Capturing An Explosion of New Ideas for Future Projects

Posted on June 1, 2022June 1, 2022 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in a pattern, Art Quilt Techniques, Deep space quilts, Design as you go, Fabrics, Food for Thought, Paint, Project Management, Quilt Journal, Show Quilts, Tools, Videos, Wool

Hi everybody! I think we all need a diversion and some quilting to help deal with the roiling of events in the news lately. As for me, I have been starting two new projects after my last one that was going to be entirely on painting quilts took a nose dive. By the way, if you want to know about painting quilted fabrics stay tuned. I will still present these techniques scattered throughout my other projects as needed, but not a whole video series for those techniques after all. Mostly I have to work on camera placement and filming techniques for painting quilted fabrics. The problem was entirely related to painting while filming.

Sew what are these new projects? Well, one of them, and the next video project, is a second dive into wool applique by machine in which I will be making a pretty scene with a Kingfisher bird on black wool that will be sized for use as a decorative pillow top. I am nearly finished making the pattern and I will be using my Scan and Cut digital cutter to cut the pieces. The downloadable pattern will be available on my shop for a small amount and will include both a pdf file for those who do not have a digital cutter and the svg files divided by color for those who do. I will be providing videos showing how I do them for this project, including the use of my new Scan and Cut.

The second project is a new “show quilt”! Sew there will be a video exhibiting only some of the making of this quilt and there will be no pattern. I am making my fourth deep space quilt and as soon as my fabric arrives this week I’m ready to start construction. I will be using Deep Space II #98 Peppered Cotton designed by Pepper Cory to build the scene, inspired by NASA photos of M51 Galaxy (there are many), which is a spiral galaxy that has a second spiral galaxy farther away and kind of behind it on the edge, making it look like a small spiral is attached to the larger M51’s tail. Unlike most of the other peppered cottons, this one is not a shot cotton but is yarn dyed intensely black. It makes me happy that the name of the fabric is “Deep Space II”. Thank you Pepper for bringing it to my attention. I love making deep space quilts. They are a whole cloth quilt, built entirely with free motion stitching and almost no marking. It includes a little paint, a large Angelina Fibers applique, and covered with black veiling, then quilted together in ways that make sense, and adding some free motion embroidery to represent the space dust. After that, I add a lot of hot fix crystals, kind of using the NASA photo as a guide for placement to represent stars. Some of the larger stars or star clusters are sometimes backed with an embroidered representation of the light that shoots out around it from the lens flair often in a cross shape that is highlighted on the NASA photos. This adds to the interest and beauty of the quilt in my humble opinion.

Practicing for making a deep space quilt.

I like having two very different style projects going at once because it allows me to move from one to the other when I need a break from some aspect of a project.

Sew this past week I spent a fair amount of time thinking about and updating my Quilt Project Plans spreadsheet for the remainder of this year and into next year. It is way more than I can possibly do in that space of time perhaps, but it is wonderful to look forward to the near future projects and be able to pick from some of those I have already thought through a lot. I also keep a handwritten notebook where I describe most of the projects more fully and sometimes keep outlines and notes to help me make them. I have been doing this for many years. Way back to when I only did clothing designs and sewing. It’s sometimes fun to take one of the old notebooks and look through them to see just what I actually made of the many plans that have floated by. I sometimes pull a long-forgotten project out and make it.

Here are some pages from my Pendragon quilt project that I did complete and that was shown in several prestigious quilt shows, including Houston. The sample shown here is a test for the upper left corner of the border.

Sew happy everyone! And remember, sometimes you need to abandon a project and not feel like it is a fail. Doing so can often open up an explosion of new ideas when you realize you no longer have to struggle to complete something that just isn’t working, and sometimes persistence through the challenges helps you to finish works and you come out with a real winner. Give yourself permission to take the path that works best and be sure to have fun in your studios!

