So I finished my Raspberry Swirl quilt top…

Praying for France

So I had planned to discuss marking tools on this week’s blog.  I had the outline and the pictures listed that I wanted to take.

Then Friday night happened, and suddenly that topic was no longer important or interesting.

I remember 9/11 vividly.  I was teaching middle school when my pager started going off like crazy – my husband, my mother, parents.  I was wondering what in the world was happening.  I couldn’t use my cell phone because it was against the rules to have it on in class without a really good reason.

Another teacher came to my classroom door and told me the first tower was hit. In the span of a few short minutes, the world as I knew it and my students knew it had turned upside down.  Life would never be the same again.

Yesterday afternoon while I was working at Dragonfly, my cell phone began to alert me to news messages about Paris, but it wasn’t until I got home about 6 p.m. that I fully understood what was going on – that France now had their version of the World Trade Center and an open field in Pennsylvania. 

This blog is not for political or religious points of view, per say, but it does serve as a vehicle to offer instruction as well as optimism and hope.  I’m afraid I’m running a little low on the optimism part this week, but I am full of hope.

Hope that those injured will recover.

Hope that those who need to leave France to come home will be able to do so.  Soon.

Hope that somehow one of the world leaders will be able to deal with these terrorists accordingly.

Hope in a Savior who has things totally under control, when the world seems completely out of control.

Meanwhile, I know a lot of us that quilt have time to think and pray as we do so.  There is rarely a day I don’t pour out my heart as I stitch.  Now as I do so, I will add the citizens of France to that list. 

I ask that you do the same.

 

Love and Stitches,

Sherri

It's Beginning to Feel a Little Like Christmas....

So…this blog is either late (because I usually publish between Thursdays and Sundays) or early.  I’m going to go with late, because I never made my deadline last week.  I have a very good reason….

I was playing Santa’s Helper.

As a rule, I don’t give quilts for Christmas.  I’m never quite sure how much they are appreciated as Christmas gifts unless someone specifically asks for one.  But this year I have two munchkins that are just at the right age for dolls and doll beds and doll quilts.

And I am blessed to have a couple of friends who agreed to play their parts as Santa’s Elves, too.

Shelle, one of my prime partners in crime, is married to a guy who makes beautiful things out of wood.  He agreed to make two doll beds for me.  Bless his heart, they are just perfect and he put vines and leaves and quilt blocks on them.  I love these for two reasons (besides the fact they’re just beautiful).  They’re not alike, so the granddarlings can’t fight over whose is whose, and they’re sturdy.  They will hold up to active play for years and years.

 

Karen, another good friend of mine who makes custom dolls – the cuddly type that can be played with and slept with – is making two dolls for the girls.  I will be sure to post pictures of those when she gets those to me in December.

But since I’ve had the doll beds in hand for a couple of weeks, I needed to make mattresses and sheets…

 

And doll quilts and pillows….

 

The quilts are quite utilitarian, but I figure they’re going to be the recipient of a lot of hard play and many washings.  As Evangeline and Elli get older and want to keep the beds out of sentimental reasons, I will make them elaborate applique quilts to use on the beds.

Since I’m now at the age I hate the pressure of deadlines, I opted to forge ahead and get these done.  I pieced the tops at the quilt retreat and finished everything else at home.

If nothing else, it’s beginning to feel a little like Christmas!

 

Love and Stitches,

Sherri

 

So You're On A Deserted Island....

So this is the scenario…you’re stranded on a deserted island that somehow has electricity and running water because coffee is a must.  What are the ten quilting tools you must have to survive; given the fact that you’re fabric stash has somehow made it to this deserted island with you?

That question was bandied about a few months ago on a website that I frequent.  And it caused me to think hard about what I use most in my little quilting world.  So, without further ado, here’s my list.  And per usual, I couldn’t settle for ten, so here’s eleven.

1.     A Good stiletto.  I have a metal one and a wooden one and I like the wooden one best.  It has more uses.  It has a little pressing aid on one end and the stiletto part is one the other. It can be used for applique as well as for holding seams steady as you feed them through the sewing machine.

