Teach someone to sew or quilt

Here We Are in 2020! Merry 12th Night of Christmas!

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Embellishment, Food for Thought, My micro-business, quilt shows, Show Quilts, Software

Sampler practice piece.

Hi everyone!  Merry 12th night of Christmas (today January 5th 2020)!

Sew I will be leaving for California two weeks from today to visit my brother and his family and go to Road to California show with my brother Pat and sister in law Carol.  I would appreciate your prayers for an easy, safe trip! They have gone to R2CA twice before when I had quilts in the show.  I have a quilt in this show too…The Wizards’ Duel.  It looks a little different from this picture (I must get a new photo made).  I took the judge’s comments from Mid Atlantic Quilt Festival 2018 to heart and fixed the lower left mountainous rocks and added additional quilting and painting to the entire rocky area.  Then I sent it to Pennsylvania National Quilt Festival in Oak, PA and won a blue ribbon for Best Interpretation of Theme.  So I am hopeful I get some kind of ribbon at R2CA this year.  We will be there Wednesday night the 22nd, all day that Thursday, and a little bit that Friday morning.  I hope to see some of you there!

Wizards’ Duel before I improved the rocky area.

If you saw my last blog post you know I have lots of plans for this year, so I won’t relist that.  I know I have listed more quilts than I can possibly make, but then I can choose the ones I feel like making and put the others on the shelf for later.

By the way, if you got a Bernina v8 software for Christmas or some such, remember I have a book with skill-building projects to help you learn to really enjoy that software, Twelve Skill-Building Projects for V8.

Carrying on the skill-building theme, I am writing a skill building book on fabric embellishment, and another skill-building projects on various quilting styles good for art quilts.  I hope to get these two books published this year!  They require samples when I don’t already have one.  I like “skill-building” because it is not trying to tell you every little thing, but provide projects that will enable new or improved skills for your own fabric art.  I also am planning on making lots of new videos for my YouTube channel, but not until I get back home.

Sew happy everyone!  I hope you manage to get to at least one quilt show this year.  If you can’t get to one you really want to there are usually a lot of interesting YouTube videos about some of the shows.  I will take my cameras with me, but not sure what I will get done with that since I will be there with family.

Working with “Leather” Tips

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in A Little How-To, Fabric Review, Fabrics, Machines, Making Clothes, Sewing Clothing, Techniques, Tools / 2 Comments

I am finally in the construction phase of the “leather” coat for my youngest son and it has been a time of learning and relearning. It has also taken me much longer to get here than I thought it would, but as I work, I am remembering a lot of the cool things I had learned decades ago that are helping me now, so I am speeding up.  I have now worked with this faux leather enough to know I really like it.  It has just the right weight, a good hand, and responds well to construction steps.  It is a vast improvement over faux leathers of the past.

Sew here are a few hints if you want to try your hand at working with such “leather”.

  1. I found that my Bohin chalk marker I use for quilting works well for marking.

    Bohin chalk marker

  2. After you get your flat pattern adjusted and a muslin piece fitted (essential) and ready to use, you have to mark each piece one side at a time on the back of the “leather”.  First, cut out the pattern carefully, then weight it down flat on the back of the “leather” and chalk around the pattern.  Cut carefully with scissors or rotary cutter (small rotary cutter will cut around the curves better).  Accuracy of the cutting will make a difference in the finished product.  This process takes about three times or more of pinning a pattern on woven fabric folded in half and then cutting out both sides of each piece together.

    Here’s my pattern on the “leather’ with my “fancy” pattern weights…LOL  Note some of the pieces chalked in ready to cut.

  3. You cannot readily pin the “leather” because the hole stays permanently.  Exception:  I pinned a few places where I really needed help keeping it together for stitching, but making certain the pin holes will be in the seam or hidden some other way.
  4. Clips work really well as a substitute for pinning when working along the edges for most of your stitching needs, and blue painter’s tape works great when you need some help where you can’t put a pin or a clip.

    The collars for this project are constructed with a separate under collar, interestingly shaped collar stands that are added before joining the collar pieces. Here you see the collar stand seam has been top stitched open and the collar pieces are clipped together ready to sew.

  5. You really need a teflon foot for most stitching (see my last post for the feet I am using), but I also have added my clear plastic foot number 34D Bernina that allows me to see the exact placement of the needle when making a bound welt pocket.

    Reverse pattern foot 34D, clear with marks and works with dual feed.

    In the case of the plastic foot, I was using my dual feed and stitching very slowly.  It worked well for this purpose, but for regular stitching at normal it really is best with a teflon foot.

