My Family

Keeping a Good Eye On My Work

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Art Quilt Techniques, My Family, My micro-business, Project Management, Quilt Journal, Threads, Wool / 2 Comments

This coming Monday, August 23rd 2021, I will be having surgery for a cataract in my left eye.  I know it is often the case that people have both eyes done within weeks of each other, but my right eye is doing just fine at the moment.  I am having a hard time seeing my work lately and so I thought all I needed was a new pair of glasses so I went to my eye doctor and find myself here, preparing for this on Monday.  I am looking forward to the result.  I have had many people tell me what a great result they have had from such surgery and it does not seem to be a big major disruption in their lives.  Still, I would appreciate your prayers for a good result and a quick recovery and thankfulness that this is available to me at this time in my life plus that I have excellent doctors.  The lack of good vision has clearly slowed me down in my work. My eye doctor told me I would be happy.

Sew I think it would be fun to make something celebratory.  I am thinking it might be time to start a Christmas project, and I promised some of my followers that I would come up with another project for wool applique by machine with embellishment.  I am thinking of making a Christmas project, and have already begun working on the design. I still have a bunch of beautiful melton wools and it would be really fun to do one with lots of beautiful stitching with beautiful threads and hundreds of beads, crystals, buttons, and other embellishments…a real decorative piece to celebrate both my improved vision and the Lord’s birth.  Maybe I’ll do two–one in wool and one in cotton or silk!  LOL

In the meantime, progress is finally being made on the project I am calling “two birds” that will be presented with three videos and a detailed pattern.  The pattern is basically done, but it is being tested and the project is being filmed as I make it.  It’s more complex than my introductory projects on my YouTube channel, so I want to complete the work on the project before I publish any of the videos.

Sew me and my family advisory team have come up with some ideas for shorter videos to publish along the way that we think people will like.  These will be showing up periodically, and, before too long, the two birds project will get there.

Sew happy everyone!  Have fun in your studio and keep an eye out for my upcoming projects and videos.  God bless you all in this perilous time.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

Back to My Beloved Studio

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Classes, Food for Thought, High-Tech Studio, My business, My Family, My Studio, Workshops

A couple of days after I got home from California I came down with a monster cold that has totally shut down my work for weeks.  I am finally emerging from that, though I still have a cough here and there.  Coughing, even though it is far less, does not work well with precision quilting.  LOL.  So for a few more days I will do a little video watching, a little writing, a little planning, and a little design work.  Still, it is progress for me to get back to work finally.  It is my sincere hope that you, dear readers, do not catch something like this. Apparently it is going around, since a lot of my quilty friends seem to have had it too. It’s a bear and antibiotics do nothing for it.

Sew we recently bought a ROKU device and I have been playing around with it while recovering. One of my favorite things is that you can get YouTube on your big screen TV with ROKU along with whatever additional streaming service you have subscribed to.  I have what came with Roku, Amazon Prime, and Netflix.  Yesterday, I found Alex Anderson’s Simply Quilts from years ago on the HGTV channel.  I also found It’s Sew Easy on Amazon Prime.  What a delightful way to be entertained while I lay around like a coughing couch potato.  I tell them where they could improve their techniques, and learn something to try later…hahaha.  I still have to watch TQS and my BluPrint and IQUILT videos on my computer, but I can connect to my tv with a cable for that. It’s just not as convenient.  I’m thinking I really need another day of video watching before I fully launch back into quilting and writing in my studio.

I did arrange with G Street Fabrics the other day that I will be teaching four workshops in April and May similar to the ones I taught last year. I have also talked with my oldest son Ken about helping me get fully set up for making some videos for YouTube on a regular basis.  He has designed and built a couple of camera holders that are attached to the ceiling and can manipulate them to give different angles for the cameras.  He just needs to install them.  I also need to purchase a second video camera to work with them.  I plan on launching a periodic video showing my techniques very soon, probably in early March.  I have slowly been assembling everything I want for this and am close to launch.

Beyond that, I will be spending most of my time making show quilts and samplers for my books all year, as far as i can determine.  I think I want to hang out at home and avoid any further disruptions to my work.  I am excited about that now that I am getting over the monster cold.

Sew happy everyone!  Stay healthy, enjoy your studio, and find a way to share what you learn.  Let me know what you think about my video plans.

