Rockin' Robin

My guild -- The High Point Quilt Guild -- has a program called Round Robin.  It's a neat, little organization that we do several times a year.  Each person that wants to makes a center block between 12-inches and 24-inches square or rectangle.  The square is handed off to each person in the group, who puts a border around it.  The borders graduate in size.  The first border has to be between two and four inches, the next border is between three and six inches...so you get the picture.  By the time you get the block back, you have a quilt top.  It's really fun because you don't have a pattern or anything to follow.  You look at the block, think about it, and come up with your own design.  I use the Electric Quilt 7 program a lot with this, but it stretches my creativity and design ability.  This is the block I received first on this trade-off of the Round Robin:

It's beautiful, isn't it?  Wonderful machine applique...my challenge with this square was to come up with a pretty border that enhances the applique and also lightens it up.  These are dark batiks.  And I didn't want to have anything that overwhelmed the beautiful applique work.  So it stretched my creativity.  This is what I came up with:

I hope Joy likes it.

I would like to encourage you to find a group that does something like this, either with borders or rows.  If you don't belong to any kind of quilt group where you live, there are lots and lots of groups on the internet that do Round Robins.  It will challenge your skills as a quilter for sure, but it will make you better.  And if you use any version of the Electric Quilt, you will also get better programming that software.  It's a win-win for you.

Just a couple of things to remember if you decide this is something you want to do:
1.  Honor deadlines.
2.  Stay in communication with your fellow members in the Round Robin.  Life happens and if you can't meet a deadline for whatever reason, let them know.
3.  Abide by the rules.

It's so much fun!  Try it!

Serious Work on Harvest Bouquet

I have decided that I'm going to do all the vines at one time, then all the flowers, etc., on each of the blocks, so they will all be done at the same time.

• Vines go first -- the short, little ones go down and then the longer, curvy one.  I don't particularly like making bias tape, but it handle curves like a NASCAR driver.  A really good NASCAR driver.  These curves are gentle ones -- not too tight, so it does not matter which side of the curve you start on.  You may find that as you get into the snug part of the curve, you will want to make your stitches a little closer together to avoid bumps and ridges in the tape.  Completely applique down one side, using your basting stitches as a guideline.
  
  
  
  Then press, using steam, to allow the bias tape to truly take the shape of the curve, and applique down the other side.
  
  
  
   Then repeat the same process with the longer, curvier vines...applique down one side...
  
  
  Press and applique down the other side....
  
  
  
  
   Then repeat for the next three triangles.  Actually, it doesn't take that long.  Bias tape makes the task go faster.  The 1/4-inch tape is a smidge bigger than the drawing, but the tape still makes it so much easier.  And frankly, I wouldn't want to handle anything much smaller.
  
  Gentle curves like those that are on Harvest Bouquet in At Piece with Time, are the easiest to do.  But what if you have something like this, where the curves are much, much tighter?
  
  
  
  
   This is one of the five applique panels from Indian Summer by Joann Embrey.  When the curves are as right as the ones on this pattern, do the inside curves first. I find it easier to make my stitches closer together on these tight curves. Then press, then go back down the outside curve the opposite way you came up the inside curve.  This just helps your fabric to lie flatter and not have tiny ripples in it.  
  
  Whew.  Those vines weren't that bad, were they? And they may not be as bad as some of the tiny petals we have to do on those flowers.  We'll just have to wait and see.  Applique is an adventure!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

There's Going to be a Meeting...

And there was.  As a matter of fact, there were two meetings for me this week.  And a lunch. The first meeting was with The Applique Society -- this is the national applique group that I belong to and I'm its second vice-president...which means I'm responsible for several things.  Most currently the judging of the Chapter Challenge Quilts.  I'm not judging them -- thank goodness.  They are beautiful and I hope to have pictures here by next weekend sometime.  Scott Murkin is judging them and I've been coordinating between him and Dragonfly Quilt Shop, where the judging will take place.  We finally settled on a date and then I took the quilts to the shop where Patty will hang them for us.  If you are anywhere near High Point, NC, go by and look at the quilts in person.  They are exquisite.

