Pre-Houston Rush

Everyone who works at Market and/or Festival is in the pre-Houston rush stage. Just look at #quiltmarket on Instagram to see a bit of all the great stuff that will be revealed soon.

For me, it's getting clothes and paperwork ready for 13 days at the Hilton Americas, a great hotel I love staying at. The staff is wonderful and I really look forward to seeing so many of the same people year after year.

Yesterday I taught two classes, 3 hours each at two different shops, 21 total students. First, was a Creative Log Cabin class, using the Creative Grids 8" Log Cabin Trim Tool. It was a fast-paced class, helping all 8 students learn the basics and the easy but specific steps I've come up with to make these blocks fast, fun and accurate. Success!:

Class scenes:

Rhonda with her Featherweight and Quilts of Valor fabrics

Sharon's contemporary strips

My Class Sample:

At noon, 5 of these students and I hustled on to the next location for our Monthly Long Time Gone session. This was session 2 and I was thrilled to see the great blocks 13 students had made this month. Did I think to take a photo of the design wall covered with all those blocks? No... Next month. Here is my Section 1:

My Section 2:

We meet for 3 hours once a month for 6 months. I give tips and tricks for that month's section. The students take notes, ask questions and play with their fabrics--no need to bring a sewing machine for only 3 hours when I have so much to teach for each block. They are making wonderful quilts!

My Spellbound sample is now on the wall at Huntsville Sew and Vac.  Class is two sessions, Saturday November 11 and Saturday December 2. Any two Jelly Rolls, exactly the same, will work for this simple yet graphically dynamic quilt:

 Today I made the splendid little Stella a splendid little pillowcase for her Splendid Sampler quilt:

I'm eager to see her reaction--this makes a terrific I Spy quilt.

Have I mentioned how much this family LOVES Halloween?!

Lauren, Stella and Andy as Rick and Morty, whoever that might be...

I also quilted and bound the Palmateer Point mystery quilt I made a few weeks ago:

My stack of small quilts is growing by leaps and bounds--I think I'll add a dozen or so to my Etsy shop when I get back from Houston. Most are small, this one is about 25" square.

I probably won't get time to blog much while working in Houston but I'll add photos to Instagram and Facebook regularly. See you when I get back.

Let's quilt!

Barbara

Quilt Labels--Don't Leave Home Without Them

I am a serious proponent of putting labels on all your quilts. In case of loss, you have a better chance of getting your quilt back. But more importantly, this is information someone in the future should want to know:

As soon as I finish a quilt, I write my name and the year on the back with an Ultra Fine Point Sharpie black permanent marker. No quilt leaves my home without at least this information on it.

Because I am a woman of many words, I want more information on my quilts so I print labels on my computer with the "who, what, when, where and why" on them.  Information should include:

Who made this quilt--the top. If it was a group effort, explain that
Who designed it--the pattern designer/book author if it's not an original design
Why was it made--gift, celebration, commemoration, for love of the fabric or design
Who is it for--if being given directly to a person
Who quilted it--if not the maker of the top. That person deserves recognition
When--some of my labels show a range, the longest one says 2004-2011
Where--the maker and/or the recipient, where do they live

By preserving this information for your family now, the quilt may get more respect from future generations. Historians and collectors will thank you. One of my quilts that I made in 1995 says "to be given to the first of her sons to marry". My eldest son was 16 at the time. It is now the property of Andrew, my younger son, and a new label was added on the left corner. It has a dedication to my son and his bride, the date of their marriage and this--"To be handed down to the first of their children to marry." Long term thinking here.

There are several fabric products available to run through an ink-jet printer. Today I am using this, Printed Treasures:

Another favorite brand is EQ Printables from Electric Quilt Company. I am out of that at the moment so will restock soon. These products are paper-backed 8.5" x 11" white fabric sheets that are designed to be run through an ink jet printer and the ink remains permanent, even through many washings. Do not use a laser printer--they print with heat and you could damage the printer. These products also come in "sew-on" and "iron-on" styles--I prefer the "sew-on"--it is softer and leaves no residue on the quilt.