My Trip: San Diego, Road to California Show, and the Imperial Valley

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in My Family, quilt shows, Travel / 4 Comments

Here I am at Road to California. I’ve grown my wings. LOL

I had a most wonderful trip.  My dear brother Pat and sweet sister-in-law Carol gave me plane tickets to fly from here (northern Virginia) to San Diego and back and then gave me the most lovely time. We went to the Safari Animal Park in San Diego, went up to the Road to CA show and attended that together, then took a delightful drive down through the desert, first to see the amazing rust scuptures at Galleta Meadows and down to Brawley, California in the Imperial Valley. I did some of my growing up in El Centro in the Imperial Valley and it was a pull on my memory heart strings to visit this area of the country again. We stayed there a couple of nights while my brother and nephew went duck hunting (they eat what they shoot and fill their freezers with what the hunt and fish).  Then we drove back to San Diego with a brief drive through El Centro and up through the mountain pass with interesting rock formations.  The following day we went to the San Diego Zoo, then went to a fun local play in Coronado Island, where they have a lovely condo.  So you see, I got to do a lot, walk a lot, see a lot, and visit with my family at the same time.  It was wonderful.

In my estimation there is no zoo or animal park better managed anywhere in the world than the San Diego Zoo and Safari animal park also managed by the SD zoo.  They do a lot to help save endangered animals, make the animals that stay there happy, safe, and well cared for.  It is a great place to see them.  So if you have a chance to go, do so.  I was fortunate in that Pat and Carol are members of the zoo and could go whenever it is open with several guests for no additinal costs.  I did not take any pictures on this entire trip, partly because I had a sore foot and had to use a walking stick, but it worked well.  My brother took some pictures, but mostly you can see a lot of what we saw by Internet links provided below.

Safari Park

Here we took a cart around the park, did about a two plus mile walk around, and skipped the Platypus because it was a holiday and so many people were there.  I enjoyed the plants as much as the animals.  They are wonderful.

San Diego Zoo

Here we first took the shuttle ride around the park, then we walked around, especially concentrating on the birds.  They were fabulous!  We had lunch there and my niece (in-law) joined us for most of our time there.  It was delightful.

Here we are at the zoo. My brother Pat, me, my niece Melanie, and my SIL Carol.

Road to California

I know, a lot of you really want to know more about the quilt show.  It was a wonderful show with fabulous quilts.  We toured the whole thing.

Here I am talking about my quilt The Wizards’ Duel and explaining some of my techniques to some friends of P&C who had come to see the show. I was disappointed in the way the quilt was displayed, crowded together with other quilts with little space around it, and the light is coming from below, which makes the top, nearly invisible creatures totally invisible. Nevertheless, I was happy to have it in the show.

Here’s the Pegasus in the upper right corner of the quilt that you really couldn’t see at the show.  I learned from this that I need to have a stronger values difference in my threads when I want my quilting to show wherever it is displayed.

Here are a couple of links provided by others so you can see some more of the quilts:

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

Video 4

Keepsake Quilting video

Sew I wanted to show Pat and Carol the machines I have in my studio and I took them over to the Bernina booth and showed them the 880 plus and the Q20.  While there, I tried out the quilting hoops that I am considering buying.  I did not buy it then…but I think I will sometime this year.

After attending the show, we drove down to the Imperial Valley the next day.  I graduated from high school in El Centro, California, and this drive down through the dessert brought back many memories.  I had not been there since I left to go to college after graduation (my parents moved to Iowa at that time).

On the way to our hotel, we visited

This is Galleta Meadows where the artist, Ricardo Breceda, who creates these magnificent rusty statues displays his work. The owner of the site allows people to drive through and take pictures. They are life size to bigger and are wonderfully done.  This is the only place I took pictures.  Here are a few of the statues.  They were wonderful.

My brother and nephew went duck hunting near the Saltan Sea near Brawley.  They hunt and fish and often fill their freezers for most of their meat supplies during a year.  Pat and Carol also grow fruit at their northern vacation home they built themselves shortly after they were married 54 years ago.  Carol puts the fruit up in the freezer and makes jams and jellies.

So the next day we drove home through the rock-filled mountains, driving first through El Centro.  I was a bit shocked when I saw the gigantuan wind turbines running throughout the beautiful dessert I remembered from my youth as being so gorgeous.  They are soooo big and sooo many that I felt they really greatly marred the pristine nature of the desert. Here is a picture I found of some of them, though they look much smaller here.  Remember when you see it that these turbines are massive…much much larger than most trees.  These big blades only last about 25 years, and cost a lot of energy to produce too.  Surely we can do better. (I am not trying to start a conversation about these here, just providing my kind of somewhat shocked impressions).

