Month: April 2019

I wrote a couple of blogs about Thinking Outside the Quilting Box.  These were published a few weeks ago and at that time I promised to revisit a concept I mentioned in the second of those blogs.  The concept concerns what I call the “muddying” of the fabric world. 

Color is so important.  Just think how vital it is in everyday life.  Red means stop.  Yellow, you yield.  Green means go.  Black clouds indicate a storm.  Color concepts are ingrained in us as a child.  We learn to mix colors and what colors look good on us.  We learn what colors evoke happiness in our soul and what colors aren’t appealing to us at all.  What we learn pretty quickly is that all of the colors are important.  There are none we can live without.

I think color sensitivity is even greater in people that are artists – painters, sculpture artists, musicians, – I think any artist tends to be more in tune with colors and the emotions they can generate.  Quilters are no different.  We contemplate colors with a great degree of seriousness in our quilts.  We appreciate all of them, even the ones we’re not crazy about.  I’m not a fan of brown, but I can tell you in all honesty, I have a half a shelf full of brown material because I need it in blocks and especially in applique.

When I began quilting in the mid-eighties, a trip to the fabric store for fabric was a little different experience than it is now.  There was lots of fabric, and if the fabric store had a quilting department, it was often arranged in colors, but that was about it.  Yes, you had companies that produced quilting fabric, but it was rarely, if ever, introduced in what we call “families.”  A fabric family is a group of quilt fabrics released together.  They all harmonize.  Generally, there are one to two solids or small prints that can read as a solid, a medium-sized print or two, and one or two fabrics that are larger print and/or can read as a focus fabric. 

These are usually gorgeous fabric and I’ll be the first to admit a yard or three will find its way in my shopping cart and come home with me.  For beginning quilters, it makes choosing their fabrics super-easy.  And there’s nothing wrong with this, other than the fact it can negate the color-quality of your quilt.  In a nutshell, a quilt – any quilt – should be constructed of a light (neutral) fabric, two or three medium fabrics, a focus fabric, and at least one dark fabric.  Below are some good examples of these fabrics:

My problem with a lot of the current fabric families is that there are no true darks.  They’re all medium-tone fabrics.  For instance, a few weeks ago I purchased this material from a fabric family.  I absolutely love these fabrics.  They’re the Pantone colors of the year.  I’m using them in a beginning quilt class I will start teaching at the end of April. 

However, they are all mediums.  Do you know how I know that?  Let’s take that picture and flip it to black and white.

Even the darkest fabric that I plan on using for the borders, is still somewhat of a medium due to the print. Once I transposed the colored picture of the material to a black and white image, all the fabric read gray, which means they are all medium-tone fabrics. 

That’s where this “Muddying of the Fabric World” begins.  If you use all mediums in your quilt, there is no sparkle.  The darks and the lights give a quilt the pizazz it needs to shine.  But in most fabric families, while there is a definite light, there is no definite dark.  When a quilter uses all medium-toned fabrics in a quilt, there is no clear color value distinction and when that occurs, it’s called “muddying.” 

You need to avoid this, if possible.  I plan on using the fabrics above in my beginners quilt class. Since it is a “newbie” quilt class, I’m not so concerned with color value (that will be introduced in the next class), as I am about my students learning how to keep a consistent ¼-inch seam, learning how to use a rotary cutter, and becoming comfortable with their sewing machine.  Pretty fabric attracts new devotees, and that’s what I’m after in the beginning.  So, when I pulled from my stash to make a rail fence quilt, I chose the prettiest fabric I had.  And truly, if you’re making a cuddle quilt or something along those lines, you may choose just to pick fabrics that you have on hand or the ones that make you happy.

But overall, any quilter should at least understand how to avoid a “muddy” quilt.  The trick is to have a true light or neutral and at least one true dark.  The light or neutral fabric is pretty easy, but time has changed the definition of this word.  Thirty years ago, when I first put needle to fabric, the “light” fabric in a quilt was truly a light fabric – tan, ecru, beige, white, light gray, or any other color that fell within these boundaries.  As years passed, this definition grew and expanded to encompass pinks, yellows, blues, and lavenders.  It also includes low-volume fabric – this is material that has small black print on a white background, with the print having lots of space between each other (see picture below).  The primary concept to remember is keep the light/neutral color-volume constant.  This means in a non-scrappy quilt, to keep it the same fabric or at least the same color-volume.  In scrappy quilts, it is still the same concept – you may use a lot of different lights, but make sure they’re have the same color volume.  In other words, don’t throw in a medium brown and try to make it play the role of a light.  It won’t work.  It will stick out like a sinner in church.

