Month: August 2019

Fall Is In the Air

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Fabrics, Food for Thought, Machines, My micro-business, My Studio, Quilt Journal, Sewing Clothing, Studio maintenance / 2 Comments

Color Swirl by Kevin Tatum (my grandson) using Corel Painter.

Ever since I was in High School, which was a long long time ago, I have gotten excited when I started thinking about fall and winter sewing and quilting.  This year is no exception.  In fact, having just reorganized my fabric, thread, paint, and notions stashes, and purchased a new Bernina 880 Plus, I am more excited than usual about the projects I have before me this year.

One of the things I always like about going through my studio to sort things out is finding pieces of fabric I had forgotten about or had at least pushed to the back of my to do list.  This is for both clothes and quilts.

When I cleared up my studio this year, I also went through my clothing patterns, pruning out about 75 percent of my old patterns and keeping only those that seem right for me now.  The remaining patterns and fabrics for clothes on hand are inspiring me  to think about making some new clothes. My wardrobe really needs an update too.

When I bought my new machine, I got it at a time when they were providing a gift that includes new feet, some machine luggage, additional embroidery motifs for use in the hoop and a variety of other neat things.  I was able to exchange some of the feet that duplicated those I already had for some new ones.  So now I have a lot of feet that are inspiring ideas for using interesting techniques.

Remember when I talk about all  the things I have found in my studio, I have been sewing since I was five years old and I am 72. I retired in 2012 to be a full time fabric artist.  So some of the things have been hiding for a while from me in some of the closets, in boxes under my bed, and even in plain sight…LOL.  I feel very blessed.  Because of all the things I recently rediscovered stashed away I don’t have to buy anything new for most of the projects I want to make.  I did restock some threads and paints that I anticipate needing.  So I have resolved to myself that for the next year I will attempt to do m work without new stuff.  Now I want to make:

  • a new bag, in leather (I now have feet for use with leather and vinyl and some leather).
  • a new suit, in black denim (I have a stash that includes a fair amount of denim) with embroidery
  • a blue denim jacket
  • a new dress suit in wool with a silk top to go with it
  • a new jacket in raw silk, maybe 2 since I have 2 nice pieces
  • several new tops and use some heirloom techniques  (I have a nice collection of feet to use for this now) and embroider some of them.
  • I also want to make several new show and utility quilts.

It is fairly certain that  I won’t get all of this done this year, but it’s nice to have them on the list to pick from as I do have time.

Clearly I have an exciting and busy time ahead that will last well beyond fall and winter, and I have already started.  I will have to plan my days in order to fit other important things into my life.  I’m excited!  I’m sure the nicely rearrangement of my studio, and my wonderful fleet of machines will help me accomplish a great deal of these projects though.  So I won’t have to buy any new clothes for fall through spring either. I don’t have much in the way of summer fabrics, unless I use my quilting cottons.  LOL

Oh, and last year I made a new dressy overcoat with a “fur” collar using some of the fabrics on hand.  It’s warm and cosy.  So I really do complete a lot of these dream projects.

Messy work table with coat pieces

Progress Report on My Mom’s Memory Quilt

I have made a good start on my Mom’s memory quilt, which is going to also be a show quilt, but I have a long ways to go on it.  It has a large pentagon in the middle of it on which I am appliqueing her needle work.  The pentagon fabric is a lovely medium blue dupioni that sets off the beauty of her crocheted lace.  It’s a pentagon because I thought I only had five of the ten inch squares I found in her work basket, but during the reorganization I found a sixth square.  It’s a slightly different shade of crochet thread, though, so I will find something neat to do with that one.  The color difference is probably why it was in a separate  place.  There are  some more crocheted items, but they don’t work with this quilt.

I had no idea how difficult it would be to make a perfect pentagon that has 21 inch sides.  It was a challenge.  A good friend of mine sent me a Corel Draw pattern for one to print in tiled sheets and taped together.  I thought that it would then be easy to get it right, but putting the tiles together that way gave many opportunities for slight variations in the shape.  I had to try it several times until I got it right, but finally succeeded when I started using a lot of rulers to help.

So yesterday I cut out the freezer paper pentagon, cut out the fabric, and then glue basted the edges down.  I checked the edges for straightness and measurements.  It’s very good.  the sixteenth of an inch off I had on the paper pattern disappeared as I worked the fabric from it.  I love how it looks.  I placed the crocheted pieces around  it in a way that forms a star in the middle, just laying them down to see how it looked for now.  (No pictures until its debut show, whatever that will be).

It is in many ways a gift to my Mom. It would be so much fun if she were still here to show it to her, but I am having a lovely time making it while thinking about all the great things she taught me and the lovely things she made herself. She did not quilt, but she was a real expert seamstress.  She has been gone now  twenty years, but sometimes I think she is nearby.

Sew happy everyone!  What are your planned projects for this fall and winter?