Adding Paint to Quilts

Posted on January 14, 2022 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in a pattern, Art Quilt Techniques, Embellishment, Embroidery, Food for Thought, Paint, skill building / 2 Comments

Hi everybody! My Two Birds Project, video one and the workbook with the pattern are published! Video Two will come in February and Video Three in March. There will likely be some additional smaller videos out in February and March also. Please watch them, and, if you haven’t already, subscribe to my YouTube channel. It’s free and doesn’t ask any questions or pester you after you subscribed. Here’s the link to the video: Two Birds Video

And here’s the link to the pattern with workbook if you want to join me in making one for yourself (it is only $5): Two Birds Pattern

Sew I had the idea that it might be a good idea to make a set of five small quiltlets of different fabric types and use commercial embroidery on them that would look nice with the addition of painting. I plan to use several different types of paints, inks, and markers that I have hanging around my studio in order to compare the paints and the way they work with the different fabrics. That way I can reference them when I am making a quilt to decide which paints I need to use. That’s what I’m working on now.

Test sampler I made before starting my Mom’s memory quilt. I Quilted it first and then painted the bird and the flowers.

Hawaiian Garden: I quilted, then painted the borders.

I think this will be a fun project. I will video it so you can see what I do and write a blog or two about it also.

Sew happy everyone! Have fun in your studio!

Fall Project Timing

Posted on October 3, 2021October 3, 2021 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in a pattern, Art Quilt Techniques, Classes, Design Work, Making Clothes, My micro-business, Project Management, Sewing Clothing, skill building, Software, Threads, Videos, Wool / 4 Comments

Hi everyone. I can’t believe it’s already October! I love that it is fall, because it was a hot and somewhat rough summer for me, but it occurs to me that I have several projects I have in mind for fall and for the Christmas/winter season that aren’t even started yet. Yikes! I better stretch my time in the studio a bit more!

I have been working really hard on the complex multi-video two birds project. I am about three fourths of the way. I want mostly to complete the whole project before publishing the first video because I need to make sure the accompanying workbook and pattern with all its techniques are good and actually work with the videos. That will be available from my shop on my website and together with the videos presents a fairly complete class. This class presents a lot of the techniques I have used in the past on some of my show quilts and I think quilters will enjoy making it. Besides, it makes up into a really nice wall or lap quilt that would be a wonderful present or enjoyable quilt for yourself.

Sew, kind of as step one on this project, I uploaded a video that discusses how to turn a line drawing, like a coloring book page, into a pattern similar to my two birds to use in your own designs. I know everyone may not have all the software or want to play with it in that way, but I know some will and may not have thought of using it for that or really know how. If you have Bernina software v8, for instance, you have Corel Draw elements. Anyway, take a look at the video and see what you think.

Here is a picture of some luscious Wonderfil threads (see link on the right). I love their specialty threads and am using a lot of them in my two birds project.

I have a couple of wool applique by machine decorative wall hangings–one for fall and one for Christmas–coming too, if I succeed in getting them all done in time.

In the meantime, I have my right eye cataract surgery on the 14th of this month. I will be glad to get that taken care of. I can see so well out of my left eye now and not well at all out of the right eye.

Then to top off everything, I have clothes I need to make. We’ll see how much of all of this I get done.

The Simplicity pattern from my substantial pattern stash. Note the pants have a simple full elastic waist and no pockets…not what I want, but I have a better slacks pattern. The long sleeve tunic provides a suggestion for the embellishment. I would be adding something more for fun.

I always plan more than I can do it seems. But it is so much to look forward to and have fun with in my studio as we drift into fall and winter.

Sew happy everyone! Have fun in your studio.

Time to Use Some of My Fall and Winter Fabrics

Posted on August 1, 2021 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in a pattern, Embroidery, Fabrics, Making Clothes, Sewing Clothing, Videos, Wool

Hi everyone! So today I started thinking about fall. I am probably a little late on this, but we had a cooler rainy day that seemed to be appropriate for fall thinking. Then I got an email reminding me that the pattern sale for Butterick patterns was going to expire today. It was a really good sale, and so I bought several of the new fall patterns that I had seen earlier that really appealed to me, plus, they came in my size! I probably will have just a few adjustments, but maybe I can just lay out the patterns and mostly simply cut them out without having to redraft the patterns.

I have a nice stash of some silks, woolens and blends for fall and winter that I will try to use for these projects. I prefer sewing clothes for fall and winter with these wonderful fabrics.

