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Glue Basting to Miter a Border

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Before I get to my topic of the week, I’d like to share a few helpful hints for using a blog such as mine. Some posts (like this one) contain instructions for techniques you may want to save. There are a number of ways to do this:

• When you click on the link to open my blog the first thing you’ll see is my most recent post and, if you scroll down  through it, you’ll find my previous posts. Because I put a lot of pictures in my posts, my site may load slowly on your computer or other device. That’s why I always send you a link to just my most recent post also.

• If you are on my full site and want to open just one of my posts, simply click on the title of that particular post:

The post title is in the red circle.

• When you’re in the page that contains only one post, the title will turn black as in the example below. You can “bookmark” that post to save it for future reference. On my computer I can add a bookmark by clicking on the star in the upper right, typing in a name for it and clicking on “done”. This process may be different on your computer, but it should be similar.

Once again – look for the red circle above :-).

• If you’d rather print that post and save a hard copy of the information, click on “print me” under the post title (and be sure you’re connected to a printer):

I hope this was helpful. Now for my topic of the week:

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I’ve recently been using Elmer’s School Glue™ to match fabric patterns when sewing strips together. This week we’ll use the same glue technique to miter a border.

• Sew the border strips onto 2 adjacent sides of the quilt top, using a 1/4″ seam allowance, and backstitching 1/4″ from the corner on each strip:

• Lay the vertical strip flat against the ironing surface:

• Fold the end of the horizontal strip under at a 45 degree angle, forming a miter.  If your fabric happens to be a stripe – the miter will be much easier to see  :-). Press:

• Pull this newly pressed crease back

• and squeeze a thin line of glue along the edge of the crease:

• Lay the glued crease back in place on the vertical strip and press again to dry the glue:

• Once the glue is dry, fold the quilt top in half diagonally to expose the glued crease and stitch in the crease. Trim off the excess strips,  1/4″ from the stitching, and you’re done.

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And one last thing!

Last week I shared information about the Sun Prairie Quilt Show. There will be two other shows in the Southeast Wisconsin area that same weekend:

West Suburban Quilters Guild will be holding their show at the Waukesha Expo Center. For more info go to: http://wsqg.net/quilt-show/

The Crazy Quilters in Mukwonago will also be holding their annual quilt show at the Mukwonago Middle School. For more info go to: http://www.mukwonagocrazyquilters.com/annual-show/

School Glue – a Quilter’s New Best Friend

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Last week I shared how to match striped fabric strips, using “Elmer’s School Glue”™, with a straight seam. This time I’ll demo matching with a bias/mitered seam. Its the same basic maneuver – glue basting, plus a pressing tip for creating the miter:

• Begin with 2 strips you want to sew together end-to-end, and find a matching pattern on both.

• Turn over one strip and fold back the corner of the end. Press.

• Run a thin line of glue along the pressed crease.

• Lay the “pressed/glued” strip on top of the second strip, glue side down, and carefully match the pattern. Iron in place to dry the glue.

• Then fold the strip you just added on the right, down to expose the inside of the crease and stitch in the crease.

The great thing about using the glue is – if it doesn’t match exactly, even after pressing, simply pull it apart and glue again!

And …

The above technique works great for finishing a “no-end” binding!

• Sew your binding to the quilt, leaving about 8″ open between the beginning and ending tails.

• Fold back the end of the tail on the left at a 45 degree angle and press.

• Run a thin line of glue along this crease.

• Place the tail on the right back evenly on top of the glued crease. Press to dry the glue.

• When the glue is dry, pick up the strip tails, open them to reveal the inside of the crease and stitch in the crease.

Trim the excess tails 1/4″ from the seam and continue sewing the binding to the quilt.

If you prefer to use a double or “French” binding, simply leave yourself a wider opening between the beginning and ending stitches (perhaps 12″), open the strips flat, and connect them as above, folding the strip back in half after it is stitched, and sewing it to the quilt.

