Saturday, September 26, 2015

More than Just Quilting Cottons


Over the past couple of years, there are two new fabrics that have invaded the 100% cotton fabrics that quilters love so much.  Those two fabrics are flannels and wools. 

I was first introduced to flannels about 27 years ago when I was pregnant with my son.  I made Matt a crib quilt and backed it with flannel.  To say I was not impressed with flannel is a severe understatement.  It frayed and did not play well with the batting.  It was a headache to sew with from beginning to end and I swore I would not spend what precious little quilting time I had with such an onerous fabric again.
The back of Matt's Baby Quilt

Besides, flannel didn’t even come in pretty colors.

Flash forward ahead to three or so years ago, say, circa 2013.  My how things have changed.  Bonnie Sullivan came out with a line of flannels that were brilliantly colored, breath-takingly beautiful, and patterns to go with them.  The little quilt shop I frequent began to purchase bolts of the tempting fabric and flaunt them in front of my face.

Then they paired the flannels with wool.  It was to-die-for gorgeous.

But still a part of me held back.  As beautiful as the fabric was and as preciously cute as the quilt blocks were, it was, after all, still flannel.

And flannel is stretchy.

And if frays easily.

And it does not wash well.

However, I was comparing the 1988 flannel to the new lines.  Some of those concerns still held, but now…now there were products and methods to counter any of the hindrances of working with flannel. 

The first issue with flannel has obviously been dealt with – what they look like.  While you can still get the standard light blues, pinks, soft yellows, and mint greens, the folks that manufacture flannel have upgraded the choices tremendously.  They are patterned in herringbone, tweeds, plaids, stripes, flowers, and dots.  Quilt panels are also appearing in flannel.  One quick glance in quilt catalogs and some quilt stores (as well as some “big box” stores) dispels the notion that flannels are dull. 
Flannels for my Raspberry Swirl

Now for the stretch issue.  That is still true with flannel.  It does stretch.  Flannel is typically made out of wool, but it is mixed with cotton and synthetic fibers.  It’s the synthetic fibers that give flannel its stretch.  However, there are some suggestions on handling the flannels that help keep their shape.

First, lightly  starch the wrong side of the flannel with spray starch or Best Press and a hot  iron before cutting.  The key word here is lightly.  The fabric should not be stiff, but have just enough added body to stabilize it. 

Second, be sure to press and not iron the fabric.  Remember my earlier blog about the difference between pressing and ironing?  Ironing is a back and forth motion of the iron and pressing is an up and down motion.  If the flannel is ironed, that back and forth motion is sure to stretch the fabric even more.  If you’re putting the iron to your flannel, be sure press at all times. 

Third, if you have to use the exposed bias (as in half-square triangles), handle those as little as possible and as gently as you can.  And expose that bias at the last minute to avoid stretching.

As far as the fraying issue goes, flannel is going to fray far worse than cotton quilting fabric.  And cheap flannel frays the worst. However, if the quilter is prepared for the fray, then he or she knows there are steps to take to combat it.

Flannel is often used as a background for wool or flannel applique.  If this is the part flannel is playing in your quilt, then cut the background square at least ¼-inch to a ½- larger than the unfinished required size.  Yes, this is larger than you cut cotton backgrounds, but again, flannel frays a lot worse than cotton fabrics.  This added width and length gives you what I call “fray margin.”  The loose threads can easily be trimmed away without messing up your required unfinished measurements.

If this amount fray margin can’t be achieved, zig zag or serge the edges of the square. Remember that typical applique patterns require the quilter to cut the square down a little before piecing the quilt.  The zig zag or serged stitches will be cut away, so no additional bulk with be added to the seams.