Here are two of them. The first one is patterned for knits, and I have some black slack weight ponte knit that has been lounging in my stash for a while. It’s not enough for both the slacks and the jacket, so I will probably get a different color fabric for the jacket, but I will search my clothing fabric stash first to see if maybe I have something that will serve. I also got the coat and dress combo on the right, although I have pretty much given up wearing dresses. This was such a lovely combination and I have fabric that would work well for this, so maybe I will make it even if it is a dress or at least I will make the coat and turn the dress into a top to wear with dressier slacks. They will look great, but perhaps not as great as on those models.

Then I got this really nice blouse pattern. I may not have the fabric for this, but I will check first. If it turns out as nice as I think, I will probably make several.

And I also got this tailored jacket for a project I am thinking of making with in-the-hoop embroidery using fabrics in my stash. I will use this project for videos. I have everything I need for this as I envision it.

Sew I am also working on some project designs for video projects and making progress. Taping for some of these will begin next week, since I have finally finished the pattern for the first one. Should I video the making of at least some of the clothes? I’m wondering. Tell me what you think.

Sew happy everyone! Have fun in your studios!

A New Stitching Adventure

Posted on July 21, 2021July 28, 2021 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in a pattern, Art Quilt Techniques, Embellishment, Embroidery, Fabrics, My micro-business, Quilt Journal, skill building, Techniques, Threads, Tools, Videos

Birds at Play Detail from Pattern

Hi gentle readers,

I am almost ready to start making and filming a fun new wall quilt that focuses on stitching…both free motion and some with feed dogs up. It also has a small amount of appliques behind some of the stitching and 9 pieces of fabrics to make a simple style quilt background to put all this stitching with some appliques and some paint onto. The picture above is a single tile from a multi-tile downloadable pattern with instructions and supply list. This project was inspired by a page from a Dover Publications coloring book.

I got the missing fabrics this week and they are all washed and ready to go. I am still working on the pattern, but the hard part is done so I will be publishing that for sale at a moderate price on my website store to go along with an undetermined number of free YouTube videos to take people through the project…fun to simply watch, and fun to make with me if you want.

I will be adding a page to this blog site with links to my recommended supplies that apply to ongoing projects. Once it’s there you can just click on “Supply links” above and you can go shopping!

Sew I am excited about making this piece. I will be testing some products I have not used before I make it and will tell you about them as I go. This includes some new specialty threads from Wonderfil Threads I have only briefly used and Sulky’s Sticky-Fabri-Solvy printable self adhesive water soluble stabilizer. I think it could be a real blessing for limiting the amount of marking I have to do for this project and stabilizing the stitching. I might do a 60 second shorts video on my test of all of this just so you can see it even if I decide not to use it for this particular project. Would you like that?

I should be publishing the first parts of this project in a few weeks. We’ll see though. It takes a while to film the making of a complex project like this and get it edited. In any event, I will let you know how it stands with my next blog post. Let me know what you are working on. Do you have any special requests for techniques to discuss? (Please comment here. I love comments because it helps me know if people really view and like my blog efforts here and the comments stay with my blog if I look back on them a few months later for reference).

Sew happy everyone! Have fun in your studio!

Simple Shapes for My Wool Project

Posted on September 25, 2020September 25, 2020 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in a pattern, Applique, Art Quilt Techniques, Design as you go, Fabrics, Project Management, Quilt Journal, Tools, Uncategorized, Videos

Sew earlier this week I got everything ready to make my first video and then discovered I was missing a cord to connect the little monitor I need to my Sony Handicam camera. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t think identifying cords needed in the computer world is the easiest thing to do, Thank GOODNESS I have my own family geek squad. Hahaha. My son David helped me to identify what I needed and looked through our huge collection of cords, but we didn’t have the right one. So I ordered it and it is supposed to come today. If it comes, I hope then to get my first video on YouTube sometime next week. I don’t know how long this whole video making and editing will take me, but my tentative plan is to put one up a week at first.

Sew I got all ready to make the first item for my book/video wool project. It is called “Simple Shapes” and it is a small wall hanging, and I really invite you to join me in making one yourself. I will be providing all kinds of help here and even videos demonstrating it.

For several years now I have had an Accuquilt Go! cutter, and have, over the years, collected a fair number of their dies. I find the dies are wonderful for this particular kind of project, and also I cut all my bindings and borders on it. It’s much more accurate than I am…LOL.

