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Fun with Fabrics

Since I covered how I cut up my fabrics and store them in previous blog posts, I thought I would talk more about fabrics this week. What to look for when you are shopping for fabric, what to do with it once you are home from the quilt shop and other useful (I think!) information. Hopefully this post doesn’t seem too random, but sometimes that’s how my mind works… I’ll be working on something and it’ll inspire me to share tips! So here we go…

Picking Out Fabric

When you purchase a pattern, you can choose the fabric that you see on the pattern cover. Often a pattern is featured in a shop with a new line of fabric, so it’s all there for you to buy. But, what happens if you come across that pattern once the original fabric is gone? That’s what my tips are for! 

Tip #1: Choose fabric for the quilt based on the color instead of sticking to a particular line. If the pattern uses a particular fabric, but it’s no longer there, look for one that is the same shade of that color (or close to it) and with the same scale of print. Here’s an example:

Imagine that the orange print used in the quilt block on the left is no longer available in the quilt shop. The orange fabric on the right, would make a good substitution. The scale of the print is close in size and the shade of orange is close to the original also. Compare it to these other pieces of fabric:

These orange fabrics are a darker shade of orange than the one in the block and the prints are of a larger scale, so I probably wouldn’t choose these as a substitute. I’m not saying you can’t use one of these, you can. It will just change the look of your block a little more than the first fabric I suggested.

Tip #2: All your fabric choices do not have to be from the same line of fabric.  Of course there’s nothing wrong with making a quilt using the fabrics from the same line. If you are a beginner staying within one line is actually a good way to pick out fabric. But if you want to be adventurous, you can venture out and choose color prints from several different fabric lines while staying in the same genre (1800 reproductions, 30s fabrics, Batiks, etc) and still have a harmonious quilt. To match fabrics, consider using the color guide on the selvage on your favorite fabric for your project.

If your piece of fabric doesn’t have this on the selvage, look at the colors in the print itself and use that as a guide to find a match.

Tip #3: Always buy more fabric than stated on the pattern. If I am buying yardage from the bolt, I generally buy 1/8 to 1/4 yard more than I need to allow for squaring the fabric and possible cutting errors. It’s also a good idea to have extra if you are a fabric pre-washer. 

Tip #4: Venture out from the typical background to have some fun. If your quilt calls for 2 yards of a tan print for background of blocks, consider buying 4 half yards or 8 quarter yards of coordinating tans to make up that 2 yards. Then you can use different backgrounds with the variety of color print pairings for blocks to make a scrappy background. That’s what I did in my quilt, Seaside Cottage:

It will take a little math, but it’s worth it for the effect! Here’s the whole quilt:

As you can see from the whole quilt, there’s an added dimension with the scrappy backgrounds. You can also go in an entirely new direction by doing a dark background for a pattern that has a light one originally. I tried this out on my pattern, Bloomin’ Days:

If you are going to switch from a light to a dark background, be sure your color prints have enough contrast from the darker background to stand out.

Once You’re at Home

Once you are at home with your fabric, it’s time to decide if you will pre-wash it or not. There are pros and cons for pre-washing. I personally am not a pre-washer, but you can decide for yourself what you’d like to do.

Pre-washing Pros:
• All the fabrics that are going to shrink will shrink so the finished quilt pattern is not ruined by fabrics shrinking differently if you like to wash finished quilts.
• Certain fabrics might bleed, like purples and reds, and transfer to other parts of a quilt when the finished item is washed.
• Chemicals used in the processing of the fabric are removed in pre-washing. Some people are allergic to these chemicals so this is a benefit to them.

Pre-washing Cons:
• It takes time. The extra steps of washing and ironing adds time to the prep when getting ready to make a quilt.
• It washes out the sizing. Some quilters like this sizing which tends to make the fabric easier to cut. I like the “stiffer” fabric that, for me, seems to cut easier.
• Most of the quality fabrics today do not shrink much and the fabric dyes are much more stable to prevent bleeding. There’s also laundry products, like Shout® Color Catchers, that prevent color transfer.
• Fabric edges fray which can distort the fabric. This will require you to waste more fabric when squaring up.

Pre-washing is easier with yardage from the bolt, less chance of fraying. If you are wanting to pre-wash fat quarters or fat eighths, you can prevent fraying and unraveling by cutting a snip off the corners or cutting the edges with pinking shears.

Also, I recommend putting these pre-cuts in lingerie bags to help reduce the chances of fraying.

If you pre-wash, I recommend pressing those fabrics prior to folding for storing to cut down on the amount of pressing you will need to do when it’s time to use them.

So that’s all I have for this week. I hope you are inspired to go shopping for your next quilt and feel like you can be creative in picking out fabrics. Remember, there are no quilt police… there are no hard and fast rules for fabrics used in your quilt. If a piece of fabric “speaks” to you and plays well with the other fabrics you’ve chosen, that’s all that matters. We’re artists, right?

Leave a comment or ask questions below and I will enter you into a drawing for my quilt pattern, Seaside Cottage (as seen above). The drawing will be on Monday, May 8th. Good Luck! **We have a winner! Congrats, Marilyn!**

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Recycling & Upcycling for the Sewing Room

Last week’s blog covered some of my favorite quilting tools, conventional and unconventional. So this week, I thought I would continue with this unconventional theme. I’m going to talk about recycling, upcycling and things that will help save you money. And who doesn’t want to save money? These tips are ones I use all the time when I’m quilting and maybe they will be some you like and will adopt as well. Let’s get started!

Tip #1 – Batting

So you trim pieces of batting and are collecting them. What do you do with all these extra pieces? If you’ve followed my blog for awhile, you know I do not like to throw things away when I can. find a use them. Well, here’s two ways to use and reduce all these scraps of batting. 

The first way is to purchase batting seam tape and use it to make larger pieces of batting from the scraps!

It’s actually very simple to use. Heat your iron to the wool setting for all types of batting, except full polyester. For 100% polyester batting, use the silk or synthetic setting. The instructions say to use steam but I used my iron dry and it worked just as well, you can test it out both ways if you like. So here’s the steps:

Butt the two edges of the batting pieces up to each other as shown in the first photo on the left. If you need to trim edges to make them a little straighter, do that before lining them up. Then, lay the tape across the seam (photo2) and press with your iron (photo 3). Now you have a larger piece of batting (final photo)! This strip of batting can now be added to another one to make a bigger piece.