 

2.    Toothpicks.  I cannot applique without them, whether I’m doing needle turn or freezer paper, or Mylar applique, I have to have them.  And while we’re talking about toothpicks, the ones from Cracker Barrel are my favorite.  You can buy them at their restaurant stores, as well as a handy-dandy case to put them in.

 

3.    Titanium Sewing Machine Needles.  These are fairly new in the sewing world and they are more expensive but they are worth every extra penny.  They last longer and sew better. 

 

4.    Roxanne Hand Sewing Needles.  I’ve tried them all – John James, Singer, etc., but I like Roxanne’s the best.  The eye is big enough it can be threaded fairly easily and they glide….glide… through fabric.  Plus the case they come in is adorned with cute, little seashells. 

 

5.    Good Sewing Thread.  This is a must, for both hand sewing and machine sewing.  In either case, it doesn’t break, it makes a wonderful looking stitch, and it’s  better for your machine.  My favorite thread suppliers are Aurofil and Superior, but always use long staple cotton thread.  It doesn’t lint up your machine.  As far as hand applique thread, there are cotton threads and silk threads.  My favorite is cotton thread because it doesn’t slip out of the eye of the needle as easy as silk thread, but I do use both, depending on the look I want with my applique.

 

 

6.    A Good  Sewing Machine.  Notice I didn’t say expensive, just good and dependable.  Nothing is more frustrating than sitting down to sew and having to spend half your time dealing with machine issues – skipped stitches, obstinate bobbin cases, bad tension.  I strongly suggest that you purchase your machine from a local dealer because if you do buy it from a big box store or from a dealer on line, guess what?  If you have issues with the machine, you’re going to have to ship it somewhere to have it fixed. A local dealer will have a technician that can service and repair your machine.  That means you’ll have it back in your hands in a week, verses a month or more.  And while yes, I do have a top of the line machine that I sunk good money in, and it does hundreds of stitches, you don’t have to start that way.  All you need is a good machine that has a straight stitch and a zig zag stitch (for machine applique). 

 

Once you have a good machine, be sure to change the needle after eight hours of sewing (you can go longer with the titanium needles) and clean it regularly.

 

7.     Sharp Scissors and Rotary  Cutters and Rulers.  Nothing is worse than a dull pair of scissors or a rotary cutter.  Buy good quality ones.  Use them only for cutting fabric.  Buy cheap scissors for cutting paper.  Change the blades in your rotary cutter when they begin to skip or when they’re nicked.  I also like to have a couple of different sizes of each.  Small scissor are great for hand sewing and taking to class. Larger ones work better for cutting chunks of fabric.  The same goes with rotary cutters.  Ninety-five percent of the time I use a 45 mm. rotary cutter, but I have found a smaller one works much better cutting around templates.

 

Ditto with the rulers.  By good quality rulers (and mats).  I have a large rulers and a large mat that stays on my cutting table at home and smaller rulers and mats that go with me to class.  They all take a beating, but hold up well.

 

8.      Good Quality Basting Glue.  I honestly don’t hand baste much any longer.  Once I was introduced to basting glue, it was an immediate love affair.  It’s faster and basting glue has come such a long way.  My favorite is Quilter’s Choice.  Once applied to fabric and pressed, the material is not going to move.  The biggest plus about this product is that it dries soft. 

 

9.    Soft Fuse.  I was introduced to this product two years ago.  Up to that point, I used another fusible web, but had to do a great deal of “window paning” on my machine applique projects in order to keep them pliable.  Even after it’s pressed onto the applique piece and the applique piece is pressed onto the background, the product lives up to its name – it’s soft. 

 

10.   My Groups.  I love my quilting buddies and couldn’t live without them.  I don’t have any sisters, so these women have filled that void.  We have stitched together through good times and bad; gains and losses; projects we’ve loved and projects that have not been so loved.  They’ve been a great source of inspiration and constructive criticism.  I belong to three bees and two guilds and in some cases these women overlap.  These women have been a wonderful support system and I couldn’t live without them.  So these women would have to be on that deserted island with me.

11. The Internet.  Hey…the island has running water and electricity, so why not at least an internet hot spot? 

Years ago, in the mid-seventies when quilting was enjoying a resurgence due to our country’s bicentennial, loose groups began to form via the United States Postal Service.  Newsletters were mimeographed and sent out. Often times Round Robin types of patterns were established, with one quilter starting a pattern and sending it to the next quilter, who would add their comments and pass it along to the next.  By the eighties, one of these became a slick magazine called Quilters Newsletter, and was soon joined by several other quilting magazines. 

As the nineties began and technology began to grow by leaps and bounds, these publications automatically began web pages.  Businesses that sold quilting supplies developed on-line stores.  Quilters could purchase items on line and have them shipped out to them the next day, verses filling out an order form and mailing it in and having to wait weeks.  Now you have on-line quilting groups, blogs, patterns that are downloadable, and Pinterest.  Sewing machines have groups and certain quilts (like Dear Jane) have groups, and even certain techniques (such as hexies) have groups.  

And that’s not even counting Facebook, which has connected quilters across the world.   

If there’s a problem or question with a machine or pattern or fabric or anything else quilting related, all it takes is a few keystrokes, a click of a mouse, and it can be posted.  Within hours (maybe even minutes), you can have your answer.   

How did we ever live without it? 

In my opinion the internet is the greatest tool quilters have. 

So, this deserted island is now up for grabs.  What would you take?

 

Love and Stitches,

 

Sherri

Post-Retreat Report

So… the High Point Quilt Guild’s annual “Drop Everything and Just Quilt!” Retreat was last week, hence the reason there was no blog from me.  Instead, I was with 32 other quilters at Haw River State Park, quilting four days away.

Boy, did I have a good time!  And boy, do I love those ladies.  They are sorely missed as this week I had to get back to reality and my “real job.” 

Unfortunately, I have no photos of the retreat.  In the process of getting my things hauled from the DH’s truck to the main room, I left my camera in the cab and by the time I realized it, he was long out of sight.

But trust me when I say a good time was had by all and a lot got done.  I finished three quilt tops, my next round of the Round Robin, sewed over half the strips for my Double Wedding Ring, and almost finished Peppermint Place.

Two of the quilt tops I made were doll quilts for my two grand darlings.  I’m not sure which one will go to Evangeline and which will go to Elli, but there are dolls and doll beds to accompany each of the quilts.  I have one quilt marked and will quilt that one out hopefully this weekend. 

 One of the doll quilts sandwiched and marked for quilting

 Back of the above doll quilt

Second Doll Quilt

Before I left, I did the center square for my Raspberry Swirl flannel quilt.  It’s a fairly simple pattern – the pieces are large and the most complicated technique is half-square triangles. Patterns like this lend themselves very well to flannels as long as the biased edges aren’t exposed until the last minute and the fabric is pressed and not ironed.  There is also some flannel applique involved. Lots of fun stuff!

 

I promise there will be more next week.  I’ve received several suggestions for topics that should be pretty interesting. 

Love and Stitches,

 

Sherri

Make Me a Blessing

We give a lot away as quilters.  The first thing that comes to a lot of quilters’ minds over this statement is money.  And indeed we do give a lot of our hard-earned cash out for fabric and patterns and machines and classes.

We also give away a lot of quilts.  Almost every quilter I know of richly blesses her family (and quite a few of her friends) with the quilts he or she makes.

Quilters are giving folks.  If we feel like an organization or a person needs a quilt, we usually step right up to the batting box and either pull a quilt out of our stash or put one together.

And that’s wonderful.  Let me encourage you to continue to do so.  And if you quilt and haven’t blessed some of these organizations with the work of your hands, let me tell you straight up, you’re missing a blessing.