These wind turbines are some of the ones I saw and are each taller than the Empire State Building,

Here is a link to a discussion about how massive these turbines are.  They are apparently planning on making them even larger.

Wind Turbines in Imperial County.

So now I am home safe and sound.  I did pick up a little cold, but that was almost inevitable when I sat just one seat away from a guy who sneezed the whole way home on the plane and never covered his mouth.  Sigh. I’m feeling much better today.  It was a fabulous trip, however, and I had a marvelous time.

Sew happy everyone!  I’m going to get back to work in my studio this week, but my house seems to need some cleaning…I didn’t do much of that before I left.  LOL   My studio calls to me.

 

 

 

 

Looking Forward to 2020

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Ancient manuscripts, Books, Deep space quilts, Design Work, Embellishment, Food for Thought, High-Tech Studio, Making Clothes, My Family, Show Quilts / 2 Comments

Happy New Year everyone and God’s blessings on your lives for the new decade!

I have a lot of fun plans for 2020.  As I usually do, I have almost certainly planned more than I can accomplish, but there is always the offhand chance I will actually get them all done and that would be grand.

As many of you may remember I made big plans for clothes making in November.  Read all about it here in my past blog.  But November was basically eaten up with my making of my son David’s “leather” coat, which, albeit successful in the end, required a lot of unexpected time while I polished up my rusty tailoring skills from decades ago, fixing several big mistakes, and taking my time doing a good job on the coat with the great feet and machine I had to sew it with.  If you missed it, you can see the end results in this blog.

But I still need some new clothes for myself.  Fortunately, most of the fabric I have for this update is four season fabric.  So I am going to scatter this sewing across the year.  Besides, I am hoping to lose some more weight so it would be a good idea to go kind of slowly in this wardrobe revamp project.

In the meantime, I hunted through some of the older jackets and shirts I had stored away I used for work that I haven’t worn for a while because they got too tight, but now they are nice and lose.  Some even require taking in.  The first thing I did last week was take a tan faux suede jacket I had but never wore much because it was just too boring, and embroidered the back and fronts with some really pretty steam punk designs in blues.  The designs include an old style sewing machine, an owl, and a bunch of gears and swirls.  They came from this OREA set of designs.  It really improved it and I will be using these designs elsewhere.  I also found the long dress that goes with it.  I don’t really wear dresses anymore, but it is also made from the same nice faux suede and I might make a bag or something to go with the jacket or I might just wear it as is, adding maybe some embroidery on it too, but I doubt I will do that.  In any event, I am not planning on buying new clothes in 2020, because I can make the ones I have work and can make some new ones while I continue to lose weight.

I think I have what I need ready to go now for my trip to California to see my brother, sister-in-law, and the Road to California show we are going to together.  It was a wonderful gift from my SIL.  We have a lovely relationship and I really am thrilled with this trip.  I will also get to see my nephew and his family.

Sew once I get back to my studio what are my plans?  Since I usually work on two quilts at a time, this year I will work on one quilt and one garment at a time for a while.  I like working two projects to give me some changes in muscle and eye activities periodically without losing a lot of time.

Sew in addition to my clothing plans I have an exciting plan for show quilts, books, and maybe some additional items for sale.  Right now, I am quilting my Mom’s memory quilt.  I have made a significant start in the quilting, but I have a long ways to go.  I really enjoyed returning to quilting this past week.

I made a list to pick from  the other day for 2020 show quilts.  I was thinking four quilts, and ended up with nine on the list to choose from.  I am fairly certain I won’t get nine show quilts made this year…hahahahaha.  Here’s a short list of some of the ones I am considering making.

  1. Mom’s memory quilt already well along the way
  2. A strata landscape quilt with embroidered and beaded fossils
  3. A steam locomotive train scene using the fabric I digitized and had printed for the background
  4. A new ancient manuscript quilt (probably Excalibur)
  5. A new deep space quilt
  6. An ancient map with a ragged edge
  7. A deep ancient forest that shows off my couching and thread painting
  8. Several landscape quilts based on my daughter-in-law’s beautiful travel and flower pictures
  9. A wool applique quilt with interesting decorative stitches and heavily beaded.

Plus I am writing two books, which require samples.  I am about halfway through the one on embellishments and have the one on quilting for art quilters outlined and started.

I will do what I can and not try to push myself too hard this year…just sew along and enjoy myself along the way.  But I would really love to get it all done.  Great fun in my studio.

Sew happy everyone!  I would love to know what your plans for the new year are, at least to begin the year.  Enjoy your New Year’s Eve and Day!

Upcoming Fun Events and the “Leather” Coat Project

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Embellishment, Exhibits, Fabrics, Food for Thought, Making Clothes, My Family, quilt shows, Workshops / 2 Comments

Hi everybody!  I have several items of news, which some of you already know about if you read by Facebook posts, but I’ll tell you anyway.

First of all my Embellish This! workshop at G Street Fabrics in Rockville, MD suffered a delay because on my way to the planned workshop my car quit running.  I was on the toll road and right at an exit that went downhill, which was quite a good thing since I was able to coast off the exit ramp onto a generous grassy side and was completely out of harms way.  Turns out it was some kind of air hose had come disconnected for no known reason and that was all.  But the nice AAA tow truck rescuer towed the car and gave me a ride all the way back to my preferred car repair place and they fixed it for nothing and did the annual checkup at the same time, which revealed I needed new brake pads and a new belt of some kind.  I did get those fixed the next day.  So the new class date is now December 15 and there are still places left, and I would like to fill them.  A full class is a happy class!  This class will be totally fun and result in a top that could be made into a nice wall hanging or pillow for a Christmas present and leaves you with a lot of knowledge of the techniques needed to embellish your projects.

Embellish This! workshop sampler for December 2019 class.

Secondly, I have been, as you know from my past several blogs, making a faux leather, aka “leather” coat for my youngest son David, who is a big and tall man of noble stature.  You can read the past two blogs to get an idea of what this entails, but I will say that it has been the hardest thing I have ever made in my entire sixty plus years of sewing!  And no, it wasn’t difficult just because it is “leather”.  The “leather is fairly easy to sew with, but it is black and slightly shiny and you can’t take anything out if the stitches are going to show.  But I had made the Frankenpattern from three patterns and then did a substantial amount of size changing.

I have only got the hems and the buttons to go on this project. I just had a fitting with David and it looks fabulous, fits perfectly, and I am surprised after all the struggle I had getting it right.  Partly it was difficult because it has been decades since I made anything tailored for a man.  Partly it was difficult because some of the pattern needed so much adjusting.  Partly it was difficult because I made several stupid mistakes (probably lack of practice) that resulted in my having to recut the right front piece along with its pocket pieces, and the collar, which didn’t lay properly (I used the Burda pattern collar and it was probably right if I had been working in wool, but it did not work for “leather”, so I remade it.  But anyway, I am down to the hems and buttons and I am happy.  Only one more day of sewing on it and it will be complete.  I discovered it is hard to work on it beyond 4 or 5 pm  because I have to rely a lot on the light coming in my studio window for this black shiny fabric.  Once the light oustide goes down the artificial light makes it simply too hard to see.  This is why I made the mistake on the front pocket that made me have to remake the front and its pocket, and I was too stubborn to stop sewing.  But I learned the hard way…LOL.

And now for the really fun news.  My quilt The Wizards’ Duel got into Road to California quilt show in Ontario, California, which is relatively close to San Diego where my brother Pat and his wife Carol have one of their homes, and where my nephew Whitlow and his family live.  Now since I had to purchase a new machine the middle of this year (you can read about that in several previous blogs..it was necessary) and have had some additional unexpected expenses this year, I told Pat I was unable to come out to see him and go to the show around that time, but that my quilt had gotten into the show.  The next day, he called me back and let me know that Carol and he were going to give me the plane ticket and most of the expenses for the trip for a nice ten day visit with them!  You could have blown me over with a feather!  He and Carol are going to drive us up to Ontario on Wednesday night before the show and stay all day Thursday and the morning of Friday!  They have been to the show themselves whenever I had a quilt in the show and it will really be fun for us to go together!  So I now have the ticket reservations, we managed to get into one of the preferred hotels, and the tickets for the show.  How about all of that?!  What a lovely present from my dear SIL and brother (it was her idea I was told)!

Wizards’ Duel.  Since this picture I have improved the mountainous rocks in the scene per a judge’s suggestion at MAQF.  I then sent it to PA Nat’l Quilt Extravaganza and it won a blue ribbon (Best Interpretation of Theme) and had wonderful comments from the judges.  R2CA will be the third show it will be shown in.  I entered it into several AQS shows but they rejected it from all of them for unknown reasons.  Perhaps I should have had it rephotographed, because the rocks make a difference and the flash made the bottom scroll work too bright.

So in my blog from Nov 2, I so confidently laid out grand plans for November in which I would do a lot of clothing sewing and end up with a refreshment to my wardrobe and David’s coat.  I had thought David’s coat would take about a week and a half, but it has gobbled up all of November.  These things happen, but now I have to decide whether to keep on with the clothing sewing or go back to quilting and fit the clothes in a little at a time across the winter and early spring.  I think I will do a little bit of both, in light of my trip to California and the fact that I have lost a full size over the past year.  If I make one pair of slacks at least I will greatly improve my traveling wardrobe.  I would also benefit if I could fit in a jacket…either the jeans jacket or the faux suede jacket with lots of embroidery.  I’m inclined to do one of those also.  both have embroidery and would be fun to flaunt at the show.  I KNOW they won’t take very long because the patterns are already fitted and don’t require massive refits.  I looked at my wardrobe and figured I can get by with just the slacks addition.  Sew we’ll see.  Nevertheless, I will still make all the items I listed for my November sewing plans but will spread them out over three or so months in between the quilting because I need them.  BUT, I WANT TO FINISH MY MOM’S MEMORY QUILT!!! LOL Not to mention I want to make several additional show quilts for 2020.  We’ll see how it goes.  And don’t forget, I’m working on books.

Sew happy everyone!  Even if you end up having to struggle through a project, make something wonderful for you or your family.  Stretch your sewing and quilting skills a little further.  Send me pictures and I’ll post some of them here if you would like.  Also, you are free to ask me questions if you run into difficulties.  I know a lot (just a fact, not a brag). LOL

 

 

Working With “Leather” from the 1970s to Now

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in A Little How-To, Fabric Review, Fabrics, High-Tech Studio, Machines, Making Clothes, My Family, My Studio, Techniques / 2 Comments

When I recently got my new Bernina 880 plus, I also got a number of intersting new feet, including leather roller foot 55, teflon foot 52D (for dual feed), and teflon zipper foot 54, and other feet and attachments to go with the collection I already had from my erstwhile Bernina 830 that I traded in.  Sew I have a number of interesting projects I want to try that my wonderful studio can now handle that I might have not done before.  One of these is working with leather.

 

Leather roller foot 55

Teflon zipper foot 54

Teflon dual feed foot 52

 

 

 

 

 

As some of you probably know, I have started a project of tailoring a faux leather, aka “leather”, overcoat for my youngest son David, the moderately popular sci-fi/fantasy writer, who is a cute, big and tall man in his early forties.

Decades ago I had my own fashion design and tailoring (real tailoring, not alterations) business in Ithaca, New York.   During that time I did some leather work…making a few bags and re-styling a couple of old fur coats.  I did this on my two machines…a beautiful antique White machine, which I still have, from the early 20th century that has a powerful motor that only has a straight stitch, and my Singer Golden Touch and Sew that was the Singer top of the line at the time before they  went greatly downhill as a machine.  It was a good little machine, but truly insufficient for what I was using it for. But I did not have any special feet that sew smoothly across leather, a dual feed mechanism for keeping the two layers together of slick lining fabrics, for instance, and the buttonhole program that has a simple rectangle for assisting in the making of bound buttonholes.  I didn’t have YouTube to look up reminders on how to do a bound buttonhole or a welted pocket, for instance.

What I did and still do have is a wonderful treasure of a long out-of -print book I found in the library and Marvin later bought from a used book store.  It is called How to Make Men’s Clothes by Jane Rhinehart published in 1975. Years ago when I had my shop in Ithaca, I wrote to her and obtained permission to use her book for instructional purposes and the illustrations in her book as needed in my own manuals. She was delighted, actually. I have yet to write that manual, but I am thinking of doing one now adding leather techniques and updated available supplies. As you see if you click on the link to her book, it is still available as a used book from Amazon.  There are other used book places you can find it…some grossly overpriced.  I highly recommend this book if you want to improve your tailoring abilities (much of it works for women’s tailored clothes too).  I made my dearest Marvin several jackets shortly after we were married using these techniques.  He wore those jackets for most of our life together and said he could throw them in the corner, sit on them, pick them up and put them on and they looked like they had just been freshly pressed.  It is really a construction manual that helps you to “build” tailored clothing from inside out.

Sew now I have a powerful Bernina 880 Plus with feet designed specifically for leather and vinyl work using the dual feed mechanism and a wide harp space in a large cabinet to assist me in keeping things together.

