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Housekeeping

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While taking the photograph of my “3 Pin” technique for last week’s blog, I broke the gate leg on my sewing machine cabinet. My dear husband was kind enough to attempt a repair, but that required pulling everything out and flipping it over in the middle of the room.

This allowed me to view all the dust bunnies that were hiding behind the machine and a new adventure began. Here’s the way my studio looks now:

And another angle with Mike hard at work :-)!

Now don’t you feel better about the condition of your space?

The problem with projects like this is that one thing leads to another and there are some cleaning/reorganizing things that just need to be done. Like…………….

 

The tv that sits next to my machine is old, big and still has a dial that clicks when you change channels. It has to go! So now I need a new, small flat screen tv and I’ll have to find some sort of extra storage to go beneath it (reorganizing always seems to have a price tag attached). While purchasing the tv I was informed that the microwave (just to the right of the tv) shouldn’t sit next to it, so I’m pulling everything off the counters and shelves and hope to come up with some great new studio set up ideas. Hopefully Thursday’s post will prove quite interesting.

Any suggestions while I’m at it???

 PS This really isn’t helping the fact that the latest Milwaukee Art Quilter’s challenge deadline was moved up and I’m only at the designing stage. That’s what keeps life interesting :-)!

Pucker Less

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I hope the puckers in my last post made you smile. But, I must admit, puckers in my quilts never make me smile.

Even if you safety pin baste your quilt sandwich together well (every 3 or 4 inches) and use a walking foot, those pesky puckers still tend to sneak in. So what’s my favorite tip for avoiding this frustration? I call it my “3 Pin Technique” and it’s actually quite simple.

1.  Put the needle down at the beginning of the line you wish to quilt (I plan to quilt between the light and dark purple areas on my fabric).

2. Place a straight quilting pin (mine have yellow heads in the picture) perpendicular to the quilting line and about 1  1/2″ from the needle. Place the second straight pin 1 1/2″ further down the line and repeat for the third pin.

 

3.  Stitch along the line to the first pin, and then remove it. Continue this way to the second and third pins.

4.  Repin ahead of the needle as in step 2 and continue along the entire line.

Although this may seem a bit tedious, you can really get into a rhythm and the “easing” action of the pins will make pucker problems a thing of the past. The feedback from my students has been great!

 

Puckerless

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Happy New Year! The tradition of kissing your sweetie at midnight on New Years gave me the idea for my topic of the week :-).

A kiss involves puckering and that can be a good thing:

But sometimes its better to pucker less:

This is especially true when machine quilting! Even if you use a walking foot those pesky puckers have a way of sneaking in on the top and on the back too.

Puckers appear when the 3 layers of the quilt sandwich shift under the pressure of the presser foot. Free motion quilting is one way to avoid some of the problem as the foot is not pressing down and thus things aren’t as apt to shift. But free motion quilting is not the answer for everone. So what can be done?

I’ve come up with a number of ways to minimize this problem. The first comes in on the pinning step. When layering your quilt, be sure the back is taut but not stretched. I’ve found the best way to do this on a small quilt is to use masking tape to secure the back to the table or floor (clamps along the edge of a table work well too). Once the back is taut, the batting and top may be smoothed on top and the pinning may begin. I’ve found this very helpful, but be careful not to stretch the back since this can cause the quilt to shrink up when the tape is removed and will lead to puckers on the front.

When pinning a larger quilt I prefer to use a simple frame made of 2 x 2’s, 4 chairs and 4 clamps. The frame is a great back saver. I may have to share pictures and directions for that in a future post, but if you’ve been in my open lab classes you already know how well this works :-).

Using a walking foot (sometimes called an even feed foot) for machine guided quilting is a must. This foot moves the top of the quilt along while the feed dogs move the bottom and this prevents a lot of the shifting, but it’s not always the complete cure.

I’ll share my favorite pucker prevention technique in my Thursday post. Until then do you have any suggestions to share?

PS Thanks to my family for humoring me in my pucker contest. I’m not telling whose pictured above, but it did provide a few giggles on Christmas Eve.

Quilting, Kids and Giggles

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Thanks to everyone who sent me advice concerning picture quality on my blog. The general concensus was that I need to get a better program to work on my photos and so I’m asking Santa for Photo Shop. Jan’s suggestion about visiting:   http://thepioneerwoman.com/photography/ was especially interesting.

I have a number of quilting technique topics I’ve been wanting to share, but will wait until I’m able to send clearer pictures. That being said, I would like to share a delightful moment in pictures. I think they’re clear enough to make you smile.

One day when Hanna and Willy were here I needed a bit of quilting time and they, of course, wanted to help. I took down my fish bowl full of scraps and put it in the middle of the floor in the hope that it would entertain them. Hanna began picking out 1 piece at a time and sorting them into piles while Willy just watched.

