Blog

Adding Color to My World

11 Comments

Students often tell me they are not good at choosing colors for their quilts. I don’t believe they are truly bad at it, I’m convinced these quilters just need a bit of confidence boosting and encouragement.

When a painter begins a new project he/she has only individual colors to start with, whereas quilters are blessed with many wonderful fabrics that talented designers have already created for us and these fabrics provide a good jumping off point. By picking a multicolor print that is appealing, a good color scheme has already been chosen for us. Pull colors from this print and good results are almost a given!

 

 A color wheel is another safe way to choose good color combinations. There are many great quilting books available on this subject and they cover the different color wheels much better than I could.

I’ll share my personal ways of choosing colors on Thursday. Until then, please let us know how you deal with this topic. Do you stay within manufacturer’s fabric lines? Do you ask for help at the quilt shop? or do you just buy kits so you don’t need to deal with it :-)?

A Good Read II

1 Comment

I enjoyed reading everyone’s magazine choices and was a bit embarassed that there are so many quilters who are better organized on this topic than I am.

The 3 subscriptions I currently receive are Quilter’s Newsletter (I like the variety of information), American Quilter (high quality photos and I enjoy seeing all the winning quilts from their many shows) and Machine Quilting Unlimited. This last one is fairly new, but I have found many informative and helpful articles in each issue. I truly devour them cover to cover :-)!

Here’s my storage system: I leave many scattered around the house and then put them in boxes with the pages I like dog earred. Then I seldom ever go back through the boxes (I didn’t say it was a good system :-).  A dear friend helped us move into this home 6 years ago and at one point, a lid fell off the box of quilt magazines he was carrying. When he realized what he was lugging, he set the box down and said he was happy to help, but he drew the line at old mags! That should have been a hint, but I’ve continued to pack them in boxes anyways.

I’m not sure when I’ll get to my many old boxes, but I have a new plan for future arrivals:

When I’ve finished with a new issue I’ll copy those articles I’m interested in and donate the entire magazine to my guild or give it away in my classes. That way no quilter will be disappointed by  missing pages (thanks Char!). It sounds good, now to actually put it into practice.

A Good Read

11 Comments

The topic of the week is actually “magazines”.

There are many good ones out there and they’re hard to resist. There’s so much great information available from this wonderful resource and they can be added to the list of something else we love to collect. I know quilter’s who are running out of space in their studios, but can’t bring themselves to part with a single back issue of Quilter’s Newsletter….not one out of all ten boxes! Ok, so they are habit forming.

So here are the questions:

Which one is your favorite and why?

Do you keep them, and if so, how do you store/organize them?

If you don’t keep them, what do you do with them?

I’ll share my thoughts in Thursday’s post and as a bonus today I’ll share my best advice when it comes to quilting magazines:

Don’t read them right before bed. The inspiration will keep you from ever getting to sleep (I speak from experience :-)!

Intermission

Leave a Comment

Hi! Thanks for checking in for this week’s blog of the week. Due to some difficulties in my “non-quilting/real life”, I’m not going to be able to do a full post this week. Hopefully things will be more manageable by next Monday.

Blessings,

Chris

Which Ruler’s Rule II

3 Comments

Thanks to everyone who left a comment! Rulers are definately an important part of our quilting :-). There were a few mentioned I now need to try and Alice touched on my pick for favorite specialty ruler: the Add-a-Quarter™ by CM Designs!

A simple, but very helpful ruler when it comes to paper piecing. It comes in 6″ and 12″ lengths, as well as an Add-an-Eighth™ style for making  miniatures. This ruler has a 1/4″ lip along the bottom which allows you to trim in such a way that knowing where to align the next piece of fabric is easy. Get the 12″, you won’t regret it!

Which Rulers Rule?

10 Comments

Time for another true confession. I not only own every marking tool ever made, but I collect quilting rulers too. Some are essential, some are not worth the money I paid for them, and some are just really nice for special times. My choice for essential? If I could only own one ruler (how awful that would be!) it would be a 6″ x 24″. I’m partial to Omnigrid™, but would take any that don’t include that pesky added 1/2″ (6 1/2″ x 24 1/2″). I like to have the freedom to measure from both sides of the ruler and that extra 1/2″ really drives me crazy.

#2 would have to be a 6″ square. These are my bare bones choices and I’m really grateful I don’t have to stop there. Bigger squares and other rectangles just make quilting easier. What about you? Which is your #1 choice?

 My third choice, hands down, would have to be the June Tailor Shape Cut™. I find this ruler great for beginners as well as seasoned quilters. I use it often! The size of it holds the fabric stable and the slots make cutting multiple strips and shapes a breeze. For a number of years I was blessed with the opportunity to do consulting work for June Tailor™. I would travel around the country demonstrating their products. It always amazed me how many people owned this ruler and didn’t know all it could do….. and with great accuracy! Perhaps that’s a topic for another post.

We haven’t even touched the surface of the specialty ruler domain. These are rulers that are helpful for one particular pattern or technique. I have a favorite here too, but want to save it for my Thursday post. Do you have a favorite specialty ruler? Please share if you do!

Making My Mark

2 Comments

Not many comments. Hmmmm, you must all be anxiously awaiting my response (ha!ha!). I seem to be trying to own every marking tool on the market and I think I’m accomplishing just that. For this post though, I’m going to narrow my collection down to 3 favorites. But, before I name them I want to stress that you should always test your method on the fabric in your quilt before using it. Even if your favorite silver pencil has always come out….don’t count on it (do I sound like I speak from experience?)

For medium to dark value fabrics my marker of choice, hands down, is a sliver of soap. Straight from the shower (don’t let anyone slap it onto the new bar when it reaches sliver stage), it goes on easy in a nice thin line and can easily be removed by gently rubbing with a damp piece of muslin. The line lasts longer than chalk and its incredibly inexpensive. In this age of liquid soap and super sizing, my poor husband has not been allowed to bathe with anything but travel sized bars of soap since I became a quilter. They become the perfect thickness much more quickly than the regular sized bars.

For light fabrics I tend to use the blue, washout marker most often. But be careful! If the line is heated in any way it can become permanent. Also, the ink is a chemical and if you only “spritz” to remove it, it can remain and cause mischief. I’ve had the color of my fabric change permanently where the lines were drawn in 2 different quilts. Therefore I alway submerge the quilt in cool water when the quilting is done. That being said, it is easy to put on, easy to see and usually easy to remove!

My other “favorite” is a product commonly found in the kitchen called Glad Press ‘n Seal™. It’s a transparent film which can be pressed around the rim of a bowl to create a watertight seal. This is very helpful in quilting. If my design is printed, I can tear off a piece of the film, finger press it over the paper and trace the design. The film can then easily be “stuck” onto the quilt. If I need to create my own design, I can finger press the film directly onto the quilt and draw on it to perfectly fit the area needed. I usually use a fine Sharpie™ marker, but a quilter in one of my lectures said she did this on her long arm and the permanent ink wiped onto her quilt. I haven’t had this problem, but will most likely use a removable marker from now on (which I’ll test on my fabric, just in case :-). Once the design is quilted, the film can simply be torn away. I find it tears quite easily from straight, gently curved or single crossed lines. Areas with many crossed lines are a bit more of a challenge. The best part about this method is that you can see the fabric below for placement and the way it sticks to the fabric helps to prevent puckers when quilting .

In my lectures at Nancy’s Notions Sewing Expo there was some wonderful sharing and a number of quilters recommended a few markers I hadn’t tried. So far I’m liking them. Here are a couple for you to experiment with:

Bohin™ white mechanical chalk pencil (rubs or washes off) – a very fine line. One quilter commented that some of the color “leads” were harder to remove than the white.

Clover™ white marker (irons off) – be aware that the mark doesn’t show right away and you need to wait for at least 10 seconds. When it does appear it is quite visable and irons off easily.

Graphite (rub off with a damp piece of muslin). I found this in the Morton Hoops™ booth at Expo. It fits in the soap stone stylis and can be sharpened to a fine point.

If I’ve missed your favorite or you have any comments to make about mine, please let me know. Happy marking!

Make Your Mark and Erase it Too!

1 Comment

I’ve spent the past 3 days teaching at Nancy’s Notions Sewing Expo in Madison, WI. What a great show and a wonderful teaching experience! Three days in a row I presented a lecture with the same title as this blog. The best part was how much I learned from the quilters attending. It went so well, it just seemed appropriate to share this with all of you.

I dislike the marking step when making my quilts. It takes time to make the marks and then they have to be removed. All necessary, but time consuming non-the-less. When free motion quilting I really enjoy designs that don’t need to be marked, but sometimes it just has to be done. As far as I’m concerned, marks need to be easy to put on and even easier to remove.

So, from the plethora of products available, what is your favorite method of marking your quilting design on both dark and light fabrics? I’ll share my favorites with you on Thursday, along with some of the new things I’ve learned!