Field Trips in Fiber

Placemats on the longarm - a tutorial

Today I finished the quilting for the bright QFAH quilt(the second QOV of 4). When I got the the end I realized that I had about 20 inches of extra backing and batting left. It seemed like a good opportunity to make some placements. All of mine are getting a bit ragged and I really need new ones. I also had enough of the backing fabric left to make matching napkins. I looked through stash and found a gray print batik that goes really well with the backing fabric. Here's how I made them:

Cut the batik fabric to the finished size of the placemats. Mine are 12" x 18". Arrange them on the batting with at least 3 inches between each placemat. Stitch each placemat around the edge to hold in in place and then quilt the inside of the placemant. DO NOT STITCH OVER THE EDGE OF THE PLACEMAT FABRIC. (This step goes really fast unless the power goes out with 8 inches of quilting left on the last placemat. If that happens this takes about 2 hours but you get a nice nap break.)

Trim the batting to the edge fo the placemat - do not cut the backing. This is really easy to do with applique scissors if the fabric is still mounted on the quilting frame. 

Trim the backing leaving about 1.5" on each side.

Now comes the only hard part - pressing up the hem. These directions are for mitered corners. Press the backing over the front with a double fold.

In this photo the bottom edge is folded up twice. Fold the corner of the next side to create the miter.

Open out the diagonal fold and trim about 1/4" from the folded edge to remove some fo the bulk on the corner. Remember to cut this to the outside of the fold!

 

Double fold the hem of the next side and then place a triangle of fusible web right on that mitered edge. I did this so that I would not have to stitch the miter.

Fold and press all 4 corners and sides and then topstitch next to the folded edge.

For the napkins I cut an 18" square of fabric,double folded a narrow hem (no mitering) and then topstitched the hem. Here are the final placemats and napkins. I quilted each placemat with a different motif so I think I could also use them with the back up.

Just another good reason to use extra wide backing fabrics! Not including the 2 hour power outage and taking instructional photos, I think these took about 2 hours to make, start to finish.

 

Liquid Starch Recipe

I think I posted a few months ago about making my own starch. I use a lot of starch in my quilt piecing. I like the fabric to be as stiff as paper, especially when I'm working with triangles. The problem with my original starch recipe is that it didn't fully dissolve and sometimes left a white residue on the fabric. That didn't bother me because I always wash the completed quilt....but it drove my Mom nuts when she was here and we were working on our "Quilts on the Double" quilts. She and her sister looked through my Grandma's recipe book to see if her starch recipe was recorded. It wasn't. So a search of the web for several recipes resulted in this new recipe that works much better!

If you decided to make your own starch, only make what you can use in a day or 2. It does go rancid. I seem to use a little more than a cup in an average cutting session.

1. Put 1 1/2 cups of water in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

2. While waiting for the water to boil, dissolve 2 - 3 teaspoons of cornstarch in 3 tablespoons of cold water in a cup or small bowl. Keep mixing the cornstarch while waiting for the water to boil.

3. After the water boils, pour the cornstarch mixture into the boiling water and stir for a minute or so. The liquid will be clear or slightly cloudy.

4. Remove the saucepan from the heat and let cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally.

5. Transfer the starch mixture to a spray bottle and starch away! Throw it out after a couple of days.

"The Silver Tree" Postcard Tutorial

Are you old enough to remember the aluminum tree with the 4-color light wheel? Both of my Grandparents had them at one time or another. I still love them and I've been trying to come up with a way to represent the aluminum tree in a postcard. It all came to me last week when Kim gave me some scraps of silver silk from her holiday dress. I thought that others might want to create an aluminum tree memory so here's a little tutorial.

These cards are made in sets of 4. Cut 4 Timtex (or whatever you use for the insides of your postcards) bases 4" x 6".

Fuse paper-backed fusible web (I used WonderUnder throughout the project) to the back of 4 fabrics, one each of red, yellow, green and blue. Cut one piece of each 4"x6".

Stack the 4 fused fabrics and align them carefully. Cut a crooked "X" (not corner to corner) through all layers. It's important to keep the fabrics aligned for the cutting because you have to put these pieces back together.

Peel off the fusible paper backing, sort out the cut pieces and arrange them on the 4 Timtex bases so that you have a piece of all 4 colors on each piece of Timtex. Make sure the cut edges align in the center of the card and then fuse everything in place.

If the pieces do not align perfectly, it's better to have some of the base showing at the edge of the card instead of spaces along the cut edges of the "X". Does that make sense?

