Ring Around the Rosy -- Block 1 from At Piece With Time By Kristin Steiner and Diane Frankenberger

Applique is a funny thing in quilting...

It's kind of like quilting directions for a quilt.  You know, you find that pattern that you love, buy the fabric, settle down, and make the quilt top.  And at the end of the directions, there is always that one line that strikes fear in the heart of most quilters, "Quilt as desired."

Annnnddddd that's where I generally draw a blank.

Applique is similar.  There are some gorgeous applique patterns out there, and they leave it up to you to determine which method is best for the quilt and which method is the best for you.  And like quilting, there are several options and each option has a distinct look.  Each option also has pros and cons.  I want to address needle turn, freezer paper, Mylar template, and machine applique while we work on this quilt. For Ring Around the Rosy, I'm going to start with needle turn.

Those that know me realize that this is no accident. Needle turn is my favorite applique process.  The pros for me with this process are that it's portable and I think easier than  the other methods.  I also like handwork, so that could be a pro or a con depending on how much you enjoy hand sewing.  However, since it is done by hand, needle turn applique does take longer than machine applique.  It also has a much softer look than any of the other types.  It easily allows for gentle curves and shapes.

At Piece with Time has lots of small applique pieces and for me it's easier to control the smaller pieces by some method of hand applique.  But again, that's me.  I have friends who can work miracles with machine applique.

  The first item on my to do list for Ring Around the Rosy was make a copy of the daisy applique pattern.  Working with a flat copy is just easier than trying to fight the book.

Notice that it's on my light box.  I find one of these very, very helpful in applique.  Don't have a light box?  Use a window or a table that has a glass top. Kristin Steiner and Diane Frankenberger have the applique parts numbered.  Be sure to applique the pieces in order so that the daisy looks like the one they have in their book:

The next thing I do is grab a piece of foundation piecing paper.  This paper is very thin and can easily be seen through, especially when using a light box.  I place the paper over the daisy...

 and I trace the image onto the foundation paper.

Notice I have included the dashed lines that form the X.  These are very important.  They are placement lines and we will get back to those in a moment.

The next step for me is to flip my paper over on the light box, and go back over the image with a fine black Sharpie.

I have several reasons for completing these steps.  First, I always prep my needle turn applique from the back of the quilt block because I don't like any pencil marks on the front of my quilt square.  No matter what claims any marking device may make about completely disappearing, there is always that one in a kazillion chance it won't.  I'd rather not take a chance.  And since I do all the prepping from the back side, I have to reverse the image.  If you ever have an applique pattern that says its images on the pattern are already reversed, you can skip these steps.

Could I have just flipped the copy of the daisy over and outlined it with the black Sharpie?  Yes.  And you can certainly do that.  I just think the foundation paper is easier to see through and as a 52 year-old woman with bad eyesight, I give myself every advantage I can!

The next thing I did was baste a X on my middle square in the block.  I can match the X on the pattern with this X and make sure the daisy is centered:

Remember your square is on point.  The center square needs to be horizontal, not on its side.  Place the pattern on the light box, flip your quilt square over to the wrong side, and center the center square on your pattern, matching the dashed X marks.  Then trace the daisy to the wrong side of your quilt square.  I use a #2 pencil for this.

Now here's the fun part....pick the fabric for the applique!

The first part of the daisy that needs to be appliqued is the stem.  It has the number 1 on it in Kristin Steiner's and Diane Frankenberger's pattern.  Cut a rectangle large enough to cover all the area of the stem.  Make sure it fits, and having it bigger than the actual stem is helpful.  It's always easier to cut it down (and sometimes trim it twice), than having to s-t-r-e-t-c-h the material to cover an area.

Go back to your light box.  Place the stem material right-side down on your light box.  Then place the block wrong-side up over the material, so that the stem material covers the stem you traced on the wrong side of the quilt square.  Pin in place.

Now run basting stitches around the stem, following the pencil outline.  I use a thread that really contrasts with my material, so I can easily see it (again...the 52-year-old-with-bad-eyesight-thing).  This is how it should look like from the wrong side of the quilt block:

This is how it looks from the right side of the block -- and you will be now working from this side to complete the stem.

Carefully cut around the basting stitches.  Don't trim any closer than 1/4-inch.  It's always easier to trim off more than to wish you hadn't trimmed it quite so close!  And truthfully, there are few times when I trim any closer than a scant 1/4-inch.