I do hope you’ll try this technique. I’ve found it extremely quick and accurate!

An FYI for local quilters –

The Sun Prairie Quilt Show is fast approaching. To enter a quilt in the competition and/or read all about the show click here!

Stripped pinwheel Topper

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Last semester I taught a pinwheel table topper class at WCTC.

It was the first time I’d taught this class and I’m always a bit anxious about timing, and the possibility of handout errors. It can be hard to gauge how much students can accomplish in the time allotted. I had them cut their fabric strips ahead of time, and there were no problems with the handout, but I really underestimated how long it would take to sew all the strips together. After lunch everyone still had more strip sewing to do and I was getting nervous.

As some of the students finally began to reach the triangle cutting stage it became obvious that the triangle cutting and sewing was actually fun and it was great to see how the fabrics were coming together. But half the class was still sewing away on their strips and I could sympathize with their frustration. Well… by the end of class Carmen had her top done.

A few more were close to done, but – praise the Lord – everyone had at least 1/4 of the topper cut out and sewn or pinned together. I felt sure they all knew what they needed to get them finished. On the way home I still felt uneasy about the class – I always want it to be a good experience for everyone.

That night I received an email from an address I didn’t recognize that began: “It’s all your fault!!!”. I gulped, but I knew it was not spam because the rest of the message (readable prior to opening) said “I came home and the one we made in class”. That’s all I could see, but I felt I had to read the rest of the email and when I opened it this was the entire statement:

“I came home and the one we made in  class was too large for our table so I shrunk it. Thanks for the technique. Deb”

She made a second, smaller one that same day! And here’s the picture  🙂 :

Wow! What an overachiever. I responded with how impressed I was, and congratulations. When I asked Deb how she did it and if I could include it in my blog she wrote: “Sure. I cut 3-1″ strips. I’m a goof ball who went home and made more. ? Turned out!!  Thanks again!”

This made my evening. I then wrote to the other students and asked them to send me pictures if/when they got their tops done. Here’s what I received back!

Alice
Mary
Jacque
Mary Ann
Jean
Jane
Barb

Great job ladies. I’m so impressed with the results! They’re all lovely and it’s fun to see them in so many different colorways.

Anything Goes – Fiber Art Exhibit!

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Before I get to today’s topic I’d like to apologize for last week’s email link error which affected quite a few of you. If you would like information on our Sew We Go cruise to Hawaii in January 2019 – please click on this link: https://www.chrisquilts.net/trips/

 

 

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And now for my “Topic of the Week”:

I’m very pleased to announce that Threadbenders, a new fiber art group I belong to, has an exhibit of challenge quilts hanging at Sew Much More in Waukesha, Wisconsin!

(formerly known as Frank’s Sewing Center – 2140 W Saint Paul Avenue).

I belong to two art quilt groups and in 2017 they both held Anything Goes Round Robin challenges. I’ve participated in these before and it’s a great learning experience. In essence each member puts something in a bag, passes it to someone else and does anything they want to what’s inside the new bag they get. After 4 or 5 rounds the originator gets their bag back and the only rule is “you can’t be upset over what you get back”. The originator then is encouraged to finish theirs.

Many participants in our Threadbenders challenge did finish theirs and the results are quite interesting. Those results are what is hanging at Sew Much More (here are two pics of the exhibit, but they really are much more interesting “in the cloth”).

We took pictures each step of the way and have posted them on our blog. To see all of the finished quilts and all of the step-by-step pictures go to: https://threadbendersblog.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/threadbenders-blog/

Here are the pictures of my challenge piece’s transformation. Laura got my bag first. It contained an unfinished class sample from my silhouette appliqué workshop.

Laura – round 1
Connie – round 2
Sonja – round 3
Brenda – round 4

I was a little befuddled about what to do with what I got back. After staring at it for a while I decided it might be fun to use it as the focal point of a “Modern Quilt”, using the shapes in the challenge piece to inspire my quilting designs. I was pleased with the results (red – I know – who would have thought it???).