 

I told him he could take things out too and that led to a joyous explosion of fabric.

 

Then they got a little carried away :-)!

Even the dog got into the act! And grandpa couldn’t resist grabbing the camera once the commotion started.

These kids loved rolling in fabric! Their grandma must be a quilter.

Admit it – you’d love to roll around in fabric too :-)!

I’ve decided I’m going to take a break over the holidays and my blog will hopefully return new and improved in 2011. Have a blessed Christmas everyone.

Christmas Quilts and Photography Questions

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This was the post I intended to upload last Thursday:

To keep with the theme of quilting for Christmas, I’d like to share some of my students projects. In my Open Lab class at WCTC this past week Marie brought in a very cheery tree skirt.

 

The past few weeks I’ve been sharing some Christmas project patterns with the students in this class. Here are the coasters Judy brought in for show and tell:

 

Last week in class we printed favorite photos onto fabric and made ornaments. Here are just a few of the ornaments made by this talented group:

Making Christmas gifts for family and friends can bring us such joy. Since it’s snowing again here, I plan on staying home and doing just that for the next 2 days. What a blessing to have the time to do what we enjoy. I hope you’re finding some joyful stitching time too!

But I didn’t post it then because I’m so disappointed with the quality of the pictures I upload to my blog. I’m hoping some of you technologically savvy quilters might have a suggestion or two.

When I download pictures from my digital camera to the computer – they look great and I can print them out with very good results. In the beginning of my blogging I just uploaded them, was disappointed, and let it go because I’d rather quilt than deal with techy stuff, but recently it’s really been bugging me. Since then I discovered that I can save the photos in a web ready format using Microsoft Picture It Publishing. It allows me to save a picture at 320, 440 and 600 pixels. I’ve tried all three, plus the way they come from my camera and the results are crummy every time. Any suggestions??? I think I may need to break down and take a class.

Christmas and Quilts

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What a beautiful season! Christmas is my favorite time of the year and I so enjoy all the lovely quilted projects made to decorate our homes at this time. My favorite Christmas quilt is a lone star I made as a class sample, with fabrics from my stash, many years ago. I ended up liking it so much that I hand quilted it with the names of each family member in the corners and I can’t wait to hang it up every year! 

A while back I designed a small Holy Family quilt using Clover Quilt Bias™ for a stained glass look. I taught it as a class many times and it was quite popular :-).

Recently I saw a lovely photo that I just had to recreate in fabric. I contacted the owner for permission and made one of these small quilts for many in my family:

Do you have a picture of a favorite Christmas quilt you’d like to share? I would be happy to add it to my blog so others can enjoy it too. Please send it to me via email: .

Quilting Kid

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Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions for quilting with kids. I decided the best way to start with Hanna was to open up my box of 6″ squares (from various exchanges) and watch her reaction. She had to feel every square. She’s really grandma’s girl :-).  She chose her favorite 12 and they were mostly Christmas prints.

I then set my featherweight up on a bench, with Hanna on a stool and she was off. She listened carefully and did just as I instructed. I was very pleased and impressed. It was hard for her to step on the pedal with the ball of her foot, but her heel worked great! She drove and grandma helped guide (along with a thick layer of masking tape).

While pressing the seams we both held the iron together (with Hanna’s free hand on her knee – to prevent burns). She stitched the blocks into a doll quilt set 3 x 4 and then we layered it with flannel and stitched almost all the way around. Hanna turned it right side out and helped pin the players together. We did some straight quilting lines and, less than 2 hours later, it was finished!

 

Her response: “let’s make another one”! She’s definitely grandma’s girl :-).

Quilts and Kids

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Snuggle & Learn Quilts for Kids, my most recent Replique book, was all about making colorful, cuddly and educational quilts for kids.  

It was written for adults to create these gifts of love for the special children in their life, but there’s another aspect to quilts and kids – teaching them to sew!

Over the years I’ve taught sewing to a number of different groups of kids. My daughter’s girl scout troop was among the first. They made vests to showcase their merit badges  – and this was before I learned to quilt. After I became addicted to quilting I taught my daughter to quilt, but it wasn’t exactly her thing.

A few years later I decided that my 5th grade Sunday School classes could make charity quilts as a way of doing something for others in need. The boys especially enjoyed the “accelerator” on the sewing machine and all the kids seemed to like stitching. 

This week I’m hoping for some helpful advice. My granddaughter Hanna is almost 5 and I’d like to plant some quilting seeds :-). Do you have any suggestions regarding quilting activities geared toward this age? The kids I’ve taught have always been older and I’d rather not reinvent the wheel. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!