I also use it to cut my 8 inch blocks I use for cuddle quilts. I used it when I work with my grandson, who made a couple of simple quilts with my help several years ago, and he was able to cut his own quilt pieces safely. It’s just a very helpful tool in my studio. Yesterday it took me only about half an hour to cut out all the pieces I need for this, and most of that time was because I am backing them with Steam-a-Seam fusible before I cut them, and I had to get that ironed on. This makes the wool feed through the cutter so nicely and hold the pieces nicely in place. I have other methods to do this too, but this one is my favorite.

However, if you don’t have a cutting machine and don’t want to buy one right now but want to follow along with me and try your own hand at wool applique by machine, I have made a pdf pattern with simple shapes that you can download and use. You can find the pdf file on my Aids and Links page on this blog (see the links at the top of this blog). I know you could draw your own, but why bother, since I have them all put together in the free pattern. They are not necessarily the same as those on my dies, but close enough.

Sew I cut out a bunch of shapes from fun several colors of the wool felt I talked about in my last blog. As I promised, I also looked around and found you can get satisfactory quality sets from Amazon if you want to make one of these wall hangings yourself. I would love to see you join me in this fun project. I recommend you get four sets and you will have enough for several projects. Just click on the links below.

six nature colors
six reds
six blues
six teals

I also found a melton wool blend in black that would make a nice background, or you can use a nice solid color quilting cotton for the background. If you get a single yard the wool, it is large enough to make two or even three small wool projects, because these are small little jewels of projects and the yard is 58 inches wide. These would make nice Christmas or other celebration presents.

Sew now that I have all these simple shapes cut out I will arrange them in a flower arrangement of some sort. Follow this blog in the future to see what to do. Note that I also cut some stems and vines about 1/4 inches wide and some leasves shaped from the felt that are not on my pdf but I did use the stems and leaves die on the Accuquilt site also.

I will talk more about what to do with all these shapes in future blogs, but you might guess if you look again at my last blog where I show a lot of the test piece I did. I will be demonstrating this on my video, assuming I am successful in getting that done. LOL I will be linking to my video in my next blog probably.

Test and practice piece

Sew happy everyone! Teach someone to sew or quilt or at least encourage sewists and other fabric wizards you know. Even the most advanced folks need encouragement. Sending you all hugs!

Repurposing Sewing Patterns and Die Cut Shapes

Posted on June 14, 2020 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in a pattern, Applique, Design as you go, Embellishment, Food for Thought, Making Clothes, Sewing Clothing

Hi readers! Yes, I am done with my mom’s memory quilt except for completing the hand sewing on of the butterflies. They are taking a while. I am very pleased with the quilt both front and back now, and if there is no show to enter it into this fall, I will go ahead and post pictures of it, which I have yet to take. But for now I am hoping to enter it first into the Mancuso show in Pennsylvania in September.

I was chatting with a friend of mine this week and we agreed that we both need new summer clothes…simple tops and simple pants made from pretty durable fabrics. I took a look at the pattern sites and was horrified at all the ruffles and dresses straight out of the hippy Woodstock era that are definately not for me. But I did find just what I wanted in my own pattern stash and I realized some of them are still available online. It might surprise you but I found a couple of particularly nice patterns in the “uniform/scrub” category. I purchased McCall’s M6473.

Here is the pattern made up into scrubs.

But in looking at the line drawings accompanying the pattern, I realized they are exactly what I was looking for and, made in the right fabrics and adding some embellishments I would have the summer patterns I wanted…quick, easy, and stylish. These are just right for my daily life. Take a look.

The pants have a dual waistband with a smooth front and elastic sides and back and really fun pockets. All three versions of the top are perfect canvases for some interesting fancy stitches, embroidery or appliques to spice them up. These tunics are nice and loose but not pregnancy tops.

I also found in my pattern stash a Simplicity pattern I have had for some time, Simplicity 2371, that has a lot of the same characteristics, though I think the scrub pants are a little better. I will do all the size testing/fixing on the scrubs slacks and make a couple of pair of those out of some nice sturdy knit fabrics I have for that purpose that I bought at least over a year ago. But I will probably make some version of the long leeved tunic on th Simplicity pattern.

