A Shift in the Studio

Posted on August 24, 2014August 24, 2014 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Food for Thought, My Studio, Sewing Clothing, Teaching Kids, Tools / 6 Comments

Kevin

My handsome, brilliant, impish grandson Kevin enters middle school on 2 September and we decided as a family that his after school and summer day-care will be shifted to Grammy (that’s me) instead of his former care giver who has several new younger kids this year plus her own bunch to care for. I live only a couple of miles from his school and his home. I am truly happy to have him come here for the out-of-school work hour time. It does impact my time for fabric art substantially, however, so I will have to scale back some of my plans in that direction for a few years. I hope to share some wonderful time and create some great memories, as well as teach him some art among other things. It will not stop me from moving forward in my own art, though.

Part of the time, Kevin and I are taking the opportunity for him to learn more about quilting, and possibly bag making. He made a quilt top with me when he was 9, but sort of stopped working on quilting for the past couple of years. But he’s interested again. Last week he drafted a lemoyne star using Alex Anderson’s methods presented in a TQS show, and then decided to put together a small quilt and use the lemoyne star as a quilting design. It would be a straight stitch quilting design and so he can use my big Bernina with the dual feed to quilt it.

Technology can really help in teaching kids to sew. It is my personal belief that frustration and boredom are the chief barriers to kids learning to do high-level creative things like this. He worked out how he wanted it on my Electric Quilt 7 program, picked out the fabrics from my stash, and cut it out on my Go! cutter, and started sewing it on Friday. If you have kids you want to teach to quilt, I really recommend a die cutter, because it is safe, accurate, and fast. Fast means less boredom, accuracy makes for good results and less frustration, and a machine that works well means less boredom and less frustration. So here he is sewing together the 10 inch squares on my little B350 machine. I put a 57 foot, which is a 1/4 inch piecing foot with a seam guide, on the machine and slid the machine speed down to the middle so he doesn’t sew too fast. His seems so far are perfection.

We’ll see where this goes from here. It is my hope he will really enjoy it enough to want to do another one when this is finished, but if he only finishes this one, it will be a nice accomplishment for him.

Meanwhile, I still managed to get my black blouse and slacks cut out for my dressy outfit. Hopefully, I can complete this project this coming week. Kevin will be spending some of the week with his other grandparents next week, so I have several clear days next week before the after-school thing starts.

Sew happy everyone! Teach someone to sew–your grandkids, your BFF, yourself, your annoying neighbor, your cats, your dogs. LOL

Alex Anderson, A Bit of Progress, and Some Plans

Posted on August 16, 2014 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Fabrics, Food for Thought, Sewing Clothing / 2 Comments

Today I went to G Street in Falls Church, Virginia, to attend a lecture by Alex Anderson. I had a lot of fun. I got there early enough that I could get a seat close to the front just behind the chair Alex came and sat down in while waiting for the time to start, and we had a lovely conversation about Bernina sewing machines. A Bernina representative was sitting next to Alex and joined in. I never expected to have time to chat with her, so this was an added treat for me.

Her lecture was entirely fun and very inspiring. She told us about her life centered around quilting, family, and quilting friends, and how many times she had taken one step at a time to learn something new for her books, for her quilting, for her job as a show hostess. In all of that and in clear statements she encouraged us to try new things and take one step at a time no matter how difficult they seemed at first to accomplish, learn, improve, and experiment in quilting. I loved her speech, I enjoyed meeting her, and found myself wishing that we lived close so I could become a good friend of hers. Thank you Alex for such a fun time today and all the shows and teaching you have provided.

I have been slowly building a network of really fine quilting friends across the country and occasionally I meet them face to face. I hope to continue this as the years roll out in front of me.

Anyway, as to the progress on my clothing project. I have now finished making the black embroidered reversible vest and embroidered slacks. The vest fits nicely, but I’m not as happy with the slacks. I have one idea for improving the slacks, and will do that, but I think I’m going to have to improve my slacks pattern before I make the other two pairs.

I also finished the silk brocade vest and it fits to perfection. I will make the black blouse and slacks next, and hope I can improve the slacks pattern enough to be really happy with them. If I can, I have at least one more pair I will make, and I found a nice piece of Rayon Batik I had stashed in the closet that will make a great loose casual lightweight jacket. I’m going to make at least one bag and then I’m going to stop with the clothes for a while. Later on, I want to use one of my four nice pieces of heavy wool I have to make an overcoat. I even have all the specialized interfacing and lining for two of them and some faux fur to make cuffs and a collar. But I will do that closer to winter. I think I’ll blog the making of the overcoat when I do. It should be interesting.

I have two quilts I want to make. One has an end of the year deadline, and I will wait until early in the new year to tell you about it. The other one is a quilt based on some line drawings by the Wright Brothers of their planes that I found on The Wright Brothers organization site and obtained their permission to use for the quilt.

The Wright Plane quilt will be one in my line-drawing series. The first of that was Perspective in Threads, which has been juried into the Houston special architectural quilts exhibit this year, that will be traveling for a year. The second is Dad’s House Plan that will soon be in AQS Chattanooga.

Sew I’ll put in a few pictures of my clothes when I get them done.

Sew happy! Teach someone to sew or quilt…your BFF, your brother, your daughter, your pets.

Stress Reduction: Read a Fun Book and Relax!

Posted on August 2, 2014August 2, 2014 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Food for Thought

Cover art

Life is sometimes hard to take, and the news seems ghastly lately. One of the things you can do to lower your stress level is to read a really good book. My youngest son, the writer, just published his second full length fantasy novel. It is a great read and I wish you would all rush to your favorite e-reader store and purchase a copy.

After you read it, if you’d like, I would love it if you would go to the e-reader store where you bought it, and give it a short review, or a five-star rating (if you liked it, that is). Of course, you don’t have to, but such reviews are very helpful in getting the book launched and seen by prospective buyers–much more than I realized before his first book was published. OR, if you really would rather read it in print, it will be available in print from Amazon in a couple of weeks (you can review that too, if you’d like). His books are fun, have a lot of research behind them, and are an easy read. Here’s the link to Fennec Fox Press where you can find the links to the various online bookstores.

OK, Back to my clothing upgrade project. I’ll post a blogpost on my progress there soon.

Sew Happy Everyone!