If you didn’t link to the Threadbender’s blog above, to see all of the Anything Goes quilts, please do so now at:  https://threadbendersblog.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/threadbenders-blog/

And to see the finished projects – go to Sew Much More! It’s a great store and you won’t be disappointed!

A Chip Off the Old Block

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My final blog post of 2017 is about two of my favorite subjects – grandchildren and sewing!

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know that I enjoy teaching young people to sew and quilt.

You may remember a post I did a few months ago about Hanna’s landscape quilt (click here to read that post). Well now I’d like to share her long distance adventure with fusing.

I love Facetime and being able to “talk” to the kids via video. A while ago, Hanna said she wanted to make a pillow with a “critter” of some sort on it. Since she doesn’t have a sewing machine, I thought she might enjoy fusing. So I sent her a bunch of fabric and a length of Heat ‘n Bond™ paper backed fusible web. She thanked me when it arrived and then didn’t mention it again. A little while later she “called” to say she wanted to start. I’d made her a video on how to use the fusible and texted it to her, but she wanted me to talk her through it via FaceTime. I watched her set up the ironing board, we talked about iron safety, and she gathered the supplies.

She had decided she wanted to put Mickey Mouse™ on a piece of fabric and make it into a pillow. She traced her design onto the fusible web, ironed it to her fabric, cut it out, and fused it to the muslin background. She had a package of pre-cut/fused letters with which she added her name. Voilá – the pillow top was done as we spoke.

The next day I received the above pictures from her dad with the message “I think she gets this from you”; and 4 smiley faces!

The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. I’m pretty sure this girl needs a sewing machine!

On Hanna and Willy’s most recent visit she thought it would be fun to make pillow cases for daddy and her other grandparents for Christmas. Willy helped her pick out the perfect flannels for each of them, then she began to sew.

And she completed all three!

Afterwards we went to see Star Wars with Uncle Brad and Aunt Betsy (grandpa was home with the little ones  🙂 )

Happy New Year from all of us to all of you!

Snuggle Up in Memories – a T-shirt Quilt

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My cousin Lisa has been best friends with Rochelle since grade school. They both met their husbands working at McDonalds during high school and have remained very close. In October Rochelle’s husband Rich lost his life in a motorcycle accident. It was a traumatic loss for so many. Lisa and her family wanted to do something to comfort Rochelle as Christmas neared and they came up with the idea of a t-shirt quilt. Trouble was, they had no idea how to make one. I was so grateful to be asked to be a part of this important project.

Lisa, her daughters Kirstin and Carly, and her mom – my Aunt Lois brought over a large bag of t-shirts one Saturday afternoon and we had a lovely time cutting up shirts, fusing on the interfacing, cutting the squares and laying them out on the living room floor. They all caught on fast and we enjoyed the time together.

That week I sewed the blocks together and the following Saturday they returned (Aunt Lois couldn’t make it) to layer the quilt top with polar fleece and tie it. I thought it would be a breeze – I’ve tied many comforters – but I had never tried to get a yarn-threaded needle through a t-shirt/interfacing/fleece sandwich before! It was arduous and not for the faint of heart. I found my free motion quilting gloves helped to grab the needle, and a twisting/pulling action worked the best, but it was still hard work. I was very impressed with how well these ladies persevered.  We got it done and I was able to turn the fleece over the edge to the front, and top stitch it in place before they had to leave.

I wish I had taken a few step-by-step pictures along the way, but I’m sure you can imagine it.

Here’s a picture Kirsten recently posted on Facebook after they presented Rochelle and her daughters with the quilt.

Christmas will be hard for Rochelle and her family, but I’m hopeful our efforts will help to ease her grief and bring her pleasant memories in the years to come.

I’ve found over the years that when I focus on the greatest Christmas gift – our Savior, and worshipping Him – even when my life is overwhelming or out of focus, I can have His joy and peace. May you have that joy and peace this Christmas!