Apply some fusible web to the back of the silver fabric. Make a paper tree template. I made mine a little wonky so I would not have to be fussy about placing the tree in the card. Cut out 4 trees, one for each card and 4 small triangle shapes for the base of the tree. Peel off the paper backing from the fusible web and position the tree on the card. Make sure that there is a bit of tree over each of the 4 colors of the backing. Tuck the base triangle under the tree and fuse the tree in place.

I put some Silver Superior Glitter thread in the needle and stitched a star at the top if the tree and the fagoting stitch down each side.

In my Pfaff 7550, the start stitch is #132 and the fagoting stitch is #17. My machine has a single motif setting and I used that for the star.

I couldn't find anything exciting to use for the backing so I just used white fabric. I fused the WonderUnder to the white fabric and then cut out the 4"x6" backing pieces and stamped them with my Postcard stamp before I fused them to the back of the card.

In this photo you can also see a better view of the decorative stitching on the tree.

The next step is to finish the edges. I have a serger so chose to serge the edges so that I could use a heavy decorative thread for total coverage. I used Silver Superior Razzle Dazzle in the upper looper, white standard serger thread in the lower looper and  Silver Superior Metallic in the needle. I serge straight off each edge, then use seam sealant on the 4 corners (front and back) and then trim off the tails.

You do not have to serge the edges. If you wanted to use Razzle Dazzle you could load it in the bobbin with white in the needle and zig-zag with the front of the card down.

The last step is the most fun - add the crystals! I placed one large clear or silver crystal in the middle of the star and then added red, yellow, blue and green crystals (small and large) on the tree. Keep each color of crystal placed in the appropriate color quadrant. In the card in the photo look at the top red quadrant. All of the red crystals are on the tree only where there is red fabric underneath.

I do not fuse my crystals one at a time. I carefully place a press cloth over the card and them place the iron on the press cloth and fuse all of the crystals at once. On the right side of the photo - there is a postcard under the iron. Now you are done! Address and mail them.

If you do not have crystals, you could paint ornaments on the tree with fabric paints or you could embroider french knots. If you do the ornaments with stitching do it before the back is fused to the card.

I hope that someone might want to make these cards. I made 16 of them! I have 32 cards made for Christmas mailing so far. I'd like to do one more card design for this season.

Postcard/Door Sign

The theme for the MQResource postcard exchange is "black, white and one color". I have had about 100 lame ideas for this swap! I finally settled on something Friday and thought I'd share the entire process of how I made decisions and executed this particular card.

You'll see the black cord. That's the new twist on this card - I decided to make the card a door sign for the recipients sewing room (or studio or whatever it's called). The back photo shows how the card will arrive in the mail. I wanted to avoid having to use a clear envelope so I made a little pocket as part of the backing. That will keep the cord safe in the mail.

As I said, I had many lame ideas for this swap and pink as the third color NEVER crossed my mind. But last week I picked up some fabric from my LQS for an apron sample (for a future beginner sewing class). The pattern is Retro Aprons by Cindy Taylor Oates. This pink and white print is what she chose for the apron. Not my favorite fabric but it made a really cute apron. As I was cleaning up I noticed that there were only 3 colors - black, white and pink! The print is sewing and laundry images. I quickly counted the number of sewing-related blocks left in the scraps and there were exactly what I needed for this swap.

The first step I always take is to pull out everything that I can find in the color scheme that I am using. I gathered fabric, buttons, ribbons, yarns and embellishments. I discovered that I don't have a lot in that pink. I also quickly determined that I needed to stay in the theme of the fabric - clear color (no variegated yarns), clean lines (no eyelash yarn or other texture) and no sparkle. that left me with the motif box from the fabric and the need to probably put words with it as the embellishment. That's where the idea for the door sign formed. I didn't have the whole concept formed so I just jumped in with that I had.

The trim that matched the pink best was ric rac so I decided to pull out the pinking shears to cut all of my fabrics to compliment the zig-zag edge of the trim. I cut each motif square out and then a backing square in black that was slightly larger than the motif (there were several motifs and different sizes). The card was covered with a white fabric then the black square was fused on and the motif top-stitched. Next I printed a sheet of "Enter At Your Own Risk" labels. These were fused on and then edged with pink ric rac. This is as far as I got last night. I couldn't figure out the next step.

When I woke this morning I realized that I needed more black in the lower portion of the card. I found this tiny black ric rac and sewed it over the pink. Much better! It still needed something else. I toyed with the idea of doing some stamping or painting on the background but I still felt that the look needed to remain clean and simple. But it absolutely needed a third element.