Option two can be done if you don’t have any batting seam tape. You just need your sewing machine! Here are the pieces I want to work with:

Like I said above, trim up sides to make them a little more even and you can even lightly press the pieces of batting so they lay a bit flatter, but that’s not required.

Now, set your machine to a zig zag stitch and attach your zig zag foot. Like with the seam tape, butt the edges together that you want to join and zig zag stitch them together. You may need to play with the width of your stitch to make sure it catches both sides.

As you can see from the photo on the left, my stitching is joining the pieces. On the right is my stitched together piece of batting that is now big enough for a table runner I am ready to quilt.

Tip #2 – Fabric 

Another thing I do not like to waste is fabric. We all know how expensive it is, so I like to use up as much as I can and throw away very little, if any. Here’s a one of my fabric saver tips and few ways to use up fabric scraps and reduce waste.

First – A Fabric Saver: If you only have a few flying geese units to make and are not using the “no waste” method to make them… or if you do not like to use that method, here’s a way to not feel guilty about using the traditional method. Here are the pieces needed to make my geese unit:

To start,  instead of drawing just one diagonal line from corner to corner on the wrong side of the small squares, draw an additional line 1/2 inch away from the first line:

Now place the square face down on the rectangle, just like you always do when making flying geese, and stitch along the drawn lines. Once that is done, cut 1/4″ in from the first diagonal line (between the stitched seams).

After you press open the this side and repeat the step on the other side, you not only end up with a flying geese unit but also two half-square triangle squares! You can also chain piece these geese units. It just takes an extra line of stitching so it doesn’t slow you down too much.

Now if I am not ready to use those HSTs in a project, I store them in a container in my sewing room. Eventually, I will have enough HSTs to make a pieced border for another quilt or a small table topper.

Using up scraps:

  • Now what do you do with the scraps that you really can’t work into a scrap pattern? Like the little container above, I keep one for scraps. A lot of these scraps are ends of strip sets or little pieces from the end of a strip.

Fill it up and then you can use the scraps to stuff an old pillow case to make a pet bed. If you don’t have any pets, check in with your local pet shelter to see if they need a donation of pet beds. 

  • As I have covered before, keep scraps in tubs for appliqué pieces if you do fabric appliqué.

Since I have tubs of this scrap fabric in a variety. of colors, I don’t need to cut into a larger piece of fabric for some flower appliqué, for example. I can also use this fabric for sample blocks to test out color combinations without cutting into brand new fabric.

  • Finally, save the selvages! You can make one of the fun projects from patterns, that are on the market, to use those up. You can also use them around the house to tie things together or add a bow to a gift for a quilting friend….. or for a cat toy!

Tip #3 – Recycling Items – Pick of the Week

Last week I had a few ideas on taming the bobbins you have in your sewing drawer. I like to wind several bobbins in the thread color I am using for a large project so I can quickly change one out when it’s empty. Here’s a storage idea for those bobbins that recycles an empty pill container.

Another use for a pill container is as a thread tamer! I like to take hand projects on the road or outside on a sunny day, especially binding projects that only take one spool of thread. I use the pill container this way:

Carefully poke a hole in the pill bottle top (left photo). Then place the spool of thread in the bottle, threading the thread through the hole you created in the top. Now you can pull out the amount of thread without the spool getting away from you.

I also use this idea for perle cotton for when I do wool appliqué. Have you seen these little plastic containers in the food saver aisle in the store? I use these to tame my spools of perle cotton while pulling out the amount of thread I want. As with the pill container top, poke a small hole in the top of this container for the thread to feed through.

Fun, right? This is also a good way to keep the cat away from the threads while you are stitching.

If I have a lot of perle cotton colors I need to work with and want to tame the thread I am currently using, consider picking up a school pencil box. You can fit up to eight spools in this box and feed the thread you are using out from under the cover:

The box measures 8 1/2″ x 4″ x 1.6″ with a removable cover. The cover fits just loosely enough so the thread pulls through without snagging.

Random Stuff

  • Here’s a few random tips just for fun. Use a small makeup brush to clean out your sewing machine when needed. This is a good tool if your machine didn’t come with a brush or a good replacement if you have lost the brush that came with your machine.
  • Use an orange peeler as a stiletto. The advantage to this is the end of the peeler is not super sharp (at least mine isn’t) so there’s less of a chance of it poking a hole in your fabric.
  • Use a colored Post-it Note to make your machine needle easier to thread. See the difference when you hold the piece of paper behind your needle?
  • Finally this is a safety thing. Use an empty rotary blade container to collect old rotary blades and an empty mechanical pencil lead container to collect old needles. This makes it safer to discard these things when the containers are full because they won’t be floating around in a garbage bag where they can poke through and injure someone.

Well, that’s it for this week. I hope you enjoyed my recycling and up-cycling tips. Share some of yours below. Maybe we’ll all learn something new!

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

My Favorite Quilting Tools – Conventional and Unconventional

This week I have been working on some quilt projects and using some tools I have in my sewing room. It got me to thinking what are my favorite tools, both conventional and unconventional, that I use everyday while quilting? I say conventional and unconventional because some of these tools are those you can buy at a quilt shop and some of them are created from things you already have around the house. So, I will share my favorites with you here and I’d like you to comment below with yours. Let’s get started.

Conventional Tools

Tool #1: We all have cutting mats and rotary cutters that we use when we’re quilting, but my favorite tool that goes with these when cutting fabric is this little item. It’s call a ruler safety shield. 

I found this tool after I had a rotary cutting accident that sent me to the ER. It was not fun, trust me! This tool is made to fit on the long 6 1/2 x 24 1/2″ rulers most of us have, but I ordered a few extra and had my husband cut them to fit my smaller rulers:

These safety shields help to stop the rotary cutter from skipping over the edge of my ruler and hitting my fingers.

Tool #2: If I have to use a ruler that doesn’t have a shield, my next favorite tool is my “klutz” glove.