Thread an applique needle with thread that matches your stem.  Carefully remove the first stitch or two of the basting stitches.

Bring the threaded needle up from the back of your quilt square. Turn the stem fabric under and take a tiny stitch to sew the folded fabric in place.  I only pick up a thread or two of my applique fabric.  The applique stitches need to be nearly invisible.  

There are two tools that can be really, really helpful here.  One is a toothpick that is slightly moistened.  It helps turn the applique fabric under easily.  

Annnd to keep my toothpick moistened while appliqueing, I usually hold it in my mouth.  Yep.  True confession time here, and let me tell you it's attractive (not....)

  The second tool that is helpful is some type of magnifying glass.  This will let you see your work in an enlarged setting so that you can keep your applique stitches really small.  There are types of magnifying glasses made primarily for quilters that are worn on a chain around your neck.  However, I have found these cumbersome and expensive.  The best ones I have found are the magnifying glasses with a head-mount that are worn by miniature enthusiasts -- the folks that work with dollhouses or miniature train settings.  Some even come with lights.  

If you're new to hand sewing, or simply haven't done it in a while, you may find this part slow-going.  I promise the more you do it, the faster you will become at it.

Don't remove too many basting stitches at one time!  Just one or two, then stitch down the stem, and remove a couple of more.

Notice how tiny the applique stitches are.   They are even barely noticeable on the wrong side of the quilt block.

The second applique item to add is a daisy petal.  Remember to add the pieces in numerical order so that all exposed raw edges are covered.

When all pieces are appliqued, the daisy will need to be pressed.  Place a clean towel on an ironing board and lay the block wrong-side up on the towel.  Press gently from the wrong side.  

And the best pressing towel I have EVER had?  A Shamwow.  Awesome.

Couple confessions about my pressing any applique.

1.  When I come to a spot when I have one applique piece that overlaps another applique piece (as when we added the first daisy petal), I press the applique before adding the overlapping piece.  So I pressed the stem before I added the first petal.  I think it makes the applique look better and not so "puffy."

2.  And yes, I do use steam.  However, I don't use starch at this point.

Now your block should look similar to this:

Sew much fun!

Love and Stitches,

Sherri 

Finished Piecing my Glacier Star!!!!!

My mentor, Ellen Freeman, has stated that each quilt is always finished twice.  The first finish is when you complete the top.  The second finish is when it's quilted and bound.  I just completed my Glacier Star's first finish.  I began this quilt in January 2011 and finished the center that same year in a Judy Neimyer class led by Lucille Amos at Dragonfly Quilt Shop.  I purchased the extension patterns to make it a queen-sized quilt and on my trip to Lancaster, PA for the 2012 AQS Show, I purchased the additional fabric.

I'm proud and pleased and happy and a little sad, too.  I really enjoyed making this top, despite the kazillion flying geese in it.  I've already purchased three more Judy Neimyer patterns.  They are the BEST paper piecing quilt patterns I've ever used.

And as soon as Christmas is over, this is going out to the longarm quilters....

At Piece With Time -- First Block

Get ready for the adventure to start!  We're going to put together the first block of At Piece with Time in this post, so this will be a longer blog than I normally do.  I have found most people like to be inspired with pretty pictures and fewer words, so I do try to adhere to that with most of my blogs.

But this is going to be more instructional -- and hopefully inspirational, too -- so there will be more words, but there will also be pictures!  Lots of pictures, because piecing is one of those things where you have to see what's going on to make sense of it.  But first, these public service announcements...

1.  If you haven't picked out your main fabrics, now is the time to do so.  You can always add accent fabrics that you're going to use to applique with, but you need to use the five to seven main fabrics you've picked out to piece with in order to have continuity in your blocks.  This helps your quilt to "flow."

2.  If you're planning on appliqueing the setting triangles around the Blazing Star center block, keep working on those as you go along.  I hate getting down to the very end of my quilt and then having to stop while I spend lots of time on one last, lingering step.  That's why I gave you those instructions earlier in my blog.

3.  The Quilters Academy books by Harriet and Carrie Hargrave are wonderful additions to anyone's quilting library.  Please get at least the first book, Freshman Year, even if you don't purchase the additional ones.  The Freshman Year teaches you how to prep your fabric before you put rotary cutter to it.  These are awesome books -- and I'm not getting paid to promote them.  I have bought the first two in the series and will eventually buy all of them.  They are just that good.