There is also a product on the market called Fray Check.  It’s typically available at the “big box” stores and at some quilt shops.  This product has been on the market for years.  I used it back in the 1980’s-1990’s when I taught French heirloom sewing.  I would coat the end of the ribbons I used in Meg’s dresses so they wouldn’t fray.  It has the consistency and look of clear fingernail polish, but it dries soft.  While it would be costly to coat all of the edges of a flannel quilt in Fray Check, if there is a spot or two that has some really bad “fray issues,” it is my go-to choice to deal with it.
Fray Check

While we’re on the subject of applique and flannel, it should also be remembered that flannel has a very soft hand – that is, it’s a really soft fabric.  It doesn’t have the stiffness that cotton does when it comes off the bolt.  Therefore, don’t wash the flannel before you begin to work with it. 

This may go against everything you know about prepping fabric for quilting, but flannel is a horse of a different color when it comes to piecing and quilting.   Flannel manufacturers do put a type of sizing on the right side of the flannel before they ship it out to the wholesale and retail markets.  However, that sizing is far less and much softer than what’s used on cottons.  So it’s not a good idea to wash out what little finish is in the fabric.  Plus, the added washing would cause the fabric to fray even more.

And this, of course, means two things.  There is that possibility of the flannel pieces fading on each other.  But again, this is 2015, and dyes have come such a long way, especially in the flannel market.  When the flannel item is washed, throw a Color Catcher in the washer and everything will most likely be fine.

Second, this means that when the flannel quilt is washed and dried, there will be some shrinkage.  And this shrinkage will cause the quilting to “pucker” just a bit and give the quilted item the look of an “older” quilt. 

That soft feel of the flannel may make you a little hesitant about machine appliqueing with flannel.  Don’t be afraid.  It machine appliques beautifully.  There will be a future blog on this topic that will go into more detail, but it boils down to a few important things to keep in mind.

--Use a smaller and tighter zig zag or blanket stitch.  Because flannel frays, that smaller and tighter stitch keeps the fray factor in check.

--Back flannel with a stabilizer.  Because the flannel has such a soft hand, your sewing machine may not want to move it over the feed dogs evenly with a small, tight stitch.  The result will be a hole in your flannel.  My favorite product to use as a stabilizer on flannel is Pellon’s Stacy Easy Knit.  It irons on and is light and soft.  It does not have to be removed prior to quilting, either.  It’s easy to quilt right through, either on a domestic sewing machine or a long arm. 
Pellon's Stacy Easy Knit - you can see how light and soft it is.

Finally, when the quilt square is finished, it’s a good idea to stay stitch around the block to help the flannel hold its shape and not fray.  And clean your machine when the project is done.  Flannel is very, very linty.  Your machine will need to be cleaned thoroughly.

More on flannel (and wools!) in a week or so….until then,

Love and Stitches,
Sherri
PS -- Always remember that I am not a paid employee of any product company I promote on my website.  I mention the product and trade names that I use and pay for myself and know to be of good quality.

Friday, September 18, 2015

A Trip to the Eye Doctor and the Color Purple


Today has been a doozy of a day.