I recommend having a pair of these gloves on hand. They add an extra layer of safety and they make me feel a little more comfortable when cutting fabric.

Tool #3: Speaking of rulers, this is one of my absolute favorite rulers. I use this one a lot because I make many quilts with half-square triangle (HSTs) squares. This tool is the Quilt in a Day Triangle Square Up Ruler.

This tool makes squaring up HSTs  easier by allowing you to trim the squares before you press them open. This way you only have to trim two sides instead of four. That may seem unimportant but when you have a pattern with hundreds of these HST squares, it’s a time saver! Here’s a photo of me using it:

Tool #4: Wood pressing stick. This is a tool I bought really early on in my beginning quilting days. I still see some version of these being sold in quilt shops today. Some are wood like mine and some are made from heavy duty plastic. Either way, they work the same.

As you can see, this tool allows me to press individual small seams and keep piecing until it’s absolutely necessary for me to go to the ironing board. I like this because many of my projects have blocks made up of a lot of small units.

Tool #5: Bobbin Ring. I love this tool because I can place my bobbins in it while still seeing the thread color. And it also keeps the bobbins from unraveling.

Tool #6: Finally, my camera is a favorite tool. I know you don’t purchase this at the quilt shop, but it’s something I use a lot. Whether it’s a conventional camera or the camera on your cell phone, it’s a great sewing room tool! I use mine to remember block placement, photograph a stack of fabric to see if they look good together or to remember where appliqué pieces go in a motif I’m working on.

Unconventional Tools

Now onto some of the items in my sewing room that are not necessarily those you would find in a quilt shop. I really like to up-cycle household things and find new uses for them when I am quilting. 

 #1: This is related to the bobbin ring above. If you do not have a bobbin ring, or you do not want to buy one, here are a couple of fun ways to store your bobbins.

 Grab some golf tees. When my son was on the golf team in high school, I was swimming in golf tees. I found them all over the house, in the washing machine, in his car, etc. You would think I would have thought of this much sooner than I did. So here’s what you do. Match the bobbin with the thread and secure them together with a golf tee. It’s that simple!

Most standard size spools of thread have a hole in the center of the spool that will fit the golf tee.

If you don’t have a golfer in the house or you don’t want to go out and buy a bag of golf tees, try using this:

This is the toe separator that is used when you paint your toenails. I have tried it and not only do the bobbins fit, it also serves to keep them from unraveling. You can stack several of them on top of each other to fit nicely in a drawer by your machine.

#2: We all have a lot of pins in our sewing room. Well, I took some of my pins and a bit of washi tape and made myself a set of numbered pins.

I use these pins when I have a lot of rows to piece for a quilt top. By using the pins, I do not mix up the order of my blocks or the order of the rows. I spend a lot of time at my design wall positioning blocks into rows so the quilt top looks right to me before piecing it together. The last thing I want to do is mix things up when I am carrying the blocks to my machine.

#3: Whether I am hand sewing or at my machine, I want my scissors to be easy to find. I don’t know how many times I would lay my small snips down and then have them get “lost”. So, the solution I came up with was to put this old ball chain to good use.

These chains are easy to find at your local craft store, usually in the jewelry department. Now I can wear my scissors around my neck and never lose them!

#4: Finally I use these…. a lot!

What do I do with a skirt/pants hanger? I use them mostly to store my smaller quilts like wall hangings and table runners.

If you like to change out small quilts for the season, this is a good way to store the ones not in use in a closet. I also use these hangers to store extra cutting mats and rulers:

So that’s it for my favorite tools, both conventional and unconventional. Share with me in the comments some of the quilting tools that you can’t live without. You might inspire another reader, or me, to try them out!

I will draw a winner from the comments and you will win a set of these scissors. The perfect size for those mobile projects! The drawing will be on Monday, April 17th.

Happy Quilting,
Deanne

Two (or more) Block Quilts – More Opportunity for Design

Last week we had a discussion on one block quilts and a bit of history on how the block style quilt emerged. Now it’s on to two … or more… blocks in a quilt. With more than one unique block, there is the opportunity for even more fun with design. That’s what I want to talk about this week. I’ll also delve into a bit of quilt block history again and talk about sampler quilts. So let’s get started!

Quilt Block History

Back to quilt block history class, continued from last week. The emergence of the block style of quilting didn’t only feature one block quilts, but also quilts with many different and unique blocks. I talked about Baltimore Album quilts as a type of block style quilt that emerged in the mid 19th century last week. Those were one example of the sampler style quilt because their blocks are often all different from one another. 

I’ve done an annual block of the week project for the last few years resulting in a sampler style wall hanging as an end result:

These are just wall hangings, but you get the idea. Sampler quilts can have up to 25 to 30 different blocks in them.

Sampler quilts became popular as the block style quilt emerged in the 1840s. The sampler style, which was made up of blocks of the same size but of different design, appealed to quilters because they could work on one block at a time as opposed to a medallion style quilt, with a central large appliqué motif, where they would have to work on a full quilt all at once. This made it easier for several quilters to contribute to a quilt, making it a social event for women. Friendship and album quilts were also made this way with each block made by a different quilter.

In addition, sampler quilts served as a resource over the years for quilters when they wanted to find a certain block pattern. It’s theorized that women passed quilt design patterns around this way, by having a large sample of patterns sewn into one quilt. It’s also been suggested that this was a way that quilters of that time practiced their quilt making. They would hone their skills by piecing a new block design or inventing one of their own. Today, we have block books to page through to look for designs. Perhaps these quilts were their block books!

Fun Tip! Make an extra block for each quilt you make throughout a year or two. Then take those blocks and make a sampler quilt. Not only will it be beautiful, it will serve as a fun reminder of all the other quilt projects you made over the year.

You can also follow one of my favorite tips of making a sample block to test fabric colors. At the end of the year, you may have enough of these test blocks to make a full size quilt, or at least a wall hanging.

Two Block Quilts & More Design Fun

Now on to two (or more) block quilts and the fun you can have. Since I talked about interesting designs you could create within a one block quilt last week I thought it was only fitting to talk about quilts with two or more different block designs. The tip I have for making a fun two block quilt is to pick two blocks that play off each other. I like a block that has a static design, like a star or a churn dash paired with a block that has specific movement, like a nine or sixteen patch block or flying geese block. Here’s some examples.

