Selling quilts

Sew it’s been a while. I’ve been enormously busy finishing my quilt for the Mid Atlantic Quilt Festival…and yes, I finished and I’m now working on my little Milky Way “You are Here” mini. It’s only about 20 x 20 inches and it’s for my part of the space exhibit at MQX. All of my deep space quilts will be there and this is just a little fun piece to show where we are in our home galaxy.

There are a lot of opinions out there in fabric art/quilting land about how to best start and stop your thread. Do you bury it? Do you stitch small stitches and cut close? Do you back it up and cut close? The answers to these questions can frustrate anyone dealing with this issue. Some quilters have no problems with it because they’ve already decided just what they are going to do and do it the same all the time. I however have a plethora of ways to get going and stop.

For the most part, I hate to bury knots. On my show quilts, especially, I stitch very densely in many areas, and sometimes there simply is no way to get that knot fully under the top without problems. Also, I’m not convinced it really holds down the thread any better than other methods. So I analyze what I’m working with and so forth to decide what to do. Let me just say at the start, that if I am making a utility quilt…baby, give away, cuddle on a cold night…I will back stitch or stitch a short stitch close cut. It just takes the rough and tumble better than buried knots. I’m sure there are those who will disagree with me about this, but I stand by it after 65 years of sewing. So here is how I handle this issue for wall and show quilts:

Thicker threads, such as 12 weights and some 30 weights almost require burying in some form because they just show up at the end. Maybe I will just bury them without a knot and carry the thread through the quilt fairly far using a long basting needle. If it works out in my overall quilting, I bury the thicker thread and stitch over the end in my background quilting, but that doesn’t always work.
Very thin threads of 50, 60 or 100 weight can easily just be cut close after some close stitching…say 15 stitches per inch (spi), so I never bury those.

But what about those 40 weights and specialty threads, such as monopoly and metallics? Well, it has been my experience that these very lively threads WORK better and stay better with a careful back trace stitching and then cut close. I am not sure judges will agree with me, but the thing is, such lively threads WILL come up from a bury even when knotted if certain directions of friction are encountered in the handling of the quilt for shipping and hanging and unhanging. If stitched carefully enough, a backtrack is virtually unnoticeable, except you can probably see it with a magnifying glass and a flashlight. (Did you know that some judges look st your quilts that way?) But I decided my metallics will be backstitched and close cut since they go through a lot when sent to shows. If you decide to do this, go really slowly when you backstitch and get it as exact as possible.

The 40 weights are the problem because they aren’t easily determined. Some of them, such as Superior’s Magnifico and Sulky’s rayons are really shiny and show up everything, especially with a high contrast. So in that case, I will probably bury them with the long thread no knot method if I can bring myself to do it. LOL. Some of them, such as Superior’s King Tut, a cotton thread, will melt into the background when the contrast is low. They do well with a short stitch close cut ending.

Sew the answer then is either to quilt so well and planned that you NEVER have a start or stop (LOL) or to test the starts and stops before setting out on quilting that special project and decide how you are going to approach it. Also, always be flexible as you go, because when you are quilting certain places you can change your mind.

Sew Happy Everyone! May your dreams be met, your life be full of love and simply lovely!

By the way, I need some funds to help me keep my dreams for 2018 going, so I am hoping to sell several of my quilts this year to finance my attending the Houston show and keep me in stitches (LOL) and make room in my house for more. You can see which ones on my website gallery…just scroll over the quilt and you can see the price and size. Contact me if you are interested in one and maybe we can work something out that suits your budget. I’ve instituted a lay away plan for the quilts. If you don’t want to buy a quilt but do want to help, there is a donate button on this blog if you are so inclined and the funds will all go to financing my trip or keeping this blog going.

Waiting…

I just sold Waiting… yesterday. It has been hanging in G Street Fabrics Bernina section for about a month now, along with a couple of my other quilts I have decided to sell. I love this quilt. It took me over a year to make (off and on…probably about six months full time). I sent it through several national shows, and used it a bit for my show and tell trunk shows, but the judges thought the borders were too wide and so forth. I actually agree with them now, but I will tell you that feedback to me personally from people who have seen it was the most positive of any quilt I have made before or since. Several people–even men–have actually wept over the quilt, as did the buyer.

The one-on-one responses have been so strong that I decided to make a whole series of quilts based on the heart-tugging circumstance of women (and some children) waiting at home for their men to return from war or other dangerous and totally necessary jobs down through history. The women faced difficult and sometimes dangerous lives while their husbands were gone, and many kept the home going, raised their children, and fed their families while their husbands went and came back from their important jobs. Or they did not come back! Currently, I am working on the second in the series. This will be very similar to the one above, except the borders are different, or non -existent, and the woman is a little better dressed and has her daughter with her. The ship is going to be better also, I hope, and there will be a distant light house. I have been working hard to get the sky and sea fabrics right, and I think I have finally done that, so I am constructing the top and trying to come up with a name.

It is hard for me to sell my quilts. I put a lot of myself into them. But it is also an honor when someone loves one so much that they buy it. I am so happy it is going to a couple who love it and told me personally they are planning to cherish it and pass it down to their family. I need the money, I need the space in my home for more quilts, and I need to sell more quilts for these reasons.

Day before yesterday I took down my online shop where I had my quilts for sale because it was getting no response and I had originally been told that they were going to have downloadable product capabilities by the end of last year. They have changed that apparently. So yesterday while I was investigating different ways to sell my quilts and downloadables I got the call from G Street. I’ll leave the other two quilts at G Street for a little longer and then maybe make some changes. They are beautiful, but don’t have the same emotional tug, so we’ll see what happens. They are:

Quiet Celebration, Second Place winner in Hoffman Challenge 2011 in its category and also shown in Ireland, and

The Storyteller, Hoffman Challenge 2013

Sew happy, everyone! Go make yourself some art for your walls. By the way, I haven’t forgotten the idea of a quilt work-along that I advanced some weeks back. I’m working on the pattern now. Also, I am working on samples for my first book.

Starting and Stopping Thread Work and Quilting

The Waiting… Series of Quilts and Other News