 

 

 

Making Samplers

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in A Little How-To, Art Quilt Techniques, Design as you go, Embellishment, Fabrics, Quilt Journal, Threads / 2 Comments

I am writing a book on embellishment techniques and have a plethora of samplers to make for this book.  I will also be using examples from some of my show quilts.  One of the projects in my book includes  several samplers teaching how to make trees using couching and a variety of interesting decorative threadwork.The starry night in the winter forest scene above is almost complete.  I still have to bind it and add hot fix crystals in the sky.  But I thought I would show you what I have on this little sampler, which I stitched on with no premarking.  This is such a fun activity to just sit down with a small quilt sandwich and play.  Initially I had planned just to practice and test some tree making in preparation for this sampler, but I liked it and decided to just trim it down and make it one of the samplers.

  • The two front larger trees are couched on sport weight yarns using a couching foot #43 on my Bernina Q20 and white 100 weight Microquilter by Superior Threads with Bottom Line in the bobbin. (Q20 settings: net on the cone, bobbin tension 180 with a magic silicone bobbin washerover the spring, top tension 1.50, threaded across the silicone gadget with the pink liquid, 80/12 universal needle (note…for small thin 100 weight and monopoly threads the universal needles work best, because the top stitching needles I normally use tend to “step on” the thread and break it instantly.  This is true whatever machine you us).
  • The middle tree, though you can’t tell in this picture, is sparkly silver Ricky Tims Razzle Dazzle by Superior that I couched on also with the couching foot #43 using a silver Superior metallic thread in the top (same settings except top tension is 3.0 and needle is 90/14 titanium top stitch Superior).
  • Then I free motion stitched the two smaller back trees using Aurifil 12 weight wool/acrylic blend thread and a 100/18 top stitch needle (Bottom line bobbin set as above, top tension 3.0, spi 9, bsr1,  100/18 top stitch titanium Superior neeedle, threaded as normal, stitched slowly, use a tooth cleaning threader to thread the aurifil thread through the take up bar hole and the needle).  Clean and oil your machine after using wool blend thread.
  • After that, I free motion stitched with Superior metallic thread the lines showing the hilly shapes, ruler stitched the moon shape, and painted the moon with Setacolor paints.
  • Then I used 100 weight black Microquilter (set as in the first dot section) and did a simple stipple all over the quilt and outlined the trees.

I encourage you to try such a sampler.  It can make either a neat Christmas decoration once all the crystals are placed on it, or you could add a halloween pumpkin or owl applique for Halloween.

Progress on Mom’s memory quilt:

Now that I have it all designed, I decided I had to make a sampler to practice everything especially on the satin part of the quilt where I will have pictographs of flowers, birds, and embroidered items that are related to Mom’s interests.

So I managed to get all the marks out of the test piece when I used the heat away pen after a four hour soak and a cold water wash in Synthrapol and finally a reironing to take away the last of the marks, which were very light at this point.  I then refroze it thinking they would come back but they did not.  I will retest this on the sampler when I am finished with it.  This is the kind of treatments you have to do when your fabrics or thread colors bleed onto your quilt, so I do not recommend the use of these pens except in very rare circumstances and after much testing.  I plan on making a decorative pillow for my bed with this sampler.

Sew I thought the hardest part would be to quilt the pictographs, but I found that to be really fun and, while time consuming, they were fairly easy to do at a slow stitch with my Q20 using BSR1, spi 12, and Magnifico 40 wt thread by Superior, and a 90/14 top stitch titanium needle with top tension 3.5 and bottom line in the bobbin at 180 tension.  Now I am working on figuring out the background, but first I will be doing really really tiny scribble stitching for about a quarter inch out from the edges of all the pictographs with 100 wt thread to set them apart and make them look like trapunto.

I am using a double bat on this quilt (80/20 thin bottom and wool on top), a cotton backing, a beefy polyester crepe backed satin and two colors of polyester dupioni.  But the only pictograph quilting is only on the ivory satin.  Here are the sampler pictographs.  I think it is coming along really well, but I am puzzled about what kind of background I am going to put on the white.  I am thinking of using walking foot stitching with some simple decorative stitches on my 880 plus in some kind of grid work, but I am not sure yet.  One thing at a time on this project. LOL  It’s hard to see in this picture, and it looks like there is more problem with fabric management than there is, but here is the sampler so far.

Sew happy everyone!  Take some time to play on some samplers that you might want to use or just throw out later.  It gives you the freedom to try things you might be hesitant to do on a full quilt project.  Cheers.

 

Marking Satin Fabric

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Art Quilt Techniques, Design Work, Markers, Quilt Journal, Reviews, Show Quilts / 2 Comments

Sew today I decided to begin working on the satin pillow top that I am making to test some methods I plan to use for my Mom’s memory quilt.  I am using polyester crepe back satin, a beefy satin that I have tested previously for quilting with great results and I am trying to figure out the marking method for my Mom’s quilt, because it has a LOT of detailed stitching/painting lines to produce the designs.