The star block on the left and the chain block on the right combine to make my quilt, Prairie Sky:

The chain block creates a crisscross design across the whole quilt. 

This next type of two block quilt I like to create is one that combines pieced blocks and appliqué blocks.

These are two of the blocks from my quilt, High Prairie Blooms. 

If you stand back and look at this quilt, the appliqué blocks create an interesting movement that keeps your eye busy as you look at it. They appear to make a criss cross design even though there are two unique appliqué blocks.

Here’s another way to play with a two block quilt to add interest. Place the blocks on point so they make a different design than if they were just straight pieced. Here are these two blocks:

If you pieced these into straight pieced block rows alternating between the churn dash and the chain block, it would make a pretty quilt and the chain block would create the crisscross design like I showed in the Prairie Sky quilt above. But if the blocks are assembled on point, you get a different design created by the chain blocks:

In Country Dance (above) the crisscross design now looks like a straight grid design. And the on point setting of the churn dash blocks make them look like a block with a diamond shape.

Finally, your two block quilt can be very easy. Combine a pieced block with a plain block framed with strips. I did this for my quilt, Liberty Square. Here are the two blocks:

When you put them together, it looks like this:

A simple secondary design emerges. The plain strip framed blocks make a diagonal chain-like design. At least that’s what I see!

So that’s it for this week. Whether you make quilts with one block design, two different block designs or 25 unique blocks, you are continuing the rich history of block style quilt making. 

Sampler quilts have fallen out of favor in the late 20th to early 21st century for more one and two block quilts because some people feel there’s too much “chaos’ in a sampler because the blocks don’t match. However, I think that’s part of their charm. And if you are a scrap quilter, like me, you’re already fine with a bit of chaos. Give a sampler quilt a try!

Leave a comment or ask a question below. You will be entered in a drawing for my quilt pattern, Country Dance.

The drawing will be on Tuesday, April 4th. Good luck! ***We have a winner! Congrats, Eileen Maher!***

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

One Block Quilts – How to Make Them Pop!

One block quilts are simply a quilt that is made from repeating one block. I like taking these quilts and finding ways to make them more interesting. You can do this through color choice, positioning of the blocks, and adding borders to name a few things. I will also share a bit of history on the evolution of the quilt into a collection of blocks from its earlier incarnations. So, let’s get started for this week.

A Bit of Quilt History

Early quilts were more of the medallion style quilt. What is medallion style? It’s a quilt that has a large central design. Most medallion style quilts in the late 18th and early 19th centuries were referred to as broderie perse, a central appliquéd motif, sometimes framed by a border. The central design for the quilts of that era was often cut out from a large piece of fabric, like an imported chintz, and was then appliquéd to a plain background. My Picket Fence Blooms quilt below gives you the idea of this medallion style although my appliqué design was created from wool and not cut from another piece of fabric:

Another of my patterns, Rail Fence Blooms, can also fall into this category although some of the central motif is pieced.

You have the idea, right? 

In the mid 19th century, the block style quilts that we know today began to emerge. Prior to this time, making quilts was reserved for wealthy women who could afford expensive imported fabric. As fabric began to be produced domestically the prices lowered and more women were able to a buy it to make quilts for fun instead of for necessity only. The earliest block style quilts were friendship or album quilts usually made for someone leaving a community to move west. Friends and family being left behind would sign the blocks as a remembrance for the traveler. These were mostly simple pieced blocks. The more elaborate Baltimore album quilts also emerged at this time. Those quilts were made up of blocks, usually about 25, that were elaborately appliquéd. Often all 25 blocks were unique designs.  

So ends this snippet of quilt history. Now let’s move on to one block quilts.

One Block Quilts

One block quilts are great because once you make one of the blocks and it measures correctly, it’s all smooth sewing from that point on. The cool thing with one block quilts is you can make them pop by playing with the colors used in each block. Here’s my quilt, Star Wheels, that has the same block repeated, but the different color combinations add interest.

The addition of the black fabric element to each block gives a bit of continuity among the blocks and adds a secondary design. Now with this next one block quilt, Scrappy North Stars, I just went a bit wild using 56 assorted fat quarters! 

By alternating light and dark colors in different places on each block, there is the illusion that the blocks are different. You can also see kind of a circle design appear where the blocks meet.

The next examples build on the secondary design I mentioned above. They show how an element in a block can create another design once they are joined, even though all the blocks are the same.

In Star Struck on the left, the stitch and flip corners of the blocks are rotated in opposite directions to create an illusion of geese flying across the quilt. In Mill Country Sky in the center, the blocks have alternating green and tan corners to create the two-tone quarter-square triangle squares when the blocks are joined. Finally, for Open Windows, brown corners on two sides of each block work with the sashing to make an alternating shoo-fly design.

Another way to make one block quilts unique is to play with the background fabric too, like I did with Marbles & Jacks.

For this quilt, I alternated the background of the blocks between a light tan and a black print. I also changed the center star points to the opposite of the background fabric color. Same block… but this adds interest!

A final way I make one block quilts more interesting is to add scrappy borders or even some appliqué. Scrappy North Stars above has a piano key border created from the fabric left over from the blocks. Here are two more examples:

Two completely different one block quilt interpretations, right? On the left, is Paper Chain where I simply made a pieced border from an element of the block itself to give it the illusion that the quilt goes on forever. On the right, Stepping Stones has the blocks turned on point, a border of plain blocks embellished with appliqué and then finished off with plain border strips in alternating colors.

Well, that’s my lesson of the week. I hope you enjoyed our brief journey through quilt history and my one block quilt lesson. Leave a comment or ask a question and I will enter your name into a drawing for my quilt pattern, Marbles & Jacks.