The High Point Quilt Guild also met this week and Ellen Freeman gave a program on needleturn.  It sure was great to see her again!  She is such an inspiration both spiritually and quiltingly.  Such a rare and wonderful lady!  I am encouraging her to get some of her patterns published.

Then I had lunch with Karen, who was our 2013 quilt show chairwoman, and we discussed the show and things that we can do to make it better.  All of them were doable.

So here's where I need to post my obligatory picture and discuss quilting stuff.  But between meetings and work this week, I haven't had a lot of time to work on anything. Even Tuesday night's Sit and Sew held the guild's nominating committee talks.  However, I did finish two charity quilts for our guild's lap quilt program (we make the quilts for the chemo patients at the local hospital).  They're identical and a bit on the modern side -- at least for me.  I purchased two yellow and black charm square bundles for $3 each and this was the result:

I even machine quilted these two -- something I haven't talked about a lot here.  I just need to sew on the labels and they're good to go!

I May be a Little Biased Here....

Sooner or later, if you applique, you're going to run into stems, because invariably, quilters love flowers...

And flowers have stems.

I've been appliqueing for over 20 years now, and I have run into my fair share of stems, vines, candy canes and other assorted items that require some long, narrow strip of fabric to create the desired illusion.  I've tried bias tape bars (and badly burned my fingers), sewing one side of the stem or vine down by machine (right side of stem/vine to right side of applique background) and then needle turning the opposite side down, and then biased tape makers.

I'm not partial to vines or stems or anything else that requires a narrow strip of fabric, but they are necessary.  And of the three methods listed above, the one I like best is the biased tape makers.

Biased tape makers are manufactured by Dritz and Clover.  They come in assorted sizes, and eventually if you keep appliqueing, you'll end up with a wide variety of sizes.  I have the 1/4-inch size all the way to the 2-inch tape makers.  I keep each one in a separate plastic bag with their directions inside.  When you take them out of the package, it's hard to get everything back in, so I just use the plastic bags to store the tape maker and the directions.  If you do lose the directions, you can find them on-line.

The biased tape maker that seems to be called for most frequently in stems and vines (and in At Piece With Time) is the 1/4-inch one.  While Diane and Kristin don't directly tell you in the instructions to use bias tape for the stems, the 1/4-inch bias tape works well -- you can produce quite a bit of it at one time and it allows for the curving nature of the stems.  And since we're starting on the Harvest Bouquet and the very first thing you have to applique is the stems (pieces 1-6), let me walk you through making the bias tape.

But first a disclaimer:  This works for me.  It may not work for you.  Feel free to try other methods.  The "quilt police" are not going to come knocking at your door and arrest you for not making bias tape stems.  Trust me on this.

This is the 1/4-inch bias tape maker:

And this is why I prefer Clover over Dritz:

The handle.  You don't burn your fingers when ironing.

According to the directions with the tape maker, if your fabric is lightweight, cut your strips 5/8-inch wide.  If it's medium weight, cut it 1/2-inch wide.  Honestly, I've found that right between the two (9/16 of an inch) is really the happy medium.  A half an inch doesn't seem to allow the folded edges produced enough fabric to meet squarely in the middle and 5/8 of an inch is too much fabric and you get wrinkles in your tape.

Also, the directions mention that you may want to cut on the bias of the fabric.  Unless you're producing some really tight curves in your applique, don't.  I find it's harder to feed through the tape maker and frays and makes waves on the edges.  Cut from selvage to selvage or the length of the fabric if you have to make long length of bias tape.  Joining strips at 45 degree angles produces a seam that can be difficult to feed through one of the smaller bias tape makers.
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So, you've got your strips cut and you're ready to make the bias tape.  There are two schools of thought on what to do next.  Some quilters use Best Press or sizing (not starch -- it may eventually attract bugs) as they are pulling the fabric strips through the tape maker and iron it dry as it comes out the end.  Others spray the fabric and iron it dry before pushing it through the tape maker.  I do this.  I find pushing wet fabric through the tape maker causes it to do all kinds of weird things -- pull to one side, fray, bunch up...to me it's easier to push it through dry.