If you have lovely handwriting, you can use any light fabric and a permanent pen to write your information on the quilt. My handwriting isn't very good so I prefer to print my labels.

I keep a running list of quilts that need labels and when I have enough to fill an entire page I make them. I work in Word but you could use Publisher or a greeting card template.

This time I had a label I wanted to add a photo to: Stella's Splendid Sampler. In October 2016 when she visited us at 16 months old, we spent some time looking at her quilt blocks on the design wall. She could point out specific things like a bird, a dress, a heart, a cupcake, a flower. I loved this shot of us and knew I would use it on her label. At first, this was to be her "big girl bed" quilt but it's pretty big so now I'm thinking it's more likely her dorm quilt, way in the future.

Here is the label after it came out of the printer. Read and follow ALL the directions. Double check your spelling, there is nothing more disheartening than a label with a misspelled word--ask me how I know:

 Here I have cut the labels apart, the blank piece at the top may be a handwritten label later:

When I first starting using these products for labels I loved that I could put as much information as I wanted on the label. What I didn't love is that it was somewhat difficult to turn the raw edges over to needle-turn in place--the fabric is tightly woven so it holds the images/printing well. One day I had a label with very narrow margins, too small to turn under, so I added a border of the back fabric, using a 1/8" seam allowance and VOILA! Problem solved. From then on I have used the back fabric to create a frame around the label and it is as easy to stitch in place as any applique' would be.

Trim the label so it is neat and square--I try to have an equal amount of margin around the words. I cut the fabric strips about 1.25" usually. The left and right strips are the same size as the label, the top and bottom are about 1" wider than the label with the sides on will be:

 First, I turn in one edge about 1/4". This is easy to do before sewing the strips to the label:

I sew the left and right sides in place using a 1/4" seam allowance usually. Sometimes there is not much margin--then I use a 1/8" seam allowance. Press the two sides away from the label and trim the ends even with the top and bottom of the label:

Sew the top and bottom strips on the label, centering the strips:

Turn the tails to the back of the label and press them firmly over the ends. I use a hot, dry iron for this. Then I use just a drop or two of washable glue, here is Elmer's washable school glue, but a washable fabric glue stick would work too. I put the glue on the folded over ends and use the hot, dry iron to dry the ends in place. I started doing this after finding it too fiddly to keep the ends nice and flat while sewing it to the quilt. This solution works great:

 Now the label is pinned in place on the lower back, ready to hand sew in place, with thread that matches the back fabric, a bright pink in this case. It goes over my handwritten name and date:

There is one more photo of Stella enjoying this quilt as I was making it. In August 2016, when she was 14 months old, we had a family beach vacation. That week I was making the purple coneflower with hand applique'. When it was done I showed it to her as her Pop Pop held her and she made her "face of the week"--her "surprised" face:

That's my girl!

Don't let your quilts leave home without a label.

Let's quilt!

Barbara

Easy Things and Others, Not So Much

I needed a break from tedious, really careful work so I started on a simple quilt that will be a gift for an old buddy. Random Ohio Stars, a free pattern from Bonnie Hunter:

The twelve 12" stars are done, now I need to make 13 more 6" stars and I'll also make two 3" stars.  I  must say, those 12" blocks feel huge to me, so much bigger than I usually deal with.

Then there are the four flying geese for Temecula's Wild Goose Wednesday project.  I love flying geese and always make four at a time.  Their size is 6" x 3" but after making a few of those I scaled down to 4" x 2"--I like this size much better:

I am getting a bit tired of my "Lifetime Leader/Ender Quilt" so decided to start joining it together. These are 1.25" finished Half Square Triangles, read more about this project here.  This is about one quarter of the finished quilt, I think. The Front:

The Back, more careful pressing is still required:

This week I've been free-motion quilting on Stella's Splendid Sampler.  Not the best quilting ever but this will be one of those "finished is better than perfect" quilts, full of love. There is a long way to go yet.  Here are  a few shots:

Stitch in the Ditch with the Line Tamer ruler

More Stitch in the Ditch

Stitch in the Ditch done

More Stitch in the Ditch

Free-Motion

More Free-Motion

Today I picked up "Stars in a Time Warp" from the quilter, Mechelle Armstrong of Magnolia Longarm Quilting.  She did a great job and I love the wool batting we selected, soft and with lovely loft.  I am eager to get the sleeve made and then sew it and the binding in place.  The label is ready and waiting:

Tomorrow I teach all morning, Saturday I teach all day, Sunday afternoon is a Quilt Show meeting I am involved in--when will I get more quilting done?  Next week...