The drawing will be on Monday, March 27th. Good luck! **We have a winner! Congrats, Judith Baker!**

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

What is That? Quilting Acronyms Explained

When I was a beginning quilter, I would come across abbreviations and acronyms in a pattern, or when reading a magazine, and say “what???” And because I started quilting in pre-Google times, the answer wasn’t always right at my fingertips. Yes, I am aging myself here! So, I thought I would have a bit of fun with week’s post talking about these acronyms. Maybe you’re a beginner right now and would benefit from this discussion. Or perhaps you are an experienced quilter and can share a laugh with me over how I, and maybe you, discovered the meaning of these acronyms.

I’ll finish up with some fun ideas for quilt guild activities if you find that you are in charge of planning for these in your guild. Let’s get started!

Some Common Acronyms

Here are a few of the common acronyms that I think all quilters should know when they begin quilting. These acronyms are used often in patterns you purchase and in magazines.

Acronym #1: One of the first acronyms you should know when you begin quilting is WOF. That acronym stands for width of fabric. It is often referred to when you are cutting pieces for a quilt. Width of fabric is the measurement of the piece of fabric from selvage to selvage.

This is often used when you are instructed to cut strips for a project. If the pattern says to cut 1 1/2 x WOF strips from yardage, they will typically be 40″ to 42″ in length. If you are cutting from a fat quarter, they will typically be 20″ to 21″ in length. Knowing the width of your fabric before you start cutting out pieces will help you to figure how many pieces you can cut from each strip which helps you to calculate how many strips you need. And by knowing the number of strips you need, you will then know how much fabric you need to buy.

Acronym #2: These next ones sometimes go together so that’s why I will cover them together. HST and QST will show up in many patterns that have designs from triangles. HST stands for half-square triangle and QST stands for quarter-square triangle. That would be these:

The HSTs are on the above left and are created by cutting a square in half and the QSTs are on the above right and are created by cutting a square in quarters. You will see that when I join these with HSTs and QSTs of different colors, they make squares that are referred to in patterns like mine as HST squares (bottom left) and QST squares (bottom right).

Acronym #3: RST – Right Sides Together. Now this one is often used when making the above units, but not in a traditional way. To make an HST square or a QST square the alternative way, you start with squares right sides together with lines drawn on the top squares. Here’s diagram example of the steps to make HST squares starting with 2 squares of fabric.

So when you see this sentence in a pattern: “place these two squares RST” now you know what the writer is talking about. They want you to place the two squares right sides together.

So those above are some of the most common acronyms I use in my patterns. Now here’s a few you might find when you are reading a piece in a quilting magazine. If you run across these in your reading, now you know what they mean. Some relate to quilting and sewing in general, and some are just fun.

  • SA – Seam Allowance: Referring to the size of the seam required for the project.
  • QAL – Quilt Along: Usually referring to weekly lessons from a designer for one of their patterns.
  • BOM – Block of the Month: I do one of these! You usually get a pattern for a block each month then have a quilt top at the end of the year.
  • LQS – Local Quilt Shop: If you have one… definitely go there to pick out fabric and get advice!
  • WIP – Work in Progress: We all have a lot of these…!
  • PHd – Projects Half Done: … and these…
  • UFO – Unfinished Object: …. and definitely these! This is one that too familiar with! I have a few too many of these UFOs stacked on a shelf in a cupboard, waiting for inspiration to strike.

What are some acronyms you’ve run across that you find helpful or amusing?

Quilt Guild Activities

Are you on the board of your quilt guild or a program chair and need to think up some fun activities for your quilt guild? Here’s a few ideas for you.

  • Quilt Bingo

Get some Bingo cards. Quilters will “pay” a fat quarter or a certain amount of 2 1/2 x WOF strips (you decide) for bingo cards. Those go into the pot. The winner of the game gets the fabric in the pot! You can actually come up with ideas on “designs” on the card that are needed to win a game. Like checkerboard, four-patch or maybe a heart. Here’s a Bingo card I created for an example of terms to use in your game:

I created this card on a free Bingo card site. Use traditional bingo numbers to draw, just associate the terms you’ve chosen with a number. Obviously your cards would have to be printed with the terms randomly on each card. If you don’t want to create your own cards, simply use traditional Bingo cards.

  • Quilter’s Exchange

You can set this up as an exchange of anything quilt related. Fabrics, quilting tools, patterns and even UFOs. Have quilters bring in any of the above items they don’t want anymore. Display each person’s pile on a table with a cup or a basket in front. Then quilters purchase tickets with numbers, the kind that can be torn in two, for .25 a piece. One piece of the ticket goes to the quilter to put into the basket in front of the pile they want and the other piece goes in a container where numbers will be drawn from. Once everyone has “spent” their tickets, the drawing begins and the winners get some new fabrics, tools or patterns! This serves as a small fundraiser for your guild too.

  • Thimble Toss

A silly, but fun game. Get a few plastic buckets and some thimbles (like these below from Amazon):

Set up two buckets and have two guild members toss thimbles into the buckets within a time period that you choose. At the end of that time, the quilter with the most thimbles in the bucket is the winner! You can have prizes like fat quarters, needle threaders, needles or other inexpensive quilter’s notions. You can even set it up as a bracket like tournament (like NCAA basketball!) and have a grand prize winner at the end who perhaps gets a gift certificate to your local quilt shop.

  • Quilter’s Wheel of Fortune

This can be a team game if you have a large group. Come up with quilting terms or phrases. On a white board or a chalk board, draw out the lines for your term or phrase. Each team has a turn to guess letters. As they are filled in, the person or team can only guess the puzzle after they give you their letter. The team that guesses the puzzle are the winners and score points. The team with the most points at the end are the winners. 

So, that’s all I have for acronyms and games! Share some of your ideas below. It will be fun to see everyone’s ideas. See you next week!

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Useful Tips for Every Quilter & Stitcher

This week I decided to cover some useful tips that I think are beneficial to every quilter. These are things that I do every day when I am quilting, so I thought I’d share them. You may be familiar with some of these or they may be new to you. Whether it’s a review or new information, I hope you enjoy this week’s installment. Let’s go!

These first few tips are for my appliqué friends.

Tip#1: I like to save time when appliquéing a project by having all my tools close by in a container. I have a magnet affixed to the inside cover and keep a stash of needles threaded with the colors I am using in the project. Once I pick up a needle with a particular color, I will re-thread another with that color so it’s ready to go when I need it.