The faux leathers have vastly improved over the years.  The one I bought for this project (I bought a whole 8 yard bolt of 60 inch wide “leather”, which allowed me to get it at a reasonable price per yard, and I plan on making myself a jacket from the remaining fabric) feels almost exactly like the true leather samples I obtained before starting this project and even the back side resembles a smoother version of the back of the real leather.  It has about the same weight as the jacket-weight leather samples.  From a short distance, and maybe even up close, you will not readily be able to identify this as faux leather once I have it sewn up.  Yes, I would really prefer the real leather, but this is a wonderful substitute and is a quarter of the price.  So be aware that if you prefer not to use real leather for whatever reason, you can still make that smart “leather” jacket.  I will say that you might still want to use real leather if you are going for a quilted leather project.  It can take the heavy stitching that type of project requires and I am not sure the “leather” would.  Also I found several good suppliers of leather if you want to go that way…just let me know in the comments.

I remember the older faux leather.  It was too shiny, too stiff, and in a year or so it would crack and peal.  The back was not as good either.  You could tell from a distance it was not real leather.  I used it for Ithaca opera costumes (I was the chief costumer for several of their operas back when I lived in Ithaca) from time to time…not fun to work with.

When I worked on the leather projects of the past, I used tissue paper under my needle, and I just tightly held the sides together and stitched slowly.   Now I use clips to hold the sides together, stitch normally with the dual feed engaged, and have even better results.

When I worked on the leather projects in the past, I glued down the seam allowances and hammered them flat with a wood mallet on a towel.  The glue was a heavy goo similar to that gooey paper cement only worse.  It smelled too.  Today they have a double sided leather strip and I got some white leather glue, actually from the same manufacturer that made the old gooey junk.  What an improvement!  Now I use the double sided tape or the much nicer white leather glue and my little wood wall paper roller to make a nice flat seam.

When I worked on the leather projects in the past, I avoided top stitching as much as I could because I almost had to hand crank my machine stitches to make them go through all the layers (try keeping that straight!).  Today, I don’t mind it at all because the machine stitches right through all those layers with no problem.

Sew for my current coat project, I could not find a pattern that fit my tall nobly-shaped son.  They do not have big and tall men tailored clothing patterns published by any company that I could find.  They absolutely need to fix that!!!!  The closest I came was a couple of costume coats for cos-play, and even those still would not have fit well.  So I ended up taking a Burda pattern, a McCall’s costume pattern, some instructions from How to Make Men’s Clothes, and Frankensteined a sloper together for him.

The Franken pattern ready to chalk and cut.

Then I made a muslin fitting shell…one that did not quite work but headed me in the right direction, and one that did work after that.  Then I transfered all the corrections to the flat sloper pattern and have chalked the pattern while weighting the pattern on the back of the “leather” (one side at a time) and have cut out the “leather” with my newly sharpened big scissors.  I know you can also do this with a small-blade rotary cutter, but it requires a bigger mat than I have and the scissors work well.  I have an idea the rotary cutter would work best on true leather.  I still have another 18 pieces of interfacings, linings, and pocket bags to cut out before I start construction.

Here’s my pattern on the “leather’ with my “fancy” pattern weights…LOL…I should make myself some nice pattern weights, but who has the time?!

I have, however,  made a sample to see how my machine uses it, practice the seam finishing, and so forth.  What a dream!  I may be doing a lot more in this “leather”.  But I really do want to get back to my quilting. So I am thinking I can make a practice welted pocket in a square piece big enough to later use on a bag.  That way if I ruin it, I can try again without ruining the coat.

Sew happy everyone!  Try something new you haven’t tried before, or something you did long ago in the past that was more difficult than it would be today with today’s machines and products.  Now…back to cutting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sew Happy with My New Machine

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Classes, Embellishment, Embroidery, Food for Thought, Machines, My business, My Family, Sewing Clothing, Show Quilts, Workshops / 2 Comments

I have been blessed with a really fine new Bernina 880 Plus, aka Odette.  I have been doing a lot of work with the machine since I got it all settled down and I learned its little ins and outs.

I have been working on a quilt in  memory of my Mom.  Mom was a great beauty, a fabulous sewist. a woodworker, had been a nurse, and a home decorator.  She was a wonderful mother and wife during her life.  She taught me to sew and knit. This quilt is a hug and a bow to her sparkling memory.  I’m really enjoying working on it as I remember all the wonderful things she taught me and shared with me.

Mom (Zephana Bivens) in her woodshop at 78.

So my design for Mom’s memory quilt has a considerable amount of in-the-hoop embroidery in it.  Some of the embroidery designs came with my new machine, were some I had purchased or collected  in the past, and two of them I purchased just for this quilt.  In spite of when I got them, all the designs are from OESD and are amazingly well digitized and have stitched out wonderfully on my new machine.  I am so impressed with how beautiful the stitches are, how they don’t overly pull, and how wonderful they look when done.  I have three more to go, each requiring about two hours to complete.  Then I will sandwich, quilt, paint, wash and block, bind, and add crystals and pearls.

Mom, Dad, and my brother Pat before I was even on the way.

I also have done some additional sewing just to see how the machine works, testing all the attachments.  I got some special feet designed to work with leather and vinyl.  Just this week I bought enough beautiful faux leather to make my youngest son, the writer who shares this house with me, a coat and myself a jacket.  I’m excited about this project.

One of the things that came with my new machine is Bernina’s Big Book of Feet. I have been reading through it while babysitting the embroidery module doing its work.  I find I have most of the feet, since I had a Bernina 830 prior to this one and had collected them across the eight years and I got some new ones that came with the deal.  It’s so exciting when I can do and I will be sewing a lot of clothes and home decorating items over the next year as well as the planned show quilts on my list to explore some of these interesting techniques.  I’m thinking I might make some of the clothes as wearable art and enter them into shows also.  Maybe I will make a few bags and hats too.

Mom and me in May 1967. I am showing off the dress I made.

How exciting!  Will I get it all done?  Probably not, but it will be fun trying.  After nearly three months of working to get a good new machine following the breakdown of my 830, and another couple of weeks learning Odette’s ins and outs, I have concluded I have the best machine I have ever had.  It sews evenly, beautifully, and smoothly.  I foresee many years of exciting new projects ahead. Knock on wood!  LOL

I’m currently writing a book about embellishment that will include several sampler projects, just to fill in my spare time…hahahaha.  (Also, I am going to teach a class at G Street sometime in November on embellishment).

Embellish This! workshop sampler for November 2019 class.

Sew happy everyone!  Take time to learn what your machine can do.  Even some of the more basic machines will help you do some remarkable work if you take the time to explore it, but especially if you have a more advanced machine….take that time to read the manual, and try some new techniques to enhance your sewing.  It will give you lots of happiness in the process and with the items you make.

My Uncle and What’s Happening in My Studio

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Art Quilt Techniques, Church banners, My Family, selling quilts / 2 Comments

I’ve taken too long to write a new post.  This past month has had its lows and highs.

My uncle Betterton passed a week and a half ago.  He was 91 and was two years younger than my mom.  I had five aunts and six uncles on my mom’s side and one aunt on my Dad’s side and all are gone now, as well as my parents.   Uncle Betterton was one of my favorite uncles.  He was always close with my mom and someone everyone could rely on for help.  He had various tough illnesses the last several years, mild dementia, and is now no longer suffering.  He was a strong Christian.  Like my father, he was a civil engineer, both served in WWII, and he and Dad enjoyed a strong friendship.  My memories of him are sweet and dear and the pain of losing him is softened by his wonderful long giving life and his final release from the difficulties of his last few years.

Sew what’s going on in my studio these days?  My “apprentice” Anita and I finished the church banner celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.  The church members apparently love it, and I was really pleased with how it looks.  I have still not gotten a good photo of it, but I will share as soon as I do.  The big community celebration is next Sunday.  I guess this tells you that I attend a Lutheran church.  I do.  It’s five minutes drive from my house and the it’s a lovely church with services not far in liturgical style from the Episcopal church.  I grew up an Episcopalian.  For many years I drove down to Georgetown to go to the historic St John’s Episcopal in Georgetown where Marvin and I both were very active and sang in the choir.  After Marvin passed, I moved to Ashburn, Virginia, and the drive to Georgetown got even longer, so I looked for somewhere closer.  Our Savior’s Way Lutheran Church is in my neighborhood…now that’s a luxury I had not had for decades.

I have gotten a start on my next show quilt.  I’m not sure I would call them “show quilts” any longer, except that’s a term many understand.  I like to show them, but my primary goal for these quilts is to make wonderful art, and hopefully sell most of them in the long run.  Everything I make I hope to meet show quilt level, but sometimes show judges don’t seem to understand why the techniques I choose are done the way they are, or how difficult they really are.  Sometimes they seem to see things and remark on them that I simply cannot see, and sometimes I think they don’t see something about my quilts that I think is especially unique and interesting.  Maybe I need new glasses, a flashlight, and a better magnifying glass.  Or maybe I need a microscope.  LOL  So I have found a lot of freedom in reaching for creating beautiful art the best way I can make it and not worrying too much about what a judge might see or not see.  Competition can be rough on one’s ego.  He-he-he

Anyway, back to my latest project.  It’s based on the art piece I bought the rights for one art quilt from the Disney artist Joel Christopher Payne.  It’s set in the Bayou and has interesting trees, and two rather rundown homes with light peaking out through the cracks in the boards.  One is a houseboat, and the other is a shack built on stilts on a platform.  The scene is at night and there is a little pale light filtering through the trees in a way that suggests a heart shape, and there are fireflies.  This is a huge challenge for me, but really, I am enjoying myself so far.