The Simplicity pattern from my stash. Note the pants have a simple full elastic waist and no pockets…not what I wanted exactly. But the long sleeve tunic provides a suggestion for the embellishment. I would be adding something more.

Now as I was browsing through my pattern stash I saw a plethora of bag patterns, my vintage pattern collection, and some really gorgeous jackets and suits for dressier, colder times. I have the fabric for most of that too. Yes, my clothing stash, though carefully trimmed, is still quite wonderful. I will make at least one nice winter suit for this year, but mostly I am still losing weight, but not very fast, still…I want to save some of the nicer fabrics for later. I already have some really nice summer dressier clothes. Some of these I made and some I bought and I have kept them pretty much altered to my size as I have gone down. So mostly I need casual summer clothes for daily wear in my studio and some nicer pieces for fall and winter.

Sew all of this clothing sewing I will fit in here and there between my quilting projects.

This made me think about how I was going to approach my wool applique project. I have a lot of Accucut Go! dies with flowers, leaves, birds and animals, and decorative shapes. I think I will simply cut out a lot of them in multiple colors after I back the small wool and other similar pieces I have with a fusible and play around with making a hands on design. Many of these have patterns with them and were designed for specific things, but I am breaking up the sets and making a bowl full of these pieces. I also need to figure out some vines and stems, and I am thinking I may have to draw up another animal shape or two. This should be a fun project and will result in a small sampler, a book, and a show quilt.

Sew you see, you don’t have to use the patterns or pieces like the original designer intended, and you can often find just what you want by opening your creative mind and looking further at the designs and giving them some thought.

So next I will start two new quilting projects…the wool applique one and a more complex art quilt design in one of my ongoing series. This second half of the year promises to be much more fun than the first half. I am hoping and praying that in spite of the darkness of the hour in the country, the light will begin to shine through and clear away the dark. Like the hymn that has been buzzing around my head for at least a week “Morning has broken, like the first morning…” Remember, morning starts at the darkest part of the 24 hours.

Sew happy everyone! Make yourself something fun just for you.

Thoughts On Wall Quilt Sizes

Posted on July 14, 2016August 11, 2016 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in A Little How-To, a pattern, Food for Thought, quilt shows, selling quilts / 4 Comments

American Quilters Society (AQS) recently issued their new rules, which includes sizes by category, for their 2017 shows. Regardless of whether they are made for shows, size of quilts meant for display on a wall is an important topic to me. I would particularly appreciate comments back so we can actually have a dialogue about this.

Why is this important? There are a number of reasons:

They have to fit on the wall of people’s homes and businesses if they are ever going to be anything other than a flash in the pan for showing at quilt shows. I want to sell or give away to family and friends many of my quilts after they have been through their show season, so having them sized for people’s homes and businesses is an important issue.
I know from my own work that the size is often not a big factor in how difficult, how high the technique, how long a quilt takes to make. Indeed, some of the smaller ones have been the hardest things I have made.
I believe that is true that a large quilt can have a bigger impact when displayed at a show among a lot of other quilts.
Larger quilts are more likely to be traditional and are intended to fit on a bed, although show quilts may not be.
Many quilters, including myself, have difficulties that make creating a large sized quilt nearly impossible.
Some shows do not award Best of Show (BOS) ribbons to “small” wall quilts. Some of these can be as big as 59 inches in both directions, which is a large size for home displays and still are considered “small”. In these cases, even if they have special prizes for exceptional small wall sized quilts, the financial awards for AQS, at least, are about half the BOS award.

Oddly AQS has a gap between their miniature quilt, which is 24 inches by 24 inches maximum and their small wall quilt, which is 30 inches by 30 inches. They don’t have a square inch requirement, so if your quilt is 27″ x 37″, for instance, they cannot be entered in many of their shows despite the fact they are larger by square inches for the small wall quilt. My Canterbury Knight quilt is 27 x 37 and could never be entered into Paducah, for instance. Houston IQA is more inclusive.