I used it as the border on one of my favorite quilts Pendragon because I could not find the right color in a natural fiber under twenty dollars a yard. I only used it on the border though.

Pendragon
34 x 45

But for this quilt, I prestitched, painted, then constructed, sandwiched and quilted. I over-quilted the border with monopoly, which gave me the opportunity to bring out the over and under characteristics of the Celtic border designs.  I used quilting paper with temporary adhesive dots for the marking.  This works fairly well, but when you use really small details, it may break away at an awkward place or may be really hard to remove after stitching.

This may end up being the method I use for Mom’s quilt, but I really wanted to use the border method I did for Canterbury Silk and Canterbury Knight, where I appliqued on a few things, quilted it, then painted the quilting designs. For both of these quilts I used Radiance Cotton/Silk blend, not polyester.

practice pieces for Canterbury Silk

I marked those (and remarked them, and remarked them before all the original marks quite disappeared along the way) with Fons and Porter’s mechanical white pencil.  It doesn’t stay on the satin very well, but was the best I could find at the time.

Mom’s quilt will be made with off white polyester satin and two blues of beautiful polyester dupioni (I LOVE these fabrics), and of course, the pieces of crocheted lace squares I found in her workbasket after she died.

I want to mark it in a way it will stay, I can actually see it, and then I can get rid of the marks completely when I block it.  Is this a dream?

So today I tested multiple markers.  The blue marker many of us use immediately bleeds all around the mark, as does the crayola washable marker I frequently use.  This blurs the lines so they are not usable for this quilt.

I tried marking pencils, which I know go away as you work through it on satins, in particular, though I can kind of see it.  The pencil pulls the fabric as I mark it, and I have to hold it really carefully.  It sort of put slight pulls in it in places, and the detail is kind of hard to see under the light of my machine.  In other words, it’s not really what I need.  Colored chalk comes right off after just a tiny bit of stitching.  Clearly not the winner.

Out of frustration, I am trying  pen similar to Frixion, which works so well for seeing it, doesn’t go away as you work through the construction, and disappears when ironed.  But it comes back when frozen (i.e. when shipped to the quilt show in an airplane or transported in the winter).  I am testing to see if there is a way to get rid of this marker without destroying the work I do on the quilt.

I am still testing that one, however.  If I can figure out a way to use it and then remove it completely this would be almost ideal.  So I have ironed off the test piece and have it in the freezer to have a sample to try really removing it.

I say almost ideal because I would probably have to remove the marks after I have all the stitching done and then do the painting.  But I am going to test that too.  IF I can remove it, and NOT remove the painting, then I would say it is ideal.

Anyway, I completely marked the pillow sample top with the gel pen so I can practice the quilting/painting method I plan to use, and then try to remove the marks so they won’t come back.

Let me say that I would strongly not recommend this marker for most quilts.  It does come back when frozen, while all the other markers…Crayola washables (my favorites), blue markers, chalk, and marking pencils come nicely off either by washing or erasing.

But this is a special case, and something I would use a lot if I can come up with a good marking method for light colored satins.

Next I will have to test the paints.  I’ll let you know how all this goes in my next blog post.

Sew happy everyone!  Test your techniques, fabrics, markers, threads, tensions, needles, paints, markers BEFORE you invest all those hours (and money) in your projects to prevent frustration.  Also, I highly recommend you prewash your fabrics.  Except for machine problems, there are few things in your studio more frustrating beyond completing a beautiful piece and have it get ruined (or nearly ruined) in the end when blocked.  Have a great week everyone!

 

 

Exciting New Beginnings

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Machines, My Studio, Studio maintenance / 2 Comments

So I’m excited.  Bernina came through and replaced the original Bernina 880 Plus with a new one.  I will get it either Tuesday or Saturday next, depending on several factors.  So I have been working on preparing to start a new show quilt, which is my Mom’s memory quilt incorporating her pieces of crocheted lace I found in her work basket and have held on to for the past 20 years.  It’s time.  I have completed the design, which really took me days and days and days, and have printed it out full size and taped it together (that’s a project, believe me).  It is one of my biggest…59″ x 59″ and will be satin and dupioni and include painting and beads, and ……well, we will see as I go along.

I will also finish my appliqued bed quilt I started a while back using a Sue Nickels pattern I bought from her at MAQF a couple  of years ago.  And clothes…I have tons of fabrics for fall, winter, and early spring clothing and the best patterns I kept from my pattern pruning when I reorganized my studio.

I also have to complete the sampler for my fall workshop on embellishment.

Sew let the sewing begin!   Did I say I am so excited?

Sew happy everyone.  It’s time to start sewing for fall, winter, Christmas, and next year’s shows.