  6. Marking carefully is vital when making welt pockets and don’t try to push yourself when you get tired.  I actually ruined one of the coat fronts late in my sewing day after the sun had gone down, and had to recut that piece and the binding pieces and start over by doing that.  So I suggest you buy an extra length of the longest piece in your pattern to be able to recut if need be.  You can use the leftovers for bags, hats, eye glass covers, and other interesting small projects.  I will be using that ruined piece as part of a bag I plan to make, so it isn’t really lost.  The next day, I got the pockets in really nicely and now I am so confident in making such pockets I will probably start using them on a regular basis again.

  7. I am using a seam roller gadget to “press” the seams open, but that is just temporary and the seams need to be either top stitched down or glued.
  8. I found you can iron on fusible interfacing on the wrong side at a lower iron setting than you normally use, no steam, and with a quilting cotton pressing cloth.  Be careful, press, don’t iron, and test your own “leather” first.  I am using a pellon tailoring interfacing.  Do NOT iron on the right side of the “leather” and I suggest you not try to iron the seams and completed turned pieces either.

Sew I will publish at least one more post on this project showing you the end result.  I am writing this information up into a how-to book including this and other projects.  There is a lot more to tell you about this.

Sew happy everyone.  I encourage you to take a look at the current day vegan leathers and try working with it.  There are a lot of interesting “leathers” out there and they come in different textures and weights.

 

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!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Encouraging Enthusiasm in Quilting and Sewing

Posted on by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Food for Thought, Quilt Journal, quilt shows, Sewing Clothing, Teaching Kids / 4 Comments

Woman sewing

Gloomy feelings are prevalent in the quilting community recently at the announcements of the closures of several quilt-related magazines and businesses, or parts of businesses.  I was recently talking with a close friend of mine about this. These things have a way of being self-fulfilling prophesies by making people hesitate to dive in and do things because they think the industry is closing and they don’t want to invest their time and money in a failing pursuit if supplies, or when fellow quilters might not be around.  Linda Thielfoldt captured it well in her blog post in which she ends up by calling on us to mentor a child.

Sew let us think about this a bit and brush the dust off of our dreams for making that piece of funky or pretty art for your wall,  a well-tailored jacket, a set of decorative pillows to spruce up your living space, a really nice outfit to wear to special occasions, some new pot holders, or how about that costume for your favorite fun festival or party.  Sewing and quilting can be calming and also a fun adventure.

I’ve actually seen recent comments from quilters or sewists criticizing other sewists for the way they shop or buy a class, or blaming problems on the “aging” quilters, who, they assume, don’t buy anything anymore (WRONG!!!); or on young sewists and quilters who have very little time and not so much money so they pull learning and patterns from where they can. Such comments are not helpful.

I call upon these naysayers and those who are worried to welcome all manner of quilting and sewing into our folds…the costume maker, the art quilter, the modern quilter, the traditional quilter, the tailored clothes maker, the hat maker, the bag maker, the doll maker, the sewist who makes items for charity, the ten minutes-at-a-time stitcher, the incredibly talented hand stitcher, and those who do all of these things just because they can.

man sewing 1912

Sewing and quilting is an adventure, an occupation that takes our minds off of the difficulties of life, the politics, the horrible things happening in the world, and gives us the opportunity to think about how to construct that tote bag, or make that art quilt, or tailor that jacket to wear to work.  In the end, moreover, we often end up with something truly wonderful.

I do also hope we can stop categorizing the sewists of this world into preconceived ideas in a way that may limit opportunities.  The younger quilter is not always interested in modern quilting.  The older quilter is not always interested in traditional quilting.  The middle-aged quilter is often ignored in discussions of this type.  The art quilter is often as committed to excellence in their craft as the traditional quilter.  Some people have jobs or other responsibilities that don’t allow them time to take half a day to shop or  go to that show.  Sew, wonderfully, they download classes (some of which are wonderful and thereby they support that teacher), they order on the Internet (maybe even from their local fabric store)…but they order and they take classes, they buy that fabric and thread and machines.  This activity will keep the industry alive even if it doesn’t help our neighborhood fabric store with the owners who have been in business for decades and are ready to retire to do their own sewing.

Red, my favorite color, is not as plentiful in my home as I would have expected. I staged this in my studio using the red things I could find that seemed to go together. Interesting challenge. Shot with my Nikon D200 on tripod, no flash, f14.

I hope we will continue to support each other and encourage the “ancient quilter” making something spectacularly different, the middle-aged man sewing a vintage costume, the college student making something for their dorm room, or the twelve year old boy quilting.  Let’s keep this industry alive with enthusiasm even as it changes to encompass the new methods of communication and shopping!

DSCN0129

Sew happy everyone!  I loved Linda Thielfoldt’s blog about mentoring new young sewers.  This is important.  Might I suggest, also, that it does not just have to be a young person (though, again, this is important)…an older person with a little more time and money on their hands might also want to get in on the fun and then pass it on to their young person.