Other items in my container are my needle threader, threads, a small scissors and a small Roxanne’s glue. This storage box helps to make my appliqué projects portable as well. I like to stay busy stitching in cars, waiting rooms and while sitting watching TV, to name a few places. By having my supplies all together like this, I can just grab this container with my project and I’m all set.

Tip #2: For my wool appliqué friends, a tip I like to share it to layout the complete motif and fuse/glue everything in place before stitching. Like my block below:

By laying everything out, I can get the motif positioned within the area designated and be assured that no part of the design ends up in the seam allowance. If you look at the edges of the block, you can see a line I have drawn that indicates the boundary for my design.

And like for the fabric appliqué, you can have all your wool stitchery supplies in a small container to make these projects portable too.

Tip #3: To store the whole project for travel, including the small box with the stitching supplies, you can make use of those zipper bags that new sheet sets arrive it. If you have read my blog for a while, you know that I like to upcycle and this is a one of those opportunities.

Another alternative to package your project for travel is this handy container called an Art Bin:

Now onto some of my favorite tips for quilters.

Tip #1: I have spoken before about measuring your units and blocks as you go to make sure they measure according to the pattern instructions. This is so your quilt goes together smoothly in the end. Part of achieving that is proper pressing.

Whether you press your seams to one side or press them open, flat seams are important for your stitched units and blocks to measure accurately. I like to press my seams open, I find it gives me more accurate measurements. Either way you choose to press your seams, make sure no fabric is bunched up anywhere and the seam lays flat on both sides of your piece.

The seam on the left was not pressed so it lays flat on the bottom and the top. You can see the red strip is creased a bit over the seam. The photo on the right shows the seam pressed correctly. That red strip is now flat with no fabric creased. Now this block will measure correctly.

Tip #2: This ties into tip #1. To get seams pressed flat, use a wool pressing mat. I purchased one when they came on the market and said “where has this been my whole quilting life!”. Here’s mine:

The heat from your iron penetrates these 100% wool mats. Because of that, it works to press your unit on both sides at the same time! No flipping of your piece is needed.  It also helps to reduce stretching or distorting of seams because of the cushioning provided by the mat. Because of this you can press down harder with your iron when pressing your blocks or units on this mat, as opposed to a regular ironing board, without crushing your piece.

Tip #3: This also helps with piecing accuracy and units measuring correctly. Use a stiletto or other item to keep the units you are stitching together straight as you feed them under the presser foot.

Whether you use a stiletto or not, as you are guiding your fabric through make sure you are not pulling it towards you or holding it too tight because that can cause the top layer of fabric to move slower than the bottom layer is moving across the feed dogs making your seams uneven. 

Pulling or pushing your piece (photo on the right) will also result in seams that don’t measure the exact 1/4″ that you need for your unit or block to measure correctly.

Tip #4: This is a time saving tip… at least for me. I like to get projects done, so I look for time saving tips all the time. The ultimate time saver? Chain piecing! If you have to piece together a lot of the same units for blocks you are making, chain piecing is the way to go… as long as you don’t run out of bobbin thread in the middle of it!

To get your pieces ready for chain stitching, stack them as I show in the photo on the left. You can also stack up block units this way (photo on the right) to chain piece blocks.

Well, that’s it for this week. These tips are in no way all the tips and tricks I use to make my sewing experience more fun and relaxing, but they are ones that I use the most. Let me know in the comments some of your favorite tips.

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Machine Quilting on Your Home Machine – Part 2

Welcome back… I see I haven’t scared you off. If you are joining me today it looks like you are interested in how to machine quilt on your home machine, maybe you even have a sandwiched quilt top after reading last week’s post. If you missed it, read it here. This week I will share tips on preparing to quilt which includes prepping your sewing area and choosing a quilt design. At the end will be one of my mini video tutorials showing the machine quilting technique for the visual learners like me. I also recommend searching for machine quilting tips from other designers. It never hurts to gather more information than you think you need. They may have tips I haven’t covered that will be helpful in your education on machine quilting.

Prepare To Quilt

Step 1: Before you begin it is a good idea to ready your machine and sewing area for machine quilting. If you can, try to have large area to your left and behind your machine (photo below) especially if your project is a larger quilt. This will help to support the weight of the quilt to the side or behind your machine and cause less stress to your arm and shoulder muscles. Also, if you don’t support it, the weight of the portion of your quilt not being stitched can pull on the area you are stitching and create problems with your stitching and design.

If you don’t have a large table where you can set your machine, you can create this extra space by placing another table behind your sewing table or placing an ironing board there, lowered to the same level as your sewing table. 

Step 2: Change your needle. Odds are, you haven’t changed it as often as you should. It’s best to start with a fresh needle when beginning a quilting project so you are assured there will be no fabric snags, larger holes punched in your fabric or snapping thread. All of these things can happen with a needle that has been used too much. I recommend switching your universal needle out with one that is specifically for quilting.

These needles are sharper than the universal needle allowing it to penetrate through the 3 layers of the quilt sandwich.

Step 3: Choose the quilting foot for your machine. I mostly do free-motion, meandering machine quilting. For that, I recommend an open toe darning foot.

With this foot, you drop your feed dogs and move all the layers of your quilt sandwich with your hands. Dropping the feed dogs insures there is no drag on the bottom layer of the quilt sandwich while you are moving it. 

Now this is where you can look for advice from other machine quilters. They may recommend other feet to use. If I want to do straight line quilting, like a grid or stitch in the ditch, I will use the sewing machine’s walking foot. Here’s mine:

Special “teeth” on the bottom of this foot mimic the feed dogs under your quilt to evenly feeds all three layers of your quilt sandwich as you quilt. This helps also to eliminate puckers or rumples on the backing that you could get with just a standard foot on top.

If you do not have one for your machine, I recommend purchasing one. It will be worth it as you can use it for quilting and also for attaching binding evenly.

**I have just recently begun to work with the walking foot so I am not in a position to instruct you on this type of machine quilting yet.  If you want some instruction for this type of quilting, there are many expert machine quilters you can find by a simple google search or a search on YouTube. 

Now here’s a few extra tips:

Tip #1: For the type of quilting I do – free motion with a darning foot – I recommend these quilting gloves:

These gloves help me grip and hold taunt the three layers of the quilt sandwich so I can move it as one under the needle.

Tip #2: This is a time-saver tip. Wind several bobbins with the thread you are using on the project so you can quickly change out a bobbing that has run out. 

Time to Quilt – My Tips

Tip #1: Prepare your design ahead of time. To decide what quilt design I want to use, I have a trick. I either print a copy of one of the quilt blocks in the quilt top or draw one out on a piece of paper. Once I do that, I will draw out a quilt design pattern that I can follow on each block! Here’s an example of one of my drawings below:

Once I have the design I like on paper, I use an erasable marking pencil to mark the blocks. The arrows on my drawing (I do not mark those on the quilt) show which direction to stitch to make this design in one continuous pass. You can also just do an overall meandering pattern like this:

The overall pattern above is often referred to as “loops and stars”. So whether you choose a custom design within each block or an overall motif, it’s good to decide before you have the quilt under the needle to save frustration. I have picked out machine quilting stitches before… and it’s not fun!

Tip #2: Practice quilting on a scrap sandwich. I still do this when it’s been awhile since I have machine quilted. Take two scrap pieces of fabric and sandwich them with a scrap piece of batting and use it to practice designs and the flow of the movement of the quilt sandwich with your hands. To make sure there are no skipped stitches, uneven stitches or “eye-lashing” of stitches on curves you need to match your stitching speed (speed of your machine) with your hand movement of the quilt sandwich.

Above is one of my recent practice pieces where I was trying out a “paisley” design.

Tip #3: Start quilting your project from the center, working your way out. That way any fabric that shifts will shift towards the edges of the quilt top and can be adjusted as needed instead of bunching up in the center.

Tip#4: Take breaks when quilting. About every 15 minutes of quilting, I stand up, stretch my shoulders and hands. You’d be surprised how tensed up your muscles get when you are quilting. If you take breaks to stretch, you will not fatigue quite so much. It will also help you not to make mistakes.

Quilting Steps

 I will now describe the quilting steps. At the end of this post will be my quilting mini video tutorial showing these steps.

  • The feed dogs on your machine need to be dropped. See your owner’s manual on how to do that if you have not done it before.
  • Next, pull your bobbin thread to the top of the quilt. To do this, put your threaded needle down in the spot where you want to begin and drop your presser foot. Tap your foot peddle so the needle comes back up, pull on the end of the top thread and this will draw the bobbin thread to the top of the quilt. This is so the bobbin thread does not get caught in the stitching on the back and create a mess!
  • Start with a few small “locking stitches”. Since your feed dogs are dropped, they are not moving the quilt sandwich …. you have to. So to make these small stitches, just move the quilt top slightly while stitching. Since you are only moving it slightly, the stitches will be very small.
  • Once you do these beginning stitches, you can now move on to the motif you have chosen. Be sure to move the quilt top at an even pace matching the speed of your machine. That is how you keep the stitches even (unless you are one of those lucky quilters who have a stitch regulator on your machine!).
  • Once you reach the end of your design or are at a place where you need to stop, end with a few small locking stitches again. Snip the threads as close to the quilt top as you can (be careful!). Now you are ready to move on to the next area!

Mini Tutorial Video

So here it is. My quilting mini tutorial on the steps I described above.

Here are some of my recent quilt motifs:

Well, that is all I have on machine quilting a small project on your home machine. Leave a comment or ask a question below and you will be entered into the drawing for a pair of quilting glove shown above.

The drawing will be on Monday, February 6th.**We have a winner… Congrats, Marsha Thornburg!**

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Ditch Bad Habits and Adopt Good Practices!

Since we’re only a few weeks into the new year when everyone is already breaking their New Year’s resolutions (LOL), I thought this would be a good time to talk about some quilting bad habits. We don’t realize it, but sometimes we drift into repeatedly doing something as we are quilting that we actually shouldn’t do. I’ll talk about some things I used to do and what I do now for a “good practice”. As the saying goes “practice makes perfect”. If you work on ditching the bad habits and replacing them with good practices… eventually that bad habit will be gone for good…. we hope!

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of all the bad habits we quilters acquired. I’d like you to share in the comments something you feel is a bad quilting habit of yours and how you’ve broken away from that (if you have!). Here we go!

Sewing Machine Habits

Many of us quilters spend a lot of money on a good sewing machine. That’s why it’s a good idea to break all bad habits when it comes to your machine. I’ve done posts in the past about machine maintenance and I’ll repeat it here. Clean and oil your machine, especially after each sewing project.

I even use the little brush to clean above the presser foot. Lint collects up there too. If you get into the habit of doing this after every project, your machine will keep humming along. Also, please bring your machine to the shop for a check-up every year. I consider this a “well check” just like when I go to the doctor for a physical. This will help to catch a minor problem with your machine before it turns into something major. When I just started quilting and had an older, less expensive machine, I didn’t follow this advice but I should have. A machine of any price & quality will last longer with good maintenance.

When you are unthreading your machine, never pull it out from the top of your machine. This is something I did not know could cause a problem until it did for me. Pulling your thread out from the top of your machine can cause problems with the tension disks that are located where my finger is pointing on my machine.

The proper way to unthread your machine is to snip the thread at the top of your machine near the spool and then pull the thread out from the needle area:

Two final tips:

  1. My favorite advice to give is for you to pin all your seams for accurate piecing… that’s a must. But, avoid sewing over pins! I know there are really thin pins that people say you can sew over, but, take it from me, doing this can throw off the timing on your machine. Then you will have the take your machine in for a costly repair. This did happen to me.
  2. ALWAYS remove your foot from your foot pedal when your hands are anywhere near your machine needle. Even if you are quickly readjusting something you are stitching. Foot pedals are very sensitive and if you accidentally touch it when your fingers are by the needle, you can send a needle through your finger and end up with a costly ER visit putting an end to your sewing day.

Fabric & Cutting, etc.

Measure twice, cut once is not only a saying used in construction. It’s important in cutting your fabrics for a quilt project. We all know how expensive fabric is, so making it a habit to measure carefully will end up saving you money.