There are national organizations such as Project Linus (quilts for kids) and Quilts of Valor (for those that serve in our Armed Forces) that accept quilts.  If this sounds like something that’s right up your alley, be sure to go to their websites and read the requirements before whipping up your quilted donation. 

If local needs tug at your heart, call your community hospital and ask if chemo patients  need quilts to keep them warm during their treatments, or if their children’s wing needs quilts or even the newborn and maternity department have a need.  Be sure to clarify what is expected:  Do they want the quilts washed before you bring them?  Are rag quilts okay?  What size is preferred?

The local law enforcement folks are another organization that may appreciate quilts (and teddy bears and/or dolls) for the wee ones they are involved with.  Removing a child from an abusive environment is hard, and sometimes something warm and wonderful to hang on to and snuggle goes a long way. 

Other organizations have needs that don’t involve quilts so much, but if you are a person who loves to sew regardless of the project involved, Project Alight has a need for mastectomy pillows.  These pillows take two small pieces of flannel and something to stuff the pillows with.  Be sure to go to their website and read the size requirements.  Hospice often needs Fidget Blankets for their Memory Wings. Brenner’s Children’s Hospital loves colorful pillowcases for their patients.  And of course there’s the Pillowcase Dress project for the girls of many third world countries. 

Lastly, and the one that tugs at my heartstrings the most, is the need that some hospital have for preemie burial gowns.  Many times these young hospital patients don’t get the chance to go home with their families.  And many times either the parents can’t afford a tiny gown to put on their child or there just isn’t one available that’s small enough.  If you feel that this is a need you would like to fill, contact your local hospital and see if that’s something you could do for them.

And if you’re an animal person, here’s something you may want to check into.  Many of the local animal shelters need dog beds.  Save your scraps and use them to stuff a dog bed that you make.  Shelters also may have specific sizes in mind, so do call them before blessing our furry friends with anything.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are quickly approaching and most of us are fortunate enough to have to buy gifts for family and friends.  We look forward to dinners and parties and turkeys and trees.  We are blessed.  But there are many that are struggling with circumstances beyond their control that we can bless with the work of our hands. 

Be that blessing.

Love and Stitches…

 

Sherri

 

Living with the Fray

This week I want to continue talking about flannel quilts, highlighting using flannel with applique.  I belong to a group that is using Bonnie Sullivan’s Bertie projects and we’ve used wool on flannel and flannel on flannel for the applique.

 

Let me just say upfront that flannel is wonderful to needle turn or use the freezer paper applique method.  It responds well to either.  However, at this point, I want talk about raw-edge machine applique and the use of flannel.

After the background for applique piece is cut (remember to allow for the “fray” margin, although with machine applique you are actually handing the fabric less, thus the flannel does not fray quite so badly), stabilize it with your choice of stabilizer.  I use Sew Knit from Pellon.  I cut the stabilizer about a quarter inch larger than the background and press it on.

 

  Notice that I am using an applique pressing sheet as I do this.  This handy-dandy little tool is like Teflon for quilters.  Nothing sticks to it.  So you can iron fusible web or iron on stabilizer or interfacing on the surface and the fabric will release quickly and cleanly. 

 

After the stabilizer is pressed, cut the excess from around the background.  Then closely examine the fabric.  Flannel tends to have that cling factor – it picks up every little fiber and thread around it.  I go over mine with one of those lint rollers that can be picked up at the Dollar Store (those things are incredibly handy to have in your sewing room for a myriad of reasons).  This gets rid of even the tiny threads I can’t see.

 

One of the most frustrating things I had to overcome with flannel is that I couldn’t use a light box with it (at least most of the flannel).  Good quality flannel is not thin, so a light box is of no use.  I had to get used to “eyeballing” the layout and transferring that to the background.  For a long time not only was I not used to this, I didn’t like it.  It wasn’t precise enough.  However, given time for trial and error, I have come up with a method that I can live with. 

The first step is to mark the center width and the center height with some type of marker.  I use the Miracle Markers on the dark fabric.   I like this marking system for dark fabrics and flannels, however, it’s important to remember that it disappears with heat.  So all the applique pieces will have to be placed exactly where you want them before pressing any of them. 