Either way you choose, you need to make sure you've cut one of the ends of your strips into a point:

This makes it easier to feed through your biased tape maker.  You will feed it wrong side up through the tape maker.  When you begin pushing it in, you will notice there is a slot on the bottom of the tape maker,  You may need to use a straight pin in the slot to help get it out the other side.  Once it begins feeding through, you can begin to pull the tape maker back and iron the completed tape so that the folded sides stay down.  The folded sides should look like this:

You notice how the edges meet in the middle.  You want this.  You will also notice how it "bubbles" a little on the right.  That's still okay.  You can iron this down.  The right side should look like this:

There are no wrinkles on top.

If you're going to use a lot of the same green for your stems throughout the quilt, I suggest you go ahead and make the equivalent of a couple of yards of green bias tape.  I used about half of a fat quarter of the green material above and I think I have enough for most of the quilt.  Making bias tape is not my favorite thing to do, so I do tend to make it all at once and be done with it.  You can store it flat in an applique envelope or roll, wind it around an empty paper towel holder or part of a pool noodle, or clothes pin it to a hanger.

On my next blog that deals with At Piece with Time, I will show you how I begin to applique the stems down.

Love and Stitches,

Sherri

Please Turn to the Back of the Book....

For anyone starting At Piece with Time (by Kristin C. Steiner and Diane C. Frankenberger), it may be the best idea to turn to the back of the book to page 65 to start on Harvest Bouquets first, simply because this is going to take the longest to finish.  No applique method is listed, it's up to each quilter to decide what method she wants to use.  I use mixed methods, depending on what I'm trying to achieve.  My favorite applique method is needleturn.  I will use that, freezer paper, bias tape makers, and may make part of this 3-D.  I've seen some lovely rouching on applique quilts recently.

Please do take the time to read through the "cutting recipe" a couple of times.  You're making all four triangles at once, but you make them on a square and don't cut them apart until the end.  This is awesome!  You don't stretch the exposed bias edge.

The directions are pretty clear, although on step 2, I had to draw my line 1 3/4-inch inside the fabric edge to get base of my triangle 14 1/8-inches long.  The picture below shows my diagonal line that bisects the 18-inch square (black thread) and the other bisecting line that will center each triangle's applique (white thread).  I machine-sewed around my square twice -- once to stay-stitch the edges to prevent stretching and the other to make the lines drawn inside the fabric edge to set the 14 1/8-inch boundary.

I know the darker applique background makes it harder to see, so here's a view from the wrong side of the fabric. I'm not sure this is any more help...

On page 67 is the overlay.  This must be enlarged by 200%.  I did mine on my desktop copier, but used legal sized paper.  It took several tries, but eventually I got it all on three sheets and then taped them together.

The book does not say to enlarge the bird's nest (if you choose to use it), but I found the original was just a tad too small.  I enlarged it 150%, went over it with a black sharpie, and when I transferred it to my fabric, I could see it just fine.

I transfer my applique to my fabric via light box, and mark on the wrong side of the fabric.

I promise there is a method to this madness.  I do not...do not...do not....under any circumstances, like any kind of pencil, marker, or chalk marking on the right side of my applique fabric.  Once I have completely transferred the applique pattern to the wrong side of my material, I then do a running basting stitch around the parts of the pattern I'm working on first.

Thankfully, Kristin and Diane have numbered the pieces on the applique overlay in the order you sew them.  The bias stems are first....and that's another blog...but meantime, I sewed the running basting stitches around the bias stems that are applied first (pieces 1-6).  To save time, I'm putting all six stems down on all four applique triangles at once simply because bias stems are some of my least favorite things to do and I want to make them all at once. 

Here's a picture of the running basting from the right and wrong sides of my material.

The next blog on At Piece with Time will concentrate on making those pesky biased stems....