I’ve never exaggerated about my age in this blog.  I am 53 years-old.  And 53 is what it is…middle aged and some issues are beginning to crop up in the getting-older body.  While my mind still thinks it’s a 20-something, my body is sayin’ it ain’t cashing that check.
Today was one of those check-bouncing days.  I have horrible eyesight and wear contacts or glasses every waking hour.  Today I had to go see my optometrist, an energetic 20-something woman whose body isn’t even writing checks yet.  The good news is no glaucoma, no macular degeneration, and no sign of cataracts. 
The bad news is I’m still blind as a bat.
That and my pupils are still dilated to the point you can’t see hardly any blue at all.  If I had been pulled over by the police at any given time today, I would have promptly been asked to pee in a cup.
However, my eye doctor was very intrigued about quilting.  When she asked if I wore reading glasses in addition to my contacts, I mentioned I wore a magnifier when I appliqued.  Which brought up questions about what that was and what all quilting entails.
Moral of my morning appointment:  She said all quilters need to take care of their eyesight.  She was happy with my explanation of Ott lights and magnifiers and cautioned me (as well as every other quilter) to be careful with their eyes.  Rest them after about 20-30 minutes of hand sewing.  Make sure the lighting is not just adequate, but really, really good. 
Of all the senses we use, as quilters, sight is really precious.
I hadn’t intended on sharing all of that, but as this week’s blog is on color, I did think it was pertinent. 
I love picking out fabric for my quilts. I love color and design.  And quilters, as artists, are sensitive to color.  There are the pure colors – which are the primary colors and all the colors that are made by mixing any two of the primary colors.  Tints are made when white is added to any color in varying amounts.  Tints are colors such as apricot, pink, lavender, mint green, robin egg blue, and light blue. Shades are created when black is added to a pure color.  With the addition of black, colors such as olive, avocado, rust, brown, cranberry, maroon, navy, emerald green, teal, dark blue, and dark violet are created. 
Tones are made when a pure color, tint, or shade has been grayed.  If the graying is minimal, the effect is subtle.  The color, tint, or shade is slightly softened.  If the graying is more extreme, the color itself appears gray with just a hint of the color.  Beige, tan, rose, mauve, plum, heather, dusty teal, bluish gray, and salmon are tones. 
All of these colors, tints, shades, and tones are wonderful and you only have to glance outside of your window to see how Mother Nature uses these in a grand harmonic gesture.  However, there are two colors that are particularly intriguing to me as a quilter.
These two colors are lime green (a mix of yellow and green) and purple (a mix of red and blue).

 
When I first started quilting back in 1985, it was a pretty hard and fast “suggestion” (because there really are no rules in quilting), that a quilt needed to be a balance of warm and cool colors.  The warm colors of course are the reds and oranges and yellows.  The cool colors are the greens and the blues.
Current quilting has kind of blown that “suggestion” out of the water.  The 2013 and 2015 APQS winners had yellows and oranges as their background fabrics, fully nullifying the cool/warm balance rule.  While cool colors were used in these quilts, the overwhelming color scheme was warm. 
And you know what?  That’s fine.  The quilts are beautiful.
However, getting back to the lime green and purple, the reason I like them so much is that they play on both teams. 
Place purple next to a cool color, such as blue, and it looks cool. 

 
But watch what happens when you place it next to a warm color such as red…


 It heats up immediately.
The same thing happens to lime green.  Next to a cool color, it’s cool.

 
Next to a warm color, it’s warmer.



I think it’s even more noticeable in batiks, where the colors undulate.






 
Moral of this story – while purples and lime greens are great to play with and are the most versatile of colors – they do make placement of them a little tricky.  Please note that if you’re using them as a cool color, make sure they’re placed next to cool colors.  If it’s used as a warm color, make sure it’s next to warm colors.  Otherwise, they’re not going to do the job you want to do.

And wonkiness will ensue. 

Love and Stitches, 

Sherri




Sunday, September 13, 2015

Cleaning Out and Cleaning Up

So...I'm back from vacation.

You know how it is when you leave to go on vacation.  You clean the house and then somehow, someway, it still gets dirty when you're gone.

Or you just didn't see the mess when you left.

That's the way it was with my sewing area.  It was one of the first things I saw when I returned home.  My first thought was "It's a wonder I can find anything...much less get anything done!" 

So I cleaned up and threw out and re-organized.  Four hours and eight new bins from Office Depo later, I think it's better, except I misplaced some blocks for my history club's quilt.  Need to find those babies soon.

Such was  my week and therefore a short blog. 

More next week....

Sherri

Saturday, September 5, 2015

A Sad Good-bye

I know I said there would be no blog this week because I was on vacation with my family.  However, I received some information that was very upsetting.

After 46 years, the National Quilt Association is shutting its doors.

That's kind of like hearing the  church you're a member of is going out of business.

You see for 46 years, the NQA has put out a quarterly magazine with terrific articles and pictures and patterns.  They have fostered excellence through shows and classes.  This is the organization that established the quilt world's teacher certification program and the certified judges program. 