 

The next step is to also mark the center width and height of the applique layout diagram:

 

This layout diagram by Bonnie is very small, but it still allows me to see that the center of the flower is not exactly on the center line of my background and I can adjust accordingly.  It shows me where the parts of the bird need to be positioned in reference to the center lines and the edges of the background fabric.  This still isn’t exact, but it gets close enough that I can live with it!

You will also notice that I drew in the lines for my vines and stems so I could place my bluebells and know where the berries will go.  The berries have not been cut out yet.  I still like to do any circles with Perfect Circles and applique those by hand.  As much as I do love machine applique, circles on the machine are difficult and I have not perfected them yet.

 

Once everything is in place (and a stiletto helps with placement – especially small pieces), press all the applique pieces in place at once…and notice that all my placement markings have disappeared.

 

From this point on, raw-edge flannel applique can be handled in the same way as raw-edge applique with cotton fabric.  However, there are a couple of very important factors to keep in mind.

First is once again the “fray factor.”  You will want to make sure that the edges of the flannel applique pieces are as encased with thread as you can.  So first let’s talk about thread.  From my previous blog about thread, everyone knows that I love long-staple cotton thread.  So pick quality thread that closely matches the color of your applique pieces.  I like Mettler thread for applique and have used it for years.  I choose the cotton finish for flannel applique, as it does have more of a folk-art appearance and the cotton thread blends well with that.  Save the silk finish for delicate cotton fabric applique.

 

Last spring at the Pigeon Forge Quilt Fest I was introduced to a new applique thread.  I had the wonderful opportunity to take a class with Sue Nickels, machine applique artist extraordinare.  She has her own line of variegated applique thread through Superior Thread Company.  This thread is simply wonderful. I love variegated thread anyway, but this thread saves you so much time.  Just think…if you have leaves on your applique and the leaves are several shades of green fabric, if you can use a variegated green thread, you probably don’t have to stop and change your thread with every fabric color. 

The only down side is that currently you can only buy it in sets instead of individual spools.  I do hope Superior Thread changes that in the future.

I use a blanket stitch with all raw edge appliques – a zig zag stitch will work just as well, but the blanket stitch is a personal preference of my own.  With either stitch, you will want your stitches close together (but not so close that it’s a satin stitch if you’re using the zig zag).  On my Janome 7700, I have found both a 1.8 for width and length is about perfect.  Line up the sewing machine needle right next to the edge of the applique fabric and be sure to use an open-toe or clear foot for visual accuracy.  Slow down your stitch speed – this is not one of those projects you can “put pedal to the metal.”  Slowing down will help you be more accurate.  The stitches on the outside of the fabric need to be as close as they can be to the edge of the fabric, and the stitches that “bite” into the fabric need to hit on inside cleanly.  Be sure to pivot the fabric as needed – don’t slide it.  If the fabric is slid, this will result in slanted, crooked stitches.  If the applique piece is small, you may find you’re having to pivot the background fabric every few stitches.

 

 

And that’s is fine.  It’s absolutely just what you need to do.

And since all of the applique pieces are pressed and fused into place, you can complete all the pieces that need one color of thread before switching to the next thread color. 

If you’re really liking machine applique, there is a book I would highly recommend – Stitched Raw Edge Applique  by Sue Nickels and Pat Holly.  It covers everything concerning raw edge applique and it has some lovely projects in it.

For those of you that have sent messages and emails concerning the rain/floods in North Carolina, thank you so much for your concern.  It is very wet here, but not nearly as bad as my coastal friends have it.  Our main concern is wind.  The ground is saturated and as the wind picks up, trees have toppled over.  It is my fervent prayer that we see blue sky and bright, yellow sun next week.

Love and Stitches…

Sherri

PS – Remember, all products, books, and patterns mentioned in my blog have been purchased by me.  I’m not on any of these folks’ payroll and I mention them because I do use them and have found them wonderful.