Okay bunnies...it's time to start...

 Prep your fabric.  Decide if you're going to prewash or not prewash.  Put on straight of grain, and starch.  These are the fabrics I've picked out for the first block--

  And this is what they look like all cut out.  The instructions in the book are given in pictures, and that can be a bit tricky at first.  But after you get through the first block, it gets easier to understand.

I do recommend, as I do with any quilt pattern, that you completely read through the instructions for the block first before assembling anything.  You will note that the finished size of this block is 10 inches.  That means that when this block is set in the quilt on point with the setting triangles, it will measure 10-inches square.  So when you finish piecing this block, it should measure exactly 10 1/2 - inches square -- the extra half-inch at this point is for the seam allowances.

Now let me address something that may sound like quilt heresy:  The myth of the 1/4-inch seam.  Most quilt patterns instruct us to use a 1/4-inch seam allowance.  And most of the time that works well.  What you should be concerned with is the unfinished size of the block, not necessarily the seam allowance.  In our case, that unfinished size is 10 1/2 inches.  In most cases, the 1/4-inch seam allowance is going to work fine.  But if your block smaller or larger than 10 1/2 inches, then you're going to have to play with your seam allowance to make the block exactly 10 1/2 inches square.

If you have a newer sewing machine that is geared towards quilters, you probably have a "quilting foot"  included with your machine.  This is exactly 1/4-inch.  I have one with my Janome 7700.  It's a great foot.  But there is a foot out there called "Little Foot" that is even better.  It's a scant 1/4-inch foot.  In other words, it's a thread or two smaller than 1/4-inch and through 15 years of quilting with it, I have found this foot works BEST.  My squares continually come out right on the money as far as correct size.  Here's what it looks like from several views:

This foot is not an expensive accessory to purchase.  It's around $20 and you can get it from Clotilde, JWhittle, and sometimes even your local fabric store or quilt shop.  Just be sure you know if your machine is a high shank or low shank before purchasing.  And again, I'm not getting paid by Little Foot to promote these.  This is simply a wonderful foot and one of those items I encourage every quilter to get.

The first step consists of you joining the rectangles to the center square.  The only thing I don't like about the instructions is there is no indication what size this needs to be when it's assembled.  So you don't know until the very end of the piecing process if you need to readjust your seam allowances.

Then you join your accent squares to the remaining two rectangles:

And if you've measured correctly and ironed the seam allowances according to the directions, everything should go smoothly together to form this:

The next steps involve joining the triangles that have been cut out.  Anytime you cut squares in half to form triangles, a bias has been exposed and those triangles need to be handled carefully so as not to stretch the bias.  If you follow the cutting directions given by the Hargraves in their first book and starch your fabric, the bias is stabilized a bit and I think they're just easier to handle.

Make four squares out of your background fabric and an accent fabric like this.  I've already cut the "dog ears" off of mine.

Now comes the tricky steps.  I found it helps to lay this part out beside my sewing machine helps me keep all the triangles going in the right direction.

Add the next triangle like this:

You sew the triangle along the long right-hand side.

The next step is really vital.  I've heard a lot of "chatter" coming from some recent vendor shows  negating the necessity of pressing after each step of piecing.  The logic is that a final press of everything should be okay, as long as you finger-press the seams between steps.  I really, really, strongly, emphatically advise against this.  In order to keep sharp corners, points, and just the over all crisp look, you need to press between steps.  So now take this to your ironing board and press the seam towards the background triangle.

Now flip it over and it should look like this:

Add the next triangle like this:

And again, press towards the background triangle.  When you flip it over, it will look like this:

Notice middle triangle -- the dark one -- kind of "floats."  It needs to -- that extra "float" room is the seam allowances used to join the triangle to the square and then later to the setting triangles.

Now to join these four large, pieced triangles to the square we have previously constructed.

Center the point of the triangle that is pointing downwards so that it's in the exact middle of the center square.  This will line everything else up and give you a healthy "overhang" of the base ends of the triangle off the top of the square.

Now, let me move on to what is probably my primary pet peeve in quilting -- cut off points of triangles.  There's an easy secret to avoid this and I'm about to reveal it.  Study the picture below.

You can see the seams where the triangles were joined.  Where these seams intersect forms an X.  When you join the large triangle to the square, make sure you sew outside the X.  You can see that my seam is ust a thread or two above that X.  As long as your outside that X, I promise your points will never, ever be cut off and will look just like this:

No point cut off....