And those programs are thorough.  The teaching certification program has produced some of the finest teachers available to quilters and the judges program is so rigorous that one of the judges told me "It's like getting a PhD in quilting." 

Along with all of this, they had a grant program for quilt artists.

Financial crunch is the reason the NQA is folding.  The cost of shows is rising while membership is declining.  Both of those equal financial statements that will run in the red.  So while you can't blame the board for reaching this decision, it does send a shiver up my back.

Most quilters are like me.  They are "belongers."  They belong to at least one of their local guilds, several bees, and at least one national quilting organization, such NQA, AQS, IQA, and TAS.  I'm a card-carrying member of all four national organizations, two guilds, and two bees.  We cherish the fellowship and value the information that is passed on. So when one of these organizations ups and vanishes -- well, I kind of worry that others may be on that precipice.  Every time the quilt world loses a guild, or national organization, or a bee, a little piece of quilt history and quilt information is gone forever.  And that, my quilting friend, is very, very sad indeed. 

Could NQA have been saved?  Perhaps.  I'm not on the their board, so I don't have ready access to financials, but perhaps.  Cut the number of shows?  Maybe.  Shows are expensive and take a huge amount of time.  Up membership dues?  Another maybe.  But then you run the risk of alienating members. 

In a lot of ways, quilting organizations have their backs against a wall.  National and international organizations are at a particular risk.  With a local bee or guild, you have meetings and workshops and other events that put you face-to-face with other quilters, so the fellowship and learning component is readily available and worth that $20 to $25 annual membership fee.  The national and international organizations for the most part do not have this advantage.  The Applique Society (TAS) -- of which I am a board member -- has chapters that meet monthly or even weekly.  But not all states have them.  It's up to a TAS member to see the need and start a chapter.

Sometimes it's hard for quilters to see the advantage of that  $25+ membership fee.  All of these organizations have websites and quarterly newsletters.  AQS offers a membership discount into all of their shows and at their online store or their booth at shows.  Most local quilt shops will honor those cards with a 10% discount.

So what's a quilting organization to do?

I thought a lot about this, what with working with my guilds and as a board member of TAS.  I think all quilting groups -- bees, local guilds, and large quilting organization -- must remember that the times -- they are a changin'.

The average age of a guild member is 50.  These are folks who have for the most part raised their kids and see the retirement light at the end of a long, hard tunnel.  Most have a little more disposable income.  This means if you gotta raise the membership dues by $2 to $5, they're not gonna complain a whole lot.  Sure, they're going to grumble a little, but if they feel they're getting bang for their buck, a slight increase probably won't hurt your membership a whole lot.

However, this has got to be handled carefully.  I feel the membership has got to know why the fee is being raised -- that it's not just an arbitrary decision by the board.  For instance, I know of one quilting group whose show really tanked this year.  The President was pretty straight forward with the membership over the financial crunch.  She told the group the fees would be raised $5 to a total of $30 annually until the group could run in the black again, or the programs would have to be severely cut back.  The membership voted to raise the fee. 

Now let's pick up two issues from this.  First of all the age thing -- 50 years-old.  I definitely fall into that average.  But there is a whole huge group of new quilters out there who are younger and energetic and appreciate the art, too -- the Modern Quilters.  Now before some of you traditionalists get your batting in a twist, let me remind you that it's probably going to be this generation of quilters who decide if quilting is going to survive for another 40 years.  For sure, they have their own guilds, but we should be making a large effort to attract them to ours. 

And this may mean changing some of the ways we do things. This group is definitely internet savvy.  They're perfectly fine with chat rooms and blogging and Facebook and Twitter.  They want their newsletters on line.  They are fine with lots of negative space in their quilts and certainly want their own category at the next quilt show.

We could learn a lot from them.  And they could learn a lot from us.

Nationally, membership is on the decline, especially in large quilting organizations.  Attracting these new members could benefit everyone.  It may mean upping the ante on our websites or having a modern quilt category in our shows.  It means not gaping at their quilts at the guild show and tell.  It means listening to what a whole new category of quilters want from a guild.  Virtual meetings?  Day time meetings over lunch?  And it certainly means seeing how traditional techniques (such as applique) could be incorporated into their quilts.