Sew what do I find the ideal size for me to work in? I like to make quilts smaller than about 48 x 48 and larger than 30 x 30. The main reason for that is that my son Ken’s space for photographing my show quilts is 48 x 48, and it’s a really nice size to work in and the AQS 30 x 30 cutoff. Also, I think it can fit on a normal home wall better than anything bigger. while I may make a very small quilt, I am not a miniature show quilter. That is a whole different set of techniques and design and it is not something I wish to get into.

Even for charity quilts a smaller quilt can be good. I once did a survey for my church to find out what an ideal size would be that would serve as a wheelchair quilt, a crib quilt, or a lap quilt, and found to my surprise that the oft touted 36 inches width is sometimes frustrating to people who find it too narrow. So after the survey I found that 40 to 45 inches wide and 45 to 50 inches long makes a very appreciated quilt size that can function for wheelchairs, children’s quilts, and lap quilts. Here’s my little guide I wrote up for the church, if you are interested. It has several easy and quick simple patterns and other information:

Quilt Making for OSWLC needlework group

Sew happy everyone. I would love to hear from you to tell me what your favorite sizes are for quilt making and what you think about sizes for quilts designed for the walls of homes and businesses?

A horse for applique and thread painting…and a request for feedback

Posted on November 28, 2015November 28, 2015 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in A Little How-To, a pattern, Applique, Art Quilt Techniques, Embroidery, My micro-business / 6 Comments

Hi everyone. I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful and full of love and happiness. For some time I have been working on an idea that I think may be something I could use for sale in my little shop. In order to test this idea, I am providing a pdf file of a horse applique with instructions for printing it on fabric for use as an applique and the adding of thread work as a present for you. If you would like to download this and try it for yourself without obligation, be my guest.

It would be great, however, if you would provide me with some feedback on your thoughts about this…how this worked for you and what kind of appliques you would like to see provided in this way, for instance…that would be greatly appreciated. I am thinking of charging about $3 to 5 per pdf file, which includes the instructions, the schematic, the print file, and a pattern for the thread work as you will see in this pdf. So here you are…what do you think? Feedback please even if you don’t actually use it.

Instructions for Use of Downloadable Applique Images with thread objects

Sew happy everyone!

A Small Storm at Sea Quilt Pattern

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in A Little How-To, a pattern / 4 Comments

I have been working on how to produce a pattern for other quilters using Electric Quilt 7. It isn’t very hard in case you want to do this too. You make your pattern, then set your printer for the pdf instead of the printer and print it. Be sure to check the print preview before you do this, because you can’t go back and edit it if something is wrong.

For those of you who are interested I made a small storm-at-sea foundation piecing pattern and stored them as three pdf files you can download from the files below and use if you want. In the future I plan on making some small wall hanging quilts that I draw myself, so I really wanted to try this out to see if it works for people. If you print off the foundation pattern onto foundation paper of some sort, be sure to set your printer for actual size rather than fit to page. This little foundation pattern makes 7 inch blocks when completed. Then, for the quilt shown, cut four border pieces 4 inches wide x 28.5 for a 3.5 inch border and cut four 4 inch squares for the 3.5 inch corner blocks. You can always adjust the size by adding more blocks and increasing the borders.

Please refer back to my blog about foundation piecing here for what I have found as important for good success. I also found that for the 7 inch block, cutting 3 inch strips from which to cut blocks and triangles for the foundation pieces of the four colors helps a lot. The cool thing about foundation piecing is if your 3 inch strip is actually a little uneven or a little bigger or smaller than the three inches it is ok. You cut them down anyway after stitching.

Storm at sea small quilt

storm at sea small quilt yardage You probably need a little more yardage than this says you do. This was figured by EQ7 for precise cutting and piecing, and I use larger pieces for foundation piecing.

7 inch storm at sea foundation piecing

This may seem odd to those of you who know my work as an art quilter but may not have been reading my past blogs. I am making a new quilt in the “Waiting…” series, which will eventually be mostly a pictorial quilt, but has a big wave made from this traditional storm at sea pattern that merges into a pictorial ocean. This is from Electric Quilt 7, but I did some adjusting and chose the fabrics for this. If you have EQ7, you can make your own, but when you print the foundation pattern be sure to move the segments that are divided by the pages onto the second page before printing. You can do that in print preview.

Sew happy everyone! Try making at least one storm at sea foundation pieced block.