The answer (for me) turned out to be a simple black button - I tried pink and black and white buttons. The plan black looked the best. Then I saw a stack of pink and brown scraps from Kim's quilt. I pulled three of the pink fabrics and cut them into tiny rectangles and arranged them into a fan under the button. I stitched the button on by machine and then put a dab of fabric glue behind each snippet of fabric. Now it was done! I added fusible web to the backing to prepare for adding the back cover and hanger.

Now to figure out how to add the hanger. I cut one piece of the white backing 3" x 4" (top of photo right) and one at 4" x 6" (top of photo left). I folded down one 4" edge of the larger piece as a hem and stitched the hanger to the edge. The hanger is stitched to the BACK of the lining piece - the side that will be fused onto the back of the postcard. The hanger is about 9" cut and I used twill tape - because that's what I had on hand. Some of the cards have white hangers and some black based on what I had on hand.

The postcard is placed on the pressing board with the TOP of the card to the RIGHT. In the lower half of the photo I have fused the 3 x 4 inch piece of backing to the  right side of the back (top of the card). Then I placed the larger piece on the back with the hanger to the right (top of the card) and fused that to the lower half.

In the top of this photo the backing pieces are fused in place. Fold the hanger under the top flap of the backing piece. Once the edge finishing is done, the two sides of the pocket are sewn down. I did a serger finish on these cards in a solid pink for the upper looper and black in the needle. When you make a backing like this you have to be careful to make sure that the proper layers of the back are sewn into the edge finish. That was the trickiest part of the whole construction process. I made 2 extra cards, which was fortunate because I constructed the back of one of the cards upside down!

I really like how this turned out. I see a couple of other ideas for this like a "Do Not Disturb" sign for a birthday card or a "Welcome Santa" card for Christmas. I think that I am going to print the address labels so that I can use the adhesive of the address label and the stamp to seal the pocket opening for mailing. I would have constructed the card so that the address would have been on the flat side but I needed for the button to be on the top of the postcard for the card to go through the mail processing equipment. If the button were on the bottom of card it would potentially jam up mail processing equipment. I always hope that the post office will hand stamp the cards but in reality that almost never happens.

I hope I've explained this one well. Let me know if anything is confusing so I can clarify.

Piecing a perfect corner

Today was yet another great sewing day and a beautiful weather day on top of that. I did some more quilting on the Chinese Coins QOV quilt. It's officially half quilted now. I spent most of the day, however, on the pink and brown Churns Dash quilt blocks. I now have 18 of 30 done and here's a photo of them up on the design wall. I love how this is turning out and have decided that I will work on this to be a show quilt and I've started to think about quilting options. It will still be Kim's quilt, she just won't actually get it anytime soon!

Sewing a 1/4" seam - it's not about the 1/4"

I make a lot of quilts with quick piecing methods - like the foundation piecing that I used in the Chinese Coins quilt. But in the recent Snails Trails (here, here and here) and this quilt I have been concentrating on more accurate cutting and piecing. My favorite resource for learning better piecing skills is Mastering Precision Piecing by Sally Collins. I thought I'd share a couple of tips that I am using in this quilt.

1. Seam Allowance - I did a lot of experimenting on my machines with 1/4" seam allowances. I quickly learned that it's really not about the actual 1/4" seam - it's about the EFFECT of whatever seam I sewed - thread and fabric have a lot to do with the actual effective width of the seam allowance. Garment sewers deal with "turn of the cloth" all of the time and know that a thicker fabric will have a bigger turn of the cloth impact than a fine fabric. For quilters (well, for this quilter), I have found that there is a fabric effect (there are different thicknesses/weights) even in cotton fabrics but there is a bigger effect from the thread. A thicker (heavier weight) thread will effectively create a wider seam allowance than a thinner thread. When you press that seam allowance to one side the top fabric has a deeper fold to fold over a thicker thread. A lot of teachers use this as the excuse to recommend special fine weight threads (Aurafil 60 wt, Masterpiece, Mettler Fine Embroidery). I have some of these threads but I also have some other threads that I refuse to toss out. I use the thread that best matches/blends with the project fabrics. When I start sewing a new quilt I test out my effective 1/4" seam allowance on the fabrics in the quilt and using the project thread.