Put on two of the triangles on opposite ends of the square....

Then sew on the last two triangles....and you're done.  We will talk applique next time.  Meanwhile, cut the "bunny ears" off the back.  Until next time,


Love and Stitches...

Sherri

I'm Thankful for Grandma Perry....

Okay bunnies...this was supposed to have posted the week of Thanksgiving, but it didn't for whatever reason.  It makes no matter....I'm still thankful.  


I love Thanksgiving -- mostly because in the face of Christmas, it's a slower holiday, a little less hectic, and there's more time for reflection.  And I'm thankful for all the "standard stuff" -- health, family, a roof over my head, a steady business, and this year, my beautiful granddaughter.

It goes without saying that I am thankful for quilts and quilters.  I've quilted with some women since 2001 and they're my "go to" gals.  When I have a prayer request, I call them.  When I'm rejoicing and doing the happy dance around the kitchen, they get a text.  They're my closest friends and most comfortable confidants.

But if wasn't for a happenstance years ago, I might have lived the rest of my life without knowing Dixie and Maylene, Judy and Theressa, Lisa and Gail...

My mother was cleaning out her house and gave me a quilt.  It was an old quilt, faded and worn.  I remembered playing on this quilt in Grandma Forbes yard.

It was made from feedsacks and tied with pearl cotton and was meant for everyday use.  I'm sure my mom gave it to me, thinking that I would let my kids (who were still fairly small then), use it as a play pallet in my yard.

But I couldn't.  That quilt spoke to me and rustled up a longing in me that to this day I can't explain.  As I listened to my mother talk about the fabrics --"My grandfather had a shirt made out of that fabric.  And look -- that yellow and black one over there?  My mother had a dress made out of that," I knew that Great-Grandma Perry's quilt wasn't a play thing, it was a treasure.  It was our family history, because from recognizing some of those fabrics, my mother began to tell me an oral history about her family.  Which led to more research, which led me to know the women on my mother's side.  They were quilters.  I found some of their obituaries and discovered that the quilt bee they belonged to was listed in the same line of print that held their church and Sunday School affiliation.

Which prompted me to learn to quilt.  It was a family tradition that spanned from Maryland and West Virginia to California.  Who was I to deny fate its rightful trek and not go with the pull of the needle and thread?

It's quilted not with batting and backing, but on a heavy duty blanket.  The quilt was probably made in Spray (now Eden), North Carolina and there was a Fieldcrest Blanket Factory across the street from where my grandmother lived.  The factory sold second-run blankets and blanket pieces.  More than likely my great-aunts and uncles may have worked at the factory and brought these home to Grandma Perry.  The blanket is still in good condition.

The quilt now loving resides in my bedroom, where it it taken off the quilt rack once a month and re-folded.  And on nights I'm missing my family, or it's really cold, it lays on top of me, like a hug from the past and "I love you" whispers from my family.

A Loss

I know that I normally write about quilts and quilters or techniques. But today I woke up to a loss.

My cat -- a beloved quilting companion of 13 years -- died last night in her sleep.

My comfort is that she died in a comfy bed, in a warm house, with ample food and medication.  Her needs and wants were carefully attended to with love.

Great love.

See, she was supposed to be a dog.  Honestly.

Scooter came into our lives 13 years ago when we visited a pet shop in search of a fru-fru dog for my daughter.  Instead, this nine-month old rescue kitten was in a cage, laying on a shelf, looking at the world from an upside-down perspective.

And I decided then that that cat deserved a home.  Anything trying to make sense of a world that doesn't make much sense most of the time from a different perspective, needed to come home with me. So instead of dog, we brought home a cat.  Despite the fact she was supposed to be Meagan's pet, she picked me.  Scooter was my cat.

So for 13 years she sat on the back of the couch or beside me while I appliqued.  Or in my sewing room with me while I pieced and quilted.  For many years she slept in my bed with me until her bladder control became an issue and she had to have a bed near her litter box.

The past few months she steadily declined and it was my fear that while we were out of town over Thanksgiving, she would pass while we were gone.  The last three days I fed her her favorite cat food, which she didn't eat.  She wouldn't even eat vanilla yogurt -- her very favorite thing.

So today, I salute a furry quilting companion.  One that always liked whatever I was making, would sit up with me however late it was I was working on a project, and provided wonderful company.

Scooter will be missed.