Attracting these folks would push up the membership numbers and be beneficial for everyone.

The second issue is shows.  Shows take a great deal of time and a greater deal of money.  And more volunteers than you could shake a quilting needle at.  Every guild I have talked to this year that has had a show has either not made as much as they did at the last show (best case scenario) or the show completely failed (worst case scenario).  It seems each guild puts on their own show as well as each national organization.  I really, really feel that this has got to change.

In the business world, in order to survive, you need to find a niche you fill better than anyone.  In the business that my husband and I own, ours is federal and military work -- for a multitude of reasons.  It means miles of red tape, but it's put two kids through college and made mortgage payments.  I firmly believe that organizations that are producing quilt shows have got to start thinking along the same lines.

If every other guild in your state is having a quilt show in the same year, why should a quilter go to your show over another?  And better yet, why should a vendor pick your show over another to vend at? It's a given that huge organizations, such as AQS, have their shows down to a science, so let's see what we can learn from them.

There's always Paducah.  They can have shows all over the United States and all different times of year, but come April, you know they're always going to be in Paducah, Kentucky. 

It's a multi-day show.  Generally, it's a three day show regardless of the location.

They're not afraid to network.  There's always a strong showing of local guilds.

They have classes with great teachers.  Always.

It's a judged (and usually juried) show.  Yep.  AQS ribbons mean something.  You come home with one of their blues and you've made it as far as the quilting elite goes.

So what does this mean to a guild?
1.  Find the best time of year to have your show that's convenient to your customers and vendors and have it about that same time every other year. 

2.  Make it at least two days.  A lot of great vendors who may have to travel some distance to be at your show won't touch a one-day event.  Multiple days may make a difference.

3.  I really do believe that the days of the one-guild show are over.  I think guilds need to work together to put on a multi-day show.  This spreads the cost around as well as gives you more volunteers to pull from.  For instance, there is an area on the coast where three or more guilds get together to have their show.  Each guild takes turns being the host -- that guild gets the attendance money.  The have a food vendor that sets up but it is not allowed to sell desserts.  Another guild sells desserts and they get that money.  So cost and proceeds can be divided.  It's a matter of guilds working together.  As a result of the cooperation of the above mentioned guilds, attendance is stellar and everyone goes home happy, not exhausted, and has cash in the guild's tender.

4.  If you have a multi-day show with multi-guild help, you can pull the best teachers from each guild and offer classes -- a win/win for everyone.  That way you're encouraging people to come back to your show for a couple of days to take classes.  This makes vendors happy and it allows the guild to showcase their best instructors. 

5.  Viewers' choice ribbons are fine, but you really need a judged show with a certified judge.  This is an added expense, but it can be worked around.  The quilts are usually judged before they're hung for the show.  Most guilds charge an additional fee per quilt to cover the cost of the judge.  Of course, not all members may want their quilts judged, they just want them hung.  And that's fine.  But it should be stressed just what a judged show is -- a quilt judge is not going to be hyper-critical of their work.  He or she is going to give them a critique of their quilt -- what they did great and what they need to work on.  It can only help make you a better quilter.  Plus, honestly?  You really get a better turn out for a judged show.  Sometimes judged quilt shows are open to guild members only and sometimes they're open to anyone.  It's up to the guild(s) involved to make these decisions.

The news about NQA is very upsetting.  I hate it so much.  But as quilters we can take this as a cautionary event and look at the organizations we love so much very carefully.  While we love guilds and national groups so very much, everyone must realize that they are a business.  We may not call them as such, but they do have a bottom line that needs to be kept in the black. Hard decisions may need to be made, but if the membership is kept in the loop, I don't think these decisions are impossible. 

The last thing I want to do is say good-bye to another one.

Love and Stitches...and Kleenex tonight,

Sherri