The same concept holds true with a dark fabric – keep the color volume consistent.  But with darks, a quilter can run into trouble choosing a true dark.  If you’re not careful, a medium-volume fabric will be chosen as the dark.  That won’t work well.  To avoid this, let’s go back to our black and white picture to get a good picture of what a real dark looks like. 

The medium-volume fabrics show up as grays.  The darks are almost black.  For me, the easiest way to make sure I have mediums, lights, and darks is to take a picture with my iPhone and then edit the picture to turn it into a black and white image.  From there it’s easy to see if I have a real dark instead of a medium.  Or you can use a pink fabric filter as shown below (when you look through this, all fabrics will show up as light grays, medium grays, or blacks)

However, if you’re ever at a fabric store or somewhere else and you don’t have your phone or one of those pink filters with you, there’s still a concept that can help you chose the correct volume fabrics.

Let me introduce to my Barbie Fabric Concept. 

Introduced to this doll in the 1960’s, I loved Barbie dolls.  I had lots of them, and while I adored the doll, I loved the clothes even more.  Ever the fashion icon, Barbie won many hearts over with her classic pink, white, and black outfits – her trademark colors.  And those colors are where by Barbie Fabric Concept comes into play.  Keep those three classic colors in mind:

And substitute your fabric for each color.

For instance, for the white…if your neutral would work as a white in the color concept, your good to go.

If your mediums would substitute well for a pink, then there’s your true medium.

And if your dark would fit in well for a black, you’ve chosen well.

In closing, I would like to encourage you with another concept of mine:  Shop the entire store (or website).  Lights, mediums, and darks can be found all through a fabric store, quilt shop, or website.  You don’t have to stick to one fabric family.  White staying within one fabric family makes your quilt life easier, it does take the adventure out of fabric hunting.  However, if you do decide to use all of one family (and we have all done that – including yours truly), make sure your dark is a true dark.

Until next week, Quilt with Passion!

Love and Stitches,

Sherri and Sam

I love thread.

I love fabric, but I also love thread.  The choice of thread in your project is just as important as the fabric you pick.  Different thread works for different effects in your quilting.  I’ve always known this, but it wasn’t until I acquired Loretta the Long Arm that my true love affair with thread began.  Why then?  Well, long arms, as a whole, can be pretty darn picky about the stuff you run through their needles.  Then I purchased Emily the Embroidery Machine, and she completely upped my thread game.

Let’s start with piecing thread and move on from there.  It would seem, after everything else is prepped to get ready to piece – reading through the directions, choosing the fabric, cutting it out – that the thread is really not that big of a deal.  But it is.  Trust me.  I’ve written several blogs about piecing thread, and I’m not going to revisit all those details (if you’re really curious, Google my blogs on thread), but I will hit the highlights.  First, you want a long staple thread.  Thread can be made in two ways – with shorter fibers that are wound and twisted around each other or with longer fibers that are wound and twisted around each other.  You want to go with the longer fiber thread – also called long staple.  The long staple fibers supply two important factors to your sewing experience.  First, because they are long, they don’t break as often as the short staple thread.  Second, they produce less lint  – so it’s “healthier” for the machine. 

Also, remember the higher the number on the spoon, the finer the thread. Somewhere on the spool should be a number.  A lower number, such as 30, indicates a thicker thread.  That thread is suitable for machine applique or quilting, because it’s a thicker thread.  It’s not made for piecing.  Because the thread is thicker, it takes up more room in your seam.  And since precision piecing generally requires that the ¼-inch seam be treated as accurately as possible, a thicker thread will throw that seam allowance off a bit.  Look for a thread that’s a 40 or less.  My favorite is a 60.  If you can’t remember all those numbers, thread companies such as Aurifil and Superior Thread (two of my favorite thread companies) now simply offer the “Piecing” category.  These threads are finer and piece wonderfully.  My very favorite piecing thread is Alex Anderson’s Master Piece thread.  It’s fine, but it’s strong.  These thinner threads don’t take up a lot of room in the seam allowance, keeping those ¼-inch seams truly the correct size. 