And the next weekend:  Stella herself will be here--can't wait!  She is 22 months almost, scrumptious!

 She eats really well:  hummus, tomato, cucumber, peppers, yum!

Let's Quilt!

Barbara

Basting a Quilt for Machine Quilting--and the Giveaway Winner

If you are going to machine quilt a quilt on your home machine, you need to baste the three layers together.  When we hand quilt, we most often baste with thread, large stitches basted in by hand across the surface of the quilt.  But with machine quilting you would be sewing in all those threads, then have to remove them, or they would get caught on the presser foot, so thread-basting is not a solution for machine quilting.  Most quilters use safety pins:

For a small quilt, I often just use straight pins until the basic grid quilting, like stitch in the ditch, is done.  But on a large quilt that wouldn't work:  the pins would come out or, worse, you'd get bloody sticking yourself as you manipulate the quilt through the machine.

Here is my process. (I know there are other methods, spray basting, basting guns, etc.--this is how I do it.)  First, I need to find a room with tables that will fit my quilt--no crawling around on the floor for me any more.  If you have access to a church Fellowship Hall,or a business or community center lunchroom, see if there is a time you can use that space to baste your quilts.  After teaching a class this morning at Patches & Stitches, Huntsville, AL, I put 3 classroom tables together to baste Stella's Splendid Sampler.

The back was pieced from two lengths of fabric, after removing the selvages, then the seam was pressed open.  I carefully laid the back out, RIGHT SIDE DOWN.  I centered the seam on the middle table.  I used small plastic clamps to secure the back to the table, clamping firmly but not stretching the back.If you don't have clamps, bulldog clips, also called black binder clips, often work.  At home on my dining room table I use painters tape.

Luckily, most of the back fit nicely on the table, the left and right sides hang over about 6-8":

Then I gently added the batting:

Twin Size Batting is somewhat larger than needed

 This is my favorite batting. Quilters Dream Cotton batting, Request weight, the lightest. It comes in white or natural, use white if you have a predominately white background:

After smoothing the batting carefully across the back, keeping the left side even with left edge of the back, I spread out the quilt top.  This whole process is much easier with another set of hands but it was only me so I did it myself:

An important point:  I didn't intentionally center the seam on the center of the quilt--it pretty much happened by accident.  For a competition quilt, I would have carefully lined up the center seam of the back with the center of the quilt top.  NOTE: For a larger bed quilt, the back would have been made from 3 pieces, about 40" across the middle, and two pieces sewn to either side.  OR I would use a wide-goods back, 108" or wider--then you only need the length of your quilt plus a bit for the back. This quilt is 81" square.

How much bigger is the back and batting than the top?  If you are quilting it yourself, on a home machine, with a fairly flat/thin batting like this, 4" extra all around is enough--at least 85" in both directions for my quilt.  If you are giving your quilt to a longarmer to quilt, they need 8" extra all around, this means, your quilt top plus 4" extra on the left and right sides, 4" extra on the top and bottom edges.  The thicker the batting, the more back and batting you need beyond the top.

Once I was satisfied I had the quilt as flat and straight as I could make it, it was time for the safety pins.  I was afraid I would run out so I placed them about 7" apart--they really should be closer, about 3-4" apart.  As I plan to stitch in the ditch first, on either side of all the turquoise sashing strips, I purposely did not put any pins in the 1" finished sashings.  Once the stitch in the ditch is done, I can remove all the rest of the pins to quilt in each block, whatever I think that block needs.

