave it there… to be discovered sometime in the future.