I have the houseboat “built” and the shack about half done.  Yesterday I did a little low and high lighting with Neocolor II pigment crayons.  When you use them with fabric, you can just color it on and then brush it with water to blend it onto the fabric and then heat set it for a permanent color.  Sometimes when I heat set it, it gets lighter so I have to go back and add more color, but it’s a wonderful way to over color an existing fabric pattern to add shadows and lights where you need them or “correct” colors.  In this case, I have three different wood print fabrics that I have backed with Steam-a-Seam II light and cut into board shapes.  I am using these to “build” the shack and the houseboat.

The picture has really big trees that also have some Spanish moss hanging from them.  I have five different tree bark prints that I will use to make the tree appliqués.  They, too will need to be overpainted to get the right look and color,  I am planning on thread painting the Spanish moss on, and probably it will be more than Joel put in his picture because this is a fabric and threads interpretation of his wonderful art piece.

I have obtained some glow in the dark paints and threads to make the fireflies with, and the paint has some additional pigment so it will look good in light too.  I may add crystals to the fireflies for added dimension.

The biggest challenge as I see it is the light that is getting the back light that is coming through the trees and reflecting across the water right.  I am thinking this will have to be done with paint, but I’m still thinking about it.

Sew I hope you all have a wonderful week.  Try something new and push to get it as well done as possible.  I have a lot going on in my studio besides this new quilt, so I hope I will get back to my weekly blogs for a while.  Cheers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Space and Quilts

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Books, Deep space quilts, Food for Thought, My Family, Quilt Journal / 2 Comments

The Heavens declare the glory of God…(Psalm 19:1) 

Wow!  This week with the eclipse and spending that time with my 14 year-old grandson Kevin was soooo special!  We had eighty-five percent of the eclipse in a pure clear sky with the birds and the noisy cicadas in the woods behind us.  His parents, who are serious astronomy hobbyists, headed down to Tennessee to get in a total eclipse area, but he did not want to spend that long in the car.  The traffic for them was aweful and they had to spend an extra night in a motel on the way home, so he clearly made the right choice for him and it gave me and his uncle David a real special time together with Kevin even though it was not total here.  I am told Ken got some photos to process of the eclipse.  I am looking forward to seeing them.

This comes at an interesting time in my quilting life, because I am trying to line up a couple of new deep space quilts to fill out my space series inspired by the fabulous photos found in the NASA gallery.  The pictures have to be copyright free for me.  I have tried a couple of times to get in touch with the astronomers whose pictures NASA sometimes shows that are copyrighted and they simply ignore my inquiries.  But there are many many magnificent copyright free photos available to use for the basis of new quilts.  I will probably also include a couple of space quilts that may use other techniques inspired by Ken’s (oldest son, Kevin’s Dad) and Beth’s (his wife) photography and ideas.  I am planning on writing about making space quilts and including all of these in the book.  This will probably be a part of my ongoing project of Art Quilt Basics:  Surface Design and Embellishment that I hope to get published this year.  These quilts are practically all surface design and embellishment with organic, but well planned, quilting.  They are very hard to photograph because of all the light reflection, but I leave that to Ken, who does a credible job on it.

Spiral Galaxy No. 3: See this quilt in the upcoming MQX Midwest show!

So I am currently on the hunt for my next deep space quilt photo inspirations.  If you have a favorite, let me know in a comment  but do it soon, because I’m going to start working on this next space quilt very soon. ?

I hope you are all having fun with your art, sewing, or quilting.  I’m busy drawing up a couple of new ideas and making sampler quiltlets to include in my book project Art Quilt Basics:  Machine Quilting for Art Quilters (this book starts with the very basics for machine quilting (both feed dogs up and free motion) and moves through the process ending with a discussion and ideas specific for art quilters.

Sew happy everyone!  Make yourselves a stack of small quilt sandwiches and play.  You’ll be surprised how much fun it is…use all your machines.  You will benefit by improving your skills and having a lot of fun too.  Cheers.