A tip to help with accurate measuring is to use some painter’s tape to mark the ruler line you are currently using. This has saved me a lot of time when cutting many strips of the same width because I am not searching for the line on the ruler before each cut.

Next tip: before cutting pieces for a project make it a habit to press your fabric well to remove creases and be sure to square it up properly. This will also insure accurate cutting, especially of strips. Here’s my mini video on squaring up. 

When I first began quilting, I wasn’t taught to square my fabric and I ended up with a lot of curved strips. Now it’s a habit that I perform, without even thinking sometimes, with every new piece of fabric I pull from my stash.

Speaking of cutting… make it a habit to never leave your rotary cutter open and laying on your cutting table. It’s easy to knock it off and hit a part of your body or you can accidentally grab the blade portion of the cutter if you’re not looking as you reach for it. The cutter has a lock on it for a reason (photo below)! I made it a habit to close and lock my cutter every time I put it down, even as I move my ruler to cut another strip.

Use other safety items and practices when using the rotary cutter. I speak from experience here! I cut off a tip of my index finger several years ago when my cutter skipped across my ruler. Here’s some additional safety practices to make habits:

  • Hold the cutter and ruler correctly while cutting. This will help in avoiding the cutter slipping and hitting your hand. It also helps with cutting accuracy … so bonus!

On the left, by tenting my hand instead of laying flat on the ruler keeps it from shifting. On the right, holding the cutter flat against the ruler instead of tilted out keeps your cut accurate.

And make it a habit to change your blade! If you notice that you have to press down harder to make a cut go through all the fabric thickness or it skips and cuts some areas but not others, that means you blade is dull. A dull blade can also lead to cutting errors and even accidents.

Final Good Habit to Develop

Always clean up your cutting and sewing areas after finishing a project. This is something I am still working on. As you can see …

These are scraps from two projects. I should get these sorted and stored. If you start with a clean cutting area, you will be focused only on the current project, instead of obsessing over the pile of scraps. Also, you need the space to cut! Another bonus to cleaning your space and organizing your fabrics, you won’t buy fabric you already own… unless you want to.

So that’s it for this week. Share with me some of your bad habits or good quilting practices in the comments below. We may all learn something new.

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

More Handy & Time Saving Tips for All Quilters

Hi, I’m back this week to share more of my favorite handy and time saving tips! These are things that I do when I am working on a quilt project, things that came out of my desire to make my quilting experience more fun and relaxing. Some of these tips will save you from future headaches and assure that you can complete that quilt. Let’s get started!

TIP #1

Have you ever begun to piece some units and either lost your top or bobbin thread or ended up with a jumble at the beginning of the seam? To combat this, use what I call a “leader/ender” scrap. 

This is actually a good use of some of those scraps you accumulate from trimming units like flying geese. Start your stitching with this leader/ender scrap first, then stitch how ever many units you have in your stack and then end with this leader/ender scrap.

This has the added benefit of conserving thread. Instead of pulling the units you’ve stitched out away from the machine and clipping off a long section of thread, just snip the thread behind the presser foot after the leader/ender is part of the way through, and your units are completely through, to release your stitched units!

TIP #2

Staying with the stitching theme, always backstitch at the beginning and at the end of a seam. It takes just a second to do this, but it makes a big difference. All you need is a few back stitches for security.

The unit on the left was stitched without back stitching. Notice how I can pull the seam apart quite easily. This can cause trouble when you are joining units and are trying to nest seams. If one of the seams is pulling apart, you will also have trouble aligning seams for the block you are stitching. The unit on the right shows the strength of backstitching.

TIP #3

Pin units before stitching! Seems like I am being “Captain Obvious” here but I used to skip this step and I advise you not to. Especially if you really want crisp points and aligned seams.

First, align and pin the seams for the units you are joining and then pin the ends of the units. Yes it takes a minute, but if you stitch without pins and then have unaligned seams that ruin the look of your block. Then you will have to rip out stitches and start over, wasting more time.

The pinning also works great in helping to align diagonal seams, like when you are joining half-square triangle squares.

Align those diagonal seams first as shown in the photo on the left. Next, pin that seam before pinning the rest of the HST units together. As you can see in the last photo, the diagonal seams are aligned perfectly and come to an even point 1/4″ up from the edge.

TIP #4

I have a confession. I have never been adept at using a seam ripper without putting a hole in my fabric. So if you do have to rip out stitches, or “un-sew” as we quilters like to say, I have a tip that makes that chore a little easier for those of us who don’t use a seam ripper. All you need is a small, sharp tipped pair of scissors like these:

The smaller and thinner the better to avoid ripping your fabric. Then use these scissors as shown. Insert the tip under a stitch and snip. Snip stitches about 4 or 5 stitches apart. Once this is done, you can carefully pull apart the seam from the top and then snip the remaining threads.

Now for some other random tips:

TIP #5

Use a small notebook stashed by your machine to record when you last cleaned and oiled your machine and also when you changed your needle last. This will help you with the maintenance of your machine and keep you from having unexpected breakdowns. I also use it to record what thread and stitch length I am using for a project in case I need to pull it off the machine before it is finished to do something else.

TIP #6

You know those bookstands they make for recipe books for the kitchen? They work great for holding patterns or magazines. If yours doesn’t have the handy holders on the bottom, use a binder clip to keep the pattern or magazine in place.

TIP# #7

Finally if you have a small magnet laying around, like one of those souvenir magnets you get on vacation, you can use that as a pin corral! Just attach it to your sewing table, with a removable Command strip, by your machine and your pins will go nowhere. 

Another pin solution is to go to an auto parts store and buy the magnetic dishes used by mechanics to corral screws, nuts and bolts. These work great for pins and have a weighed bottom so they’re fairly hard to knock off your table.

Well, that’s it for this week! I hope some of these tips are ones you find helpful and time saving. Enjoy your next quilting project by putting some of them to use. Share some time saving tips with me in the comments below and you will be entered into a drawing for my new pattern Strips & Stars:

The drawing will be on Monday, November 28th. Good luck!**We have a winner! Congrats, Joan!**

Happy Quilting!
Deanne