Put the safety pins in BUT DON'T CLOSE THEM, until all the pins are in place.  I did run out of pins when I got to the borders, I'll add more once I get home. For now each block has a pin and there are a few in the borders.  After ALL the pins are in place, remove the clamps that have been holding the back securely flat on the table:

Now you can close the pins. On a large quilt there can be more than 300 pins and that can be tough on your hands.  I used my hands but you can use a grapefruit spoon, a chopstick or a Kwik Klip tool:

Once all the pins are closed, turn it over to the reverse side and check to see if there are any pleats or tucks.  If there are, now is the time to fix them.  If you forget to fix them, you will sew them in place, just ask me how I know...

Stella's Splendid Sampler Back

Next one in line for machine quilting

Basting is not my favorite part of the process--having a friend or two to help makes it go faster--but you can do it yourself.  If your quilt is larger than the tables you have, after doing the middle portion on the table, close those pins, and slide the quilt to the side, do that side, close the pins, carefully slide the quilt back to the remaining side, and complete the basting.  Now you can quilt it!

And it's time to announce the Giveaway for the Sew-A-Long.  The Random Number Generator selected number 2:  congratulations, Donna D!  We'll get together soon to give you the prizes.  Thanks to everyone who posted their photo.

Let's Quilt!

Barbara

Stella's Splendid Sampler

Happy Day--Stella's Splendid Sampler top is done!

I first wrote about this last February when the project first started:  The Splendid Sampler.  At that time, the Facebook group numbered just over 10,000, today, at this moment, it's at 25,622. That doesn't include the people around the world who signed up by email.  Pat Sloan and Joan Davidson can be very proud of the project they put together with a lot of work, effort, planning and coordinating of more than 80 designers.  A book is due for release soon.

My quilt, by the numbers:  100 blocks, 2757 pieces, 132 different fabrics, finished size 81" square,  I replaced 6 blocks, one with a "bonus" block that was provided, and 5 that I drafted or added myself.

This quilt is for my beloved grand-girl, Stella LeAnne, who is only 20 months old now but will move up to a "big girl bed" later this year.  As I worked on this, I thought it is possible she will take this to college years from now, it's not overly childish.  Time will tell.

What I learned from this: First, this is a mystery project--if you don't know what the finished quilt will look like when you start, that's a mystery.  Not everyone does well under those conditions--if you want to plan everything from the beginning, this isn't for you.  I was surprised at the number of embroidery blocks, though I shouldn't have been, we knew there would be lots of techniques introduced.  There were some true beginners who tackled this--I hope they learned a lot and weren't discouraged.  There was so much support online by the various designers, every skill level could learn something.

Had I known what it would look like before I began, I wouldn't have made it.  BUT I'm glad I did--I thought of Stella with every block and I hope she will like it.  Here are my favorite blocks:

 

I created the BB block, my grandma name, and the Coneflower I hand-appliqued while on a family beach vacation with Stella in August:

Her "surprised" face she did on command and her PopPop

This embroidery block I simply colored with crayons and heat set.  Loved the design, didn't want to spend weeks sewing it. 

 This embroidery block took me 3 weeks to complete, I do like it but, 3 weeks--I just couldn't get motivated to finish it.

 I substituted this block with a 6-pointed star--Stella means "star" in Italian, and added the embroidery

 I liked the design of this simple sawtooth star and interesting border treatment

 This was the first block with embroidery and I liked how someone added fabric to the "quilt", and colored the face and toys with crayons--I learned I could do that.

 I substituted this block I created for one that had 3 black birds on it--I love flying geese so just drew the paper pattern and made 3 "geese"

This heart block was one of the many paper pieced blocks and one I'll use again--it would be great for those gift quilts made to show love to a friend in need.

Here is Stella having a look at  her quilt in progress in October:

Here are the fabrics I started with:

I intended to use the large print as borders, having saved it after making Smitten:

BUT, a couple weeks ago I saw a wonderful strip-pieced border on Bonnie Hunters' blog and thought "What a great way to use up these fabrics!"  So, how come I seem to have just as much fabric left from this project as when I started??  I added more and the scrap stash just seems to grow.  See what I did with some of the scraps here:  Baby Quilt.

So, it's done, except for the quilting which I will do myself.  Now to baste it and get started.  And I have plenty of projects to get back to now.

Let's Quilt!

Barbara