2. Starch - Any time I am cutting fabric that will have pieces with bias edges (half square triangles) I starch the fabric before cutting. I use a homemade starch of 3 teaspoons of cornstarch dissolved in 1 cup of cold water. I spray the starch liberally over the fabric and let it soak in for a bit before ironing. Letting the starch absorb into the fabric eliminates the problem of the starch flaking off the fabric.

3. Measure at every step - As much as I am careful about my cutting and pressing, the blocks can get out of square. I measure and trim after EVERY seam. Even on this HST block I trimmed off a tiny sliver to square it up. It may not seem like much but over the whole width of the quilt this could make a big difference. Imagine a 1/32" difference on every piece might make a 1/8" difference on this block and that would set the whole quilt width to be off 3/4".

4. When I find that I have cut a piece a little short (even just a thread or two), as I did in the cross piece of this block, I create a template to help me absorb the mistake as I piece the block. In this example, the HST block is 3 1/2" square and the bar block is 4 1/2" x 3 1/2". I discovered that I had cut some of the bar pieces just a hair short of 4 1/2. I created this little template by drawing a 3 1/2"  square and another mark at 1" to the left. I placed the HST block in the square, right side up and them placed the bar block on top (right side down) aligning the block on the 4 1/2" mark on the LEFT. You can see that there is a sliver of the HST block showing in the seam allowance. By aligning to the finished size I am able to absorb my mistake in the seam allowance. Does that make sense?

And that's how I get these pretty points!

I'll be out of town for a few days on a business trip so no more sewing until next weekend. I hope I can get these and the quilting on the Chinese Coins quilt done next weekend before I pack for Houston! I also still have to plan a border for this quilt.

                  

Coins Quilts and other projects

I feel like I haven't been sewing in weeks and that might actually be the case. Last weekend was about tie dyeing and before that was about allergies and before that it was the surgery stuff. So I am so excited to come home tomorrow night and have a real sewing weekend again!  I decided to get a jump start tonight and get things going. It would be really nice to finish a project before I go to Houston and buy stuff that I don't need for 5 new projects.

Chinese Coins Quilt Instructions

I didn't get much of anything else on the list completed but I got the Chinese Coins quilt top done. It turns out that I'm still a little sore so the laundry and this quilt top did me in for the day! That's OK though, I feel a lot better than I did Wednesday and I got to sew this weekend. All in all, a good weekend!

This quilt will be a QOV and it was a lot of fun to make. I already have more planned in my mind so I decided to document the dimension and basic instructions to have the notes for later. There are lots of ways to make these. In fact, I got the idea to do one from Mary. She has instructions for several different versions on her web site and she has made several of these for the Heartstrings Project. Here's how I did mine.

An enhancement for the Millennium

I love my Wille. The only thing I do not like about it are the Hartley products that came with it - the fence, micro-drive and extended base. I find them all clunky and awkward to use. I've totally given up on the micro-drive and the fence but I do need the base because I like ruler work. I know there is a better base on the market but there is only one supplier and, so far, the base hasn't been in stock any time that I have called.

Pillowcases

I wasn't in the mood to quilt last night so I decided to make my nephew a couple of pillowcases to match his quilt. I have LOTS of fabric left over! I also needed one to go with the Hour A Day QOV quilt. It only took about an hour to make all three.

There are several sets of instructions around the web but here's how I make them.

Soap Making - Part 2

Some people posted that soap making seems complex. It really isn't! There is some science involved but tools like the Lye Calculator make it really easy. I did everything in step 1 in about 1.5 hours and that includes taking the photos, set up, clean up and re-ordering supplies while the fats and lye cooled! It's also very economical. I ordered enough supplies for 8 - 10 more batches of soap and the total cost was about $45. A batch of soap makes up to 10 bars. That's about 50 cents per bar!

Soap making - part 1

Today is a holiday at work and the first day of my 10 straight days off work! While the guys were hear finishing up the tile installation (prev post), I made a batch of soap. I'm not going to give you every detail, just the basic steps. Soap making is much more involved than lotion making - there's some science involved - but once you understand it, it's quite easy. If you decide that you want to make soap, I recommend reading The Soapmaker's Companion before jumping in.

Have you ever made lotion?

I did one more project this morning before I give in to my cold and just sleep the rest of the day away! I made a couple of batches of lotion. I started making lotion and soap several years ago. I do it primarily because of my severe allergies. My soaps and lotions have no colorants, no fragrances and no preservatives. Today I needed a new supply of lotion so I though I would share my recipe and show you just how easy this is! Lotion is so incredibly simple to make (much simpler than soap) and it's incredibly economical!