Decorative threads require different consideration.  This choice depends on how you want your quilt to look.  I’m also talking primarily machine applique at this point, not the decorative stitches that might be available on your sewing machine or anything done on an embroidery machine.  The first consideration should be is the type of machine applique – is it raw-edge or prepped edge?  If it’s raw-edge applique, then there will be lots of thread changes – you’re going to make sure the thread matches the fabric (unless you’re going for a 1930’s vintage look and using all black thread throughout).  With raw edge applique, either a zig-zag stitch or a blanket stitch is used, so the next consideration is the thread.  Check this one out:

I use lots of different kinds of thread with raw-edge applique, depending on the look I want.  I’ve used embroidery machine thread, quilting thread, and regular 40-60 weight machine piecing thread.  What I use depends on the way I want my applique to appear on the quilt.  If I want only the applique to stand out, I will opt for a finer thread and will usually go with a machine embroidery thread.  I will also tighten up my stitch.  I use a blanket stitch with REA, so I will shorten my stitch to make sure that the fabric edges are completely surrounded with thread. 

However, if I want my thread and fabric to sing harmony together, I will go with either a 40-60 weight machine piecing thread or a thicker, decorative thread so that it will be noticed.  I will keep my machine stitches at the factory-set default on my machine, unless my applique pieces are small. 

At this point, let me also sing the praises of variegated thread.  I know variegated thread can give long arm artists issues (the bobbin thread and top thread colors will not match up and if the tension is off, the bobbin thread will show on the quilt top), but for machine applique – either raw-edge or prepped edge – variegated thread is awesome.  For instance, if I’m constructing a floral applique, using lots of greens, I can use a spool of variegated green.  That way, instead of changing thread colors every time I applique a different green, the variegated with blend right in and I don’t have to stop and change out spools.  It’s a game-changer and time saver. 

Prepped-edge applique is a bit different.  The applique edges are turned under and pressed.  A monofilament thread (either clear or smoke) or a fine thread that matches the fabric is used.  You’re more limited with thread choice on this type of machine applique.  The applique is the star and there are no co-stars.  The thread holds only the supporting role. 

Now let’s talk about thread for quilting.  Thread choice in this area used to be limited, since it was always assumed that most quilters were either hand quilting their quilts or quilting them on their domestic machine. Either method used the same type of thread.  With the cost of long arms dropping considerably in the last 10-15 years, this has completely upped the quilting thread game to new levels.  And allow me to blast another quilting myth out of the universe:  You don’t have to use cotton thread to quilt your quilt.   For years quilters were instructed to only use cotton thread.  The thinking was that polyester thread would cut through the cotton fabric and cotton batting.

Let me be the first to tell you, polyester thread has come a long way.  It’s been re-researched and redeveloped out the wazoo.  It’s now fine to use a polyester thread on your all-cotton quilt top. 

Whether you are using a domestic, mid-arm, or long-arm machine, it’s important to decide how you want the quilting stitches to appear.  Do you want them to accentuate the quilt blocks, blend into the background, or be the star of the show?  A quilter has to consider what role the quilting will play with the top.  If I’m making a whole-cloth quilt (or something similar), the quilting will truly be the star of the show.  I may opt for a thicker thread than I would normally use so the quilting stitches will stand out.  If I want it to blend in with the blocks, I may choose a “regular” quilting thread –something around the 40-weight rage.  If I want my quilting stitches to sink into the back ground, I will pick as fine of a thread as my long arm will take.

Let me state here that sewing machines can be pretty persnickety about the thread you used when you’re quilting on them.  Get to know what your machine likes and what it absolutely refuses to work with.  If I’m quilting on my domestic machine (Big Red) or if I drag my mid-arm out to quilt on her, almost any type of thread will do.  Neither of them is very picky, unless the thread short-staple, cheap stuff.  Variegated?  No problem.  Thick thread?  Not an issue, as along as I’m using the right needle.  Super-fine thread? Sews with it like a hot knife through butter.

I’ve learned the hard way that Loretta the Long Arm is a different machine.  Most long arms are.  If you have a friend that has a long arm and he or she raves about a certain kind of thread, don’t be surprised if your machine coughs and sputters all the way through the spool.  For instance, Loretta is a King Quilter, which is a kind of generic Tin Lizzie.  For years I heard about the wonders of Glide thread.  After I had her all put together, I purchased a couple of spools of Glide, threaded her up, and tried to practice. 

Loretta gagged through the entire process.  Fortunately, I had only purchased two spools, so no major financial investment here.  I gave those spools to a friend that has an APQS machine.  Loretta also does not like variegated (has to do with the dying process and weak areas in the thread). Her favorite thread is this:

That’s right.  Serger thread.  Loretta is a cheap date, if nothing else. 

Currently, I’m loving this thread from Superior Thread Company.

It is literally only two strands of ultra-fine polyester thread.  But it quilts so beautifully and all my machines – even Loretta – love this thread. 

Next to fabric, thread is the second most awesome thing about quilting.  Learn to love it.  Learn which thread to use with each quilt step and what needle to use with each weight of thread.  Begