Food for Thought

Adding Paint to Quilts

Posted on 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!

 

 

Merry Christmas and New Adventures for 2022

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Applique, Deep space quilts, Food for Thought, High-Tech Studio, Machines, Making Clothes, My micro-business, My Studio, Panel quilts, Project Management, Quilt Journal, Quilts for sale, Skill background, Videos, Wool / 2 Comments

I digitized and embroidered this star as an applique. It is on one of my Christmas quilts now owned by my church.

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope you are already enjoying this wonderful season.  It is one of my very most favorite times of the year. We are having a relatively simple celebration this year, but it is still joyous. Right now I have The Piano Guys YouTube videos of Christmas music playing while I write this.  They are fun.  Have you seen the one with the Christmas scene and all the cameras riding around in the little train, on the Christmas tree, and in the drone flying in the room?  Here’s the link. It’s really fun.  Or how about the one all done in legos.  Here’s that link.  So creative and beautifully performed.

Well, I finished the Two Birds quilt along with completing the filming of the videos. The whole stack of hours and hours of videos I made while I made the quilt, along with the voice over reading, and the intro and exits parts we filmed together last weekend are now being edited by my oldest son.

I have written the pattern and workbook that goes with it, and that too is being edited by the family team.  I don’t know when we will get the first video of that project published but hopefully not long now.  It’s a big job to edit such a tangle of videos, voice overs and corrections into three publishable videos that make sense and are also interesting.  It has already taken much longer than any of us anticipated, but that was primarily due to my unrelated circumstances this year that delayed things, such as my cataract surgery among other things.  But that is all behind me now and I greatly look forward to the coming new year.

I have every expectation that we will produce much more content for my YouTube channel at a bit faster pace and with ever increasingly interesting projects and building professionalism.  I have gotten to where I don’t get bothered by the cameras, know how to set them up properly, and have lots of fun ideas for new stitching/quilting/videoing projects.  I have learned that the videography is as important as the making of the fabric art piece to make it all work and find it also very interesting.

I still have only about a third of the subscribers and a fourth of the viewership needed to monetize the YouTube channel, but it is growing and I nevertheless enjoy being able to share my projects with my viewers.  I hope you all enjoy the videos and will be happy to see them when a new one is published.  We have several projects already planned for the new year.

First of all, I want to create some new wool applique by machine projects, because I think it is possible to make some stunningly beautiful pieces in this category that has hardly been touched in the quilting/fabric art world using the machine and my initial project was only a basic introductory layout of the techniques. It’s an adventure to see how far this can go.

Then I have three new show quilts in mind for 2o22 that I think you will all love or at least enjoy watching me make them.  I hope I can succeed in getting all three made.

There will be a number of short and shorter videos showing techniques and use of tools.

And then I need to make some new clothes.  I have everything I need for them and will try to spread them across the year so I have something new and fun to wear once in a while.  I probably won’t buy any ready-made clothing this year just as a sort of challenge to myself for fun.  I haven’t decided whether or not to video these projects.  What do you think?

Sew happy everyone!  Have a wonderful holiday season and I hope you also Have Fun in Your Studios!!!

 

 

 

 

It’s Spring…Finishing Up the Wool Project!

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Classes, Food for Thought

Here is the finished wool applique by machine prototype.

Hi everybody!  Spring is pushing up the flowers and the trees are leafing out.  The birds have donned their spring mating feathers and are laying eggs and having a spring party.  I have just finished the embellished wool applique by machine final video in which I sandwiched, quilted, and bound the prototype piece. I also added some hot fix pearls to the centers of some of the flowers because I had some left from another project and I thought it needed a little more something.

Here’s the video link:  Wool 3

Here is the downloadable pdf of free motion fills that you may want to use for practice either before you quilt your own wool applique piece or just for free motion practice. This is the only handout for this third video.  So before you quilt your piece, print this out, build yourself a practice sandwich, put on that audio book, and have some fun practicing stitching.

FMQ Basic fills

You will notice that in my video I used the red Bernina Gripper rings to help me in my quilting but I forgot to mention them there.  They really make a big difference in my control, and I don’t have to wear gloves. They are designed for sitdown longarms and sewing machines with a longer harp space.   They have to be purchased directly from a Bernina dealer.  I got mine on sale, but even so they are kind of expensive. You can also get a very similar product by Martelli that are slightly cheaper and you can buy the sizes seperately. They are worth the price, though. Lots of people saw the center front hole on the Martellis rings in a similar fashion to match the Bernina rings, but I don’t know if that is necessary. I have heard that Martelli makes the Bernina rings anyway, so they are almost the same except for the gap in the front and the color.

I would love for you to watch this video, and the others if you haven’t yet. If you made a wool sampler along with me, please send me a picture [email protected] and I can show them on my blog, if you don’t mind.  Or at least tell me you made one in the comments.

You can use these same techniques I showed on some of those absolutely beautiful commercial patterns intended for hand sewing of wool applique I have seen out there.  My hope is by the fall, I will have some patterns of my own available.  I might even do another video or two on wool applique using my own patterns, but not next.

Keeping the Experimental Quilting Process Going

I am so excited about all of this.  I am finally getting in the swing of working through the design and creative process of the projects in a similar fashion to my show quilting work, and just filming most of what I am doing so I can share it with you.  It has required a fair amount of adjustment to my studio and my thinking, but I believe I will be able to produce some really fun and professional-looking fabric art even while I film the process and I hope you will enjoy it too.

I am planning to do a little show and tell VLOG and talk about my experimental fabric art quilting.  I think you might enjoy it, and it will give you an idea of where I may be headed in the future.

Oh and don’t forget to get my son David’s latest book (if you have a Kindle reader, you can read it for free) and we would be most grateful if you  review it when you are done.

In Division Imperiled (The Law of Swords Book 3) by [David A. Tatum]

Sew happy everyone!  Have fun in your studios!

 

 

 

 

 

Computer and Looking Ahead in My Studio

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Classes, Food for Thought, My micro-business, My Studio, Videos, Wool / 4 Comments

Hooray!  I have my new computer and it is all set up.  It is lovely, fast, and has all it needs to serve me well for digital design, video editing, book writing, online demos and other computer draining activities.  I am soooo grateful to my family members who gave this to me and helped me get it in place and so forth.  Sew I’m off and running here in my wonderful studio.

In case you haven’t seen them I now have two videos of the three on Embellished Wool Applique by Machine, coupled with two blogs here that include free downloadables for accompanying handouts.  I also have my first quick tips video.  All of the videos can be found on the Betty Jo Tatum YouTube channel for free. Of course, I hope to make money from this endeavor eventually, but in a way that the videos remain free to you. Downloadable workbooks,  patterns, and so forth will be available for a modest amount from the new little store I have on my main website.  There’s nothing to buy there right now though but those will be published on the same subjects as new videos that are better with such downloadables.  These all will be uploaded at the same time so you can follow along the easy way.

Other things are also in the plans for that little store.  I will sell some of my quilts from there, and I am considering other things that can be downloaded.  If you haven’t looked yet, I recently upgraded my main website.  Go take a look at my gallery, if you’d like.

Now it takes some time to put together these things so I probably will need two or three weeks between each video, or even a month.  They will cover a variety of sewing and art quilting techniques that I have learned over the years and really want to share because I think some of you will find them fun and you may even want to try them yourselves.  So if you want to support this effort, I hope you subscribe to my YouTube channel and watch my videos.  It doesn’t cost you anything, you don’t give them any information, and it helps me.

Owl French Artist Painter

And now that I have my computer…all KINDS of things are running thro0ugh my head that might be accomplished.  After I complete the next wool applique video, I am thinking of making a video or a set of videos on landscape quilting elements in both stylized types and more natural looking art quilts.  There are lots of those to do, so I won’t bunch them all up together, but will spread them across the year with topics like trees, mountains and rocks, water, geologic strata, and so forth.  It should be really fun for us.  I have lots of other ideas and I think you will enjoy them as they come out.  They will all be presented in small projects or technique demonstrations, but I will likely draw up some digital patterns for larger pieces and maybe even paint some digital fabrics for backgrounds that I might place for sale on a print on demand fabric company if I can work that out so you can buy them to use.  What do you think?

If you have something in the way of art quilting techniques you wish you could find how tos for or would like to just see how I approach them, please let me know.  I’ll see what I can do about it.

Sew happy everyone!  Let’s have some fun in our studios.

 

A Book, Videos, Sons, and A New Project Idea

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Applique, Books, Classes, Embellishment, Food for Thought, Videos, Wool / 4 Comments

 

Books

My youngest son David, the author who shares my home with me and helps me in so many ways, will release a brand new book within a few days.  It’s the third book in his Law of Swords fantasy series.  I have read it and it’s terrific.  Truly, I think each book he writes is better than the last one and this one is no exception.

I am so proud and excited about this because David had to overcome a series of major difficulties (starting with a computer crash that somehow took both his regular data and all his backups in one event that included years of research, databases, and even bunches of writing.  Even the very skilled professional data recoverers were unable to get the data back.  He now has a new and better computer setup with all kinds of backups so it is unlikely to happen again. This and a handful of other obstacles has delayed his books for several years beyond the expected.

Now, though, he is rapidly producing what I am sure are wonderful writings right and left.  There is this book, as well as a requested short story for an anthology are written and nearly out the door, and he is diligently working hard on the second book in his sci-fi space series too with plans of completing that one by the end of the year.  Please wish him well on these endeavors. He is now a full time author without a secondary job so success is imperative. I’ll let you know when the new one is actually available for purchase.

My Videos

With a great deal of assistance from my oldest son Ken, the second in my video series about embellished wool applique by machine, is likely to be published early next week (there will be a blog for that one with a second downloadable handout).

I ask you please to subscribe to my YouTube channel if you haven’t already.  This is a great help to me with YouTube.  I need a minimum of 1000 subscribers and lots and lots of views before I can sign up for the small monetary return to support this work.  If you don’t know, “subscribe” is like “follow” on other sites and doesn’t sign you up for anything more than letting you know the videos are there.  You have to be logged on to Google or YouTube to subscribe and then to make a comment there or ask a question.

Ken is doing the video editing at least until I get my new computer (which has been delayed “because of Covid”).  I hope it gets shipped within a day or so, but in the meantime Ken is editing and publishing my videos for me.  He is so professional at this. I will have to try really hard to match that level when I finally get my computer and take back a lot of this work.  The third video will probably be out about two weeks later.  It is my plan to publish a video about once every two or three weeks for now.

In case you are wondering, all on my own I “film” the parts where I am at the machine and you only see my hands, and Ken helps with the part where you see my face.  Ken has, in fact, set it up so I can eventually do that part of the filming too, but I really like having his directing and filming with his fancy camera.  He does, however, have a job and a family.  LOL But he came to my rescue with microphones and  brackets and lights and instructions and editing.

My Idea for the Next Project

Ok.  The wool applique set will be done soon, so what am I going to do next?  Well, I have a long list of techniques and projects that I am considering on presenting in 2021. Only a few are wool based.  The videos on my YouTube site are and will be continuously free.  However, I am planning on offering downloadable workbooks and sometimes patterns to go with them for a reasonably low price (on my new website shop) that you can purchase to use with the videos.  This will hopefully help underpin the video work, which so far has required considerable investment.

Sew I have given it a lot of thought and decided the next subject will be “Trees”.  This will be really fun, but I leave it to you to wonder…what will BJ do with trees?  Later…I’ll tell you later.

Sew happy everyone!  Have fun in your studio and try making/learning something new that makes you stretch every now and then.

 

Way More than a Hobby and Memories of a Great Seamstress

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Food for Thought, Machines, Making Clothes, My Family, Sewing Clothing, Skill background

This sewing machine is like the one I remember Mom having when I started to sew.

For me, sewing and quilting is and has been for most of my life far more than a hobby.

My earliest memories of sewing are from when my family lived in Paducah, Kentucky (interesting considering Paducah’s position in the quilt world today!). My Dad was working with Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on their power plant there.  I clearly remember sitting beside my mother at her pretty black Singer sewing machine when I was very young.  She was telling me how important it was to clean and oil your machine and keep a good fresh needle in it.  That was my first lesson that I never forgot.  She was a true expert “seamstress” and we shared the love of sewing throughout her life.

Mom and me in May 1967. We are both wearing clothes we made.

We made most of our own clothes together for as long as I lived at home.  With her guidance, I made some of my more complex clothing like tailored wool suits, overcoats, and stylish clothing of all types.  She made my prom dresses and accompanying gorgeous wraps and I made the bags.

We never did quilt together. I don’t know if she ever quilted. She made some lovely stuffed dolls and stuffed toys..not just rag dolls, sails for the sailboat, tents, in addition to the gorgeous clothes at couture level.  I still have the Victorian doll  that she made and I dressed so long ago. The jacket and skirt satin fabric is sun faded, but I love it. I miss her.

Throughout my life, it has been a key  skill for me to be able to sew.  It enabled me to make not only my own work clothes when I went out to work, but my husband’s too.  I made Marvin suits and a gorgeous Harris Tweed jacket he loved.  I even made him a tuxedo from tropical wool with silk satin lapels using a stylish Bill Blass pattern from Vogue that required substantial resizing (he was a big tall guy).  It turned out well and he wore that for years especially when he sang. He got many compliments on it. I, of course, made things for my boys too…clothes, overcoats, backpacks, pup tents, bedroom curtains, and so forth.

Until I went out to work and got so busy I had little time to sew, I never had to wear anything that wasn’t stylish and well fitted when I went out because I could make what I wanted and alter what I bought to fit right.  Even then, I was able to make things fit better.  It is my hope to keep on sewing  to the end of my life,  Mostly, however, that will probably be making quilted fabric art with the occasional clothing item.

I still do a small amount of clothes sewing, but I work from home now as a fabric artist, and don’t sing with semi-professional choral groups anymore or even often go to concerts.  So my work uniform is jeans and a simple shirt or sweater.  I have a closet full of nice clothes that are timeless in style and I mostly manage to keep well maintained so they fit me.  I have been slowly loosing weight so I do need to do some altering now. I made myself a new overcoat from my stash last year with a faux fur collar.  It’s wonderful. I also made my youngest son a rather nice faux leather jacket.

Making quilted art seemed a natural progression for me towards the end of my government career and I decided to retire a little earlier than I might have otherwise to be a full time fabric artist.  I started quilting about a year after Marvin died at my sweet daughter-in-law’s suggestion.  It helped me cope a lot and still does.

I have occasionally made a cuddle quilt, but creating quilted art for the wall or the occasional piece of wearable art,  is really exciting for me. I took multiple art classes in both high school and college, and have taken private art lessons in addition, practiced on my own, and have my fourth year certificate in Japanese Ikebana I obtained in Japan.  Ikebana is also an art form that inspires some of my wall quilts.

I particularly love to see how far I can push the sewing boundaries working with the power of my machines, the great advances in threads, notions, and fabrics, and even working with leather or fur (mostly faux unless it is recycled), cork, fibers, trims, and beads.

Why am I telling you all this?  Because I have launched my YouTube video channel and am also writing workbooks and patterns to go along with them.  I want you to know that what I am teaching is based on a solid background of study and experience and hope you will join me in many of the projects I will be presenting.

Fabric art is a great way to decorate your home or cheer up your office–wherever it is–celebrate the seasons or family landmark events, help you deal with the more difficult times of life, and fill you with joy and peace.  You can express things through fabric art…praise, thanksgiving, love…This is true even if you get a little frustrated over problems you will encounter and sometimes have to walk away, or throw the project in the back of your storage area for a “time out.”

The fact is, though, that figuring out how to overcome problems you encounter in your projects can help you keep a sharp mind and give you a real satisfaction when done.  Experimenting with new techniques, materials, and designs adds to the whole enjoyment.

Sew happy everyone! Have fun in your studios. Subscribe to my YouTube channel so you will know when a new video arrives.

 

 

Going Beyond My Own Abilities

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Art Quilt Techniques, Food for Thought, High-Tech Studio, Machines, My Studio, Tools

I love quilted fabric art pieces, in case you haven’t figured that out yet,  They can be as artistic as any great painting and can warm the home and office with their beauty.  The texture can approach three dimensional with different finishes and dents and poufs, and they make you want to go and touch them.  There are so many directions they can take.

I also love using the power of my great machines and my computer to work well beyond my own talents and abilities even as my hands age and can do less. There is much there to take advantage of for creating and enjoying and the additions continue. I even recently bought a new Bernina foot and my dealer kindly mailed it to me.

Learning the techniques, and taking advantage of the various attachments and feet is an important and interesting part of this.

Understanding how the machines respond to fabrics, threads, and quilt sandwiches is a key aspect to getting the maximum advantages out of the machines.

Trying not to get too frustrated when things don’t go well, but instead working through various steps to see what can be done to solve problems is equally important, and perhaps the hardest thing to do.

Learning how to better use various helpful software also adds to how far one can go.

These are the goals for me to continue to reach for this year even after all these years of sewing and quilting using these great tools.  I have concluded there is always more to learn.  And then I also want to get better adding surface design in the form of in-the-hoop embroidery, paints, beads, and crystals to move even further just adds to the enjoyment.  I feel almost like I am just beyond a beginner in this aspect.

Stitched slightly distorted swirl I made using Superior metallic threads on Kaufman Kona black fabric as a test piece playing with some in-the-hoop embroidery I digitized in my Bernina embroidery software just for fun.

Sew even though it is unclear where we will land in our quilting/sewing world after The Great Upheaval, my own name for the pandemic and actions taken, there will always be much to do and learn.  This makes me excited even as I still hang out safely in my studio.  Truth be told, even after we all get through this thing and I can go out more, I will be spending the majority of my time in my studio because I love these activities.  Yes, I will have my friends in finally and go see them, and I will go to brick and mortar fabric stores that may be left, and will delight as I see the rebirth of the industry across the nation.  I hope to go back to shows eventually.  I think we still have some months before this happens.

So I will be making some smaller projects in 2021 but still plan on doing them to quilt show quality even if they never go to a show.  It is the standard that I don’t want to leave.  I will, of course, also make some cuddle quilts and a few clothes this year.

This Week’s Featured Quilt

Kanazawa Memories, Completed August 2015 Sashiko designs stitched with 12 weight Sulky cotton on Peppered Cotton. I digitally painted the individual flower appliques and printed them on cotton, and then arranged them in a close approximation of arranging Ikebana with real flowers.  The vase is made from some hand dyed silk I had on hand.  I then appliqued them with Monopoly.  This is the perfect example of what I was just talking about.  I did take a hand Sashiko class from the great Pepper Cory and I loved it, but I have a very hard time hand stitching Sashiko now.  But here I used digitized Sashiko, some of which I digitized myself, and picked threads and fabrics close to what I knew were very Japanese in nature.  Decades ago, I lived in Kanazawa for three years and had some wonderful helpful friends.  This quilt was created while thinking about this time in my life.  You can see a better image of this on my website gallery.  I am still waiting my coming new computer after the great computer crash a week ago, so I must use what is available here on my laptop.  Here’s the link to the gallery page where you can find this.

Sew happy everyone!  Join me in advancing our understanding of what we can do with the machines we have.  Cheers everyone.

 

Hand Stitching and Machine Stitching

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Art Quilt Techniques, Embellishment, Embroidery, Food for Thought, Machines

I hand stitched this little crewel scene using wool threads years ago. It has a special meaning for me because I stitched it during my frequent visits with my mother in the months that lead up to her death in 1998. My youngest son took it and had it framed in a museum quality acid free framing to protect it.

I love both hand and machine stitched fabric art.  I do most, or nearly all my stitching by machine now, but that was not always the case.  I have done some rather beautiful, even if I do say so myself, embroidery, cross stitching, and crewel work by hand.  I used to d0 a lot of hand stitching when I made wedding dresses and couture tailored garments decades ago.  But I am now in my 70s and my hands get really tired in short order when I am doing hand stitching.

Besides that, I have wonderful Berninas that can help me do some remarkable things and I love exploring all they can do.  It seems to me possible to not only get an exquisite handmade look for some fabric art using my machines, but also to do some equally exquisite stitching that is clearly done by machine.

“Canterbury Silk”. This quilt won several ribbons in national competitions. All the stitching in this quilt is by machine.

I am not sure how much faster it is to do the stitching by machine, though I am sure it is a little bit.  This is especially the case when I am trying to embellish with specialty threads and decorative stitching.  To do that well, I often need to stitch slowly.  I imagine that there are some of you who can stitch more rapidly with super results, but I totally enjoy the slow stitching around appliques, for instance, or embellishing parts of an especially nice quilted wall art piece. It is as enjoyable to me as the hand stitching ever was.

Kanazawa Memories, Completed August 2015
Sashiko designs machine stitched with 12 weight Sulky cotton on to Peppered Cottons.  Appliqued with Monopoly. I love how the Sashiko came out on this piece.

High end machine work requires planning, testing, practice, and a fair amount of knowledge, but it is sometimes thought to be less artistic 0r less appreciated somehow than hand done work.  While I love hand work, I disagree with this point of view.  I think both are important and can be exquisite and  admired as something special.  I also think it is wonderful what can be accomplished by machine.

Sew happy everyone!  Have a delightful Merry Christmas!

Detail from “Noel”.

 

A Website Update and the Wool Applique Project

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Applique, Classes, Design as you go, Embellishment, Fabrics, Food for Thought, Threads, Videos

Hi everyone.  Well, I completed the update on my website and am reasonably happy with it.  I did not yet put the store in operation because I still am working on the downloadables I am planning to sell there.  My goodness I have been busy!

A digital design I created last year. It seems like winter to me with snowflakes that look like butterflies…LOL.

I have been having fun though.  This week I am embellishing my wool applique by machine sampler with decorative stitches using 12 weight Aurifil wool blend thread.  I have been really enjoying figuring out which stitches to use on each applique and how to set them.

Sampler one part one. Here we have the simple shapes of the sampler in place, ready to begin the embellishment/embroidery.

Since I used Steam-a-Seam 2 fusible for the appliques, and they are felted wool going on to Melton boiled wool background using wool thread, there is a lot of fluff!  So the fluff stuck to the needle and filled the bobbin area.  I just cleaned out the bobbin when my machine complained about the bobbin and it was just fine.  But I had just gotten a package of Schmetz super non stick 90/14 needles.  Now one needs that size needle for 12 weight threads, and I was using a Superior top stitch, which is a fine needle that I use for most of my work, but the fluff from all this wool was continuously climbing up the needle and had become problematic.  So I tried the non-stick needle and was astonished at how the fluff on the needle just went away!  The stitching went forward with no further problems other than stopping every now and then to clean out the bobbin area, which isn’t very hard to do. My bobbin sensor lets me know when it cannot “see” anymore.  LOL

Truly I encourage you all to try some embellished applique by machine.  Realize it isn’t very fast, in fact it is kind of slow when properly done, but it is beautifully satisfying to do and just plain fun!  So keep it small for your first projects! In another week or maybe  a little more, I will have the first of my embellished wool applique by machine videos up and running.  I will tell and show you what I have learned about this technique.  I invite you to join me in making a sampler of your own.  I know you will enjoy it.

Next week I will post a list of supplies for the project with links of where you can get them and I will also put a pdf downloadable handout here for you to use too.  This class and downloads are free. I do, however, have plans for presenting many other techniques and projects by video where the project workbooks and patterns will be available for sale on my new website shop.  I hope to keep the videos free, but we will see how that goes.  Keeping the videos free will depend on how many subscribers I get to my channel and how many people buy the downloadales.

Sew happy everyone! I hope you are enjoying a Happy Hanukkah and Christmas season.  It’s my favorite time of the year. Blessings everyone!

 

 

300th Blog Post! and Other Things

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Food for Thought, Machines, My micro-business, Videos / 2 Comments

This is my 300th blog post here!  Sew I thought it was a good time to talk about several things planned for the near future related to my little micro business.

I am rebuilding my website and will be adding a little shopping cart that I am planning to use just for downloadable files, such as workbooks, patterns, and other downloadable aids for sewing and quilting.  I am almost done with the new website and hope to introduce it to you very soon.  The shop will be added a little later.

Now the main website is different from my blog, just in case you are wondering.  This blog will remain the same at least for some months.  Eventually, I am hoping to move this over to the blog space that comes with my website upgrade, but I don’t want to lose my older blogs.  If you haven’t done so for a while or ever, scroll back through my blogs.  You have to do it by the month by going to the archives box and selecting the month.  But you will find there are a lot of things you may find helpful in my blog archives.

Perhaps I will instead of moving the blogs, pull the more useful information from them and put them into a book or books with a bit of editing, and then start a totally new blog.  What do you think?  I would love to have your input on how to handle this.

In the meanwhile, I am still working on getting my videos going on YouTube.  The first set of three or four videos on Wool Applique by Machine are nearly done and will be posted by the end of December.  I have a long list of video subjects I am planning on developing.  For this first set, there will be free handouts for download from here, but for the next of them there will be a mix of workbooks and patterns for a small cost from my main website shop I am setting up, and the occasional free downloads will still be from this blog.

Of course, all of this is centered around my continued quilted fabric art work (multi-use work..LOL).  Once I get over the hump of setting all of this up, and I am almost there, then I will be able to go back to mostly sewing and quilting and designing, but just using a lot of it for my videos.  It has been a bit of a bear getting it all set up, but I have had a great deal of help from my sons.

So 2021 looks to be really exciting for me and my studio, and I hope for all of my readers.  Here is a little list of some of the subjects I am thinking about for the first half of 2021.

  • Wool Applique by Machine Techniques Sampler
  • Advanced Wool Applique Wall=hanging Project
  • Cotton and silk applique techniques and when to use what technique
  • Fabrics of several types and their properties when making fabric art
  • Embellishment threads, ribbons, roving, beads, and findings with machine work and how to get the best results
  • Free motion and in-the-hoop embroidery and using it well
  • Start with a fabric panel and end with a piece of exquisite embellished fabric art
  • Sit down longarm videos  (free motion embroidery and quilting, using rulers, mixing things up)
  • Bernina Q20 specific videos (short videos)
  • Some Bernina V8 specific videos
  • a bunch of really short technique videos.
  • I am thinking about doing some  real tailoring videos and workbooks. It’s something I know well and I think is something others would find interesting.
  • and on and on…not much if anything about piecing.  But there are a ton of piecing videos out there by real experts.

I don’t really know what I will do in what order.  Part of the fun for me is moving through the things I know that I want to share by using the projects I want to work on myself.  I don’t have deadlines, and I don’t plan on setting them, but I will let you know when they are ready to do.

Sew happy everyone!