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6

Merry Christmas!

Homemade Christmas Gifts – Pillow Cases

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Many years ago a member of my quilt guild brought in a pattern for pillow cases and invited us to make them as Christmas gifts for members of the military. The response was great. Problem was, the pattern was very simple and all the seams were raw edged on the inside of the case. This bothered me because I knew they would not wear as well with those exposed seams. On the way home I began to noodle on this and, since I don’t own a serger, I had to come up with another option. I harkened back to my days of garment sewing and knew the case itself could be sewn with French Seams. But how to do the seam between the case and the cuff??? An idea came to me and I couldn’t wait to get home and try it. It worked, so I made a new handout to share with my guild and called it the Enclosed Seam Pillow Case.

I shared it at the next meeting and many of us had a great time making pillow cases. The following month one of our members came up to me with a handout she’d printed off the internet. The author was using the same technique I came up with, but was calling it the “hot dog roll” technique. This made me smile. Someone else had come up with the same idea, just a different name! Either way – it works!

In early December this year, one of my Open Lab students asked if I’d do a refresher demo on the cases, because she wanted to make Christmas gifts. It was about time I made my grandkids new ones too – so I did the demo and many students participated:

From left to right, top to bottom: Deb, Judy, Jean, Marilyn, Eileen, Rose, Mary Ann and Louise

Great job ladies!

Here are my instructions for making pillow cases. Many of you probably know how to make them, but you may enjoy some of the additional helpful hints I’m including 🙂 . I’m hoping this post might be just in time for you to make a few for Christmas gifts too.

Enclosed Seam Pillow Cases

Supplies: ¾ yard main fabric, ¼ yard cuff fabric and a 1 ½” accent strip (pressed in half lengthwise). Make sure the main and cuff fabrics are squared up to the right size and not just the way they were cut at the store. Things will just fit better this way.

• Place the main fabric right side up on your work surface, with a cut edge laid out horizontally in front of you.

• Lay the raw edges of the accent strip along this cut edge and pin about every 8″ (flower head pins).

• Lay one long cut edge of the cuff fabric, right sides together with the other raw edges and pin in between the previous pins (ball head pins – I have my reasons for pinning this way and I’ve used different pin heads so you can see the difference).

•  Flip this entire unit over so the cuff is against the work surface, and the wrong side of the main fabric is facing up.

• Roll up the main fabric until you see the cuff peeking through from underneath.

• Bring the remaining cut edge of the cuff fabric up to the other raw edges and re-pin each of the pins through all the layers. Be sure the main fabric doesn’t get caught in this pinning.

• Sew with a 3/8″ seam allowance. If you are using flannel, you can strengthen the seam with an added line of zig-zag stitching in the seam allowance. Be sure to backstitch at both ends to secure.

• Turn this tube right sides out. Press.

• Rotary cut the selvedges off both sides of the unit, making sure the cuts are straight and the angles remain at 90 degrees.

• To make the French Seams: Fold the case, wrong sides together, and pin along the two unfinished sides.

Sew with a ¼” seam allowance. Sewing through the cuff seam can be difficult. I can usually make it through on this seam, going slow and with a bit of tugging from behind (stay tuned for hints to sew it the second time).

Trim off all three corners (don’t forget the one at the end of the cuff).

I like to trim the seam allowance at the cuff seam to 1/8″ at this time.

• Turn the case wrong side out, push out the corners, press and pin.

• Sew these two edges one more time, this time using a 3/8″ seam allowance to enclose all the raw edges, and backstitching at each end. If you can’t sew through the thickness at the cuff seam, leave that area open, and once the rest of the seam is complete, go back and fill in the seam using a zipper foot to avoid the thickness.

• Turn right side out and press. DONE!

My tip for trimming the corner at the cuff (5 pictures back) gets rid of any loose threads peeking out of the seam at the finished cuff edge.

And here are the ones I’ve made for my family this year.

I hadn’t tried flannel before, and I like it!

I love to give homemade gifts to my loved ones! What homemade gifts are you working on? Did you make pillow cases this year? I’d love to see pictures! Please send them to me at .

 

Fiber Finds and Inspiration

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Here’s one final post inspired by our recent quilting cruise, this time focusing on the items and information we found that could be used in future projects. Sometimes scenery is my greatest inspiration, and this shot of Montmorency Falls in Quebec is one I’m sure I’ll refer back to. The trees were just beginning to turn color and the rainbow in the mist was lovely (and no, we did not have time to climb the staircase and walk over the bridge 😉 .

We didn’t find any fabric in Quebec City, but aren’t the colors of these peppers at the farmer’s market breathtaking? What a great palatte for a piece of fiber art.

One thing we were surprised to discover while traveling was the absence of quilt shops in the areas we visited in Canada (or at least shops that we could get to in the time we had available). We did however find wool shops! My favorite was the “Bobbin Tree” in Sydney, Cape Breten Island, Nova Scotia. They had yarns, gifts, and loads of wool items and kits. I decided it was time to try my hand at wool penny rugs because they had the circles pre-cut. I began stitching them together on the ship that evening and they are addictive. Now it’s time to decide a pattern for stitching them onto the background.

I also succumbed to a kit for tradtional rug hooking on a piece of burlap sack. I haven’t gotten too far, but it will be a lovely candle mat some day.

Both kits included all the supplies, so I think they were well worth it. And I’m learning some new skills!

A few blocks away we found the “Cape Breton Centre for Craft & Design”. They were having an artsy rug hooking display on the second floor and it was spectacular! Here are just a few of my favorites:

Makes my efforts with the kit I bought look rather meager, but I’m still enthused!

Our next port was Halifax, Nova Scotia. We enjoyed a wonderful bus tour of 3 seaside towns that day and found a wool shop in Lunenburg with a very clever display. Who would have thought to sew pattern pieces together? I had to take a picture!

The next seaport was Mahone Bay. They were having a scarecrow festival and I’ve never seen so many fascinating scarecrows. Here are two of my favorites:

As we drove into town we passed a “Quilt Shop”. We were very excited and quickly started walking towards the shop once we exited the bus. When we got there I posed for a quick picture out front,

and then went in to discover that it was a shop that sold finished quilts! I guess “quilt shop” is a misnomer – we expect to find fabric and supplies in them, not quilts.

When we got to Bar Harbor, Maine, more of the trees were starting to change. When we walked under this one, I couldn’t resist yet another color inspiration picture.

And Bar Harbor had a quilt shop! It was a great one! Quiltanna and I enjoyed it very much!

This final picture is one that may not inspire a quilt, but it makes my mouth water every time I look at it.

The best clam chowder I have ever had. It was at the Sail Loft in Boston. Yum!

I have many wonderful memories from this cruise and the inspiration for future projects makes it even more of a blessing.

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And I’d like to share one last item:

A Different Type of Quilting Adventure!

This past week Joan contacted me from North Carolina. She attended my lecture when I visited her guild in Hendersonville in 2013 and has been reading my blog ever since (thanks Joan). This is part of what she wrote:

“I am a member of an organization called Friendship Force and members can travel all over the world and the USA and participants stay at the homes of the people in the area they are visiting.  I went to a quilting Journey (that’s what these experiences are called) in Iowa last year and 18 quilters from all over joined together for 9 days as we saw presentations, shopped, talked with other quilters and even made a table runner.  I decided that our area of the Blue Ridge Mountains would be a perfect location for a Quilting Journey and we are calling it Quilting Mountain Style.”

The journey will take place from May 23 to May 31, 2018. She included a link to read all about it: https://friendshipforce.org/journeys/quilting-mountain-style/

I so enjoyed North Carolina and I’m sure this trip will be a great adventure. You’re welcome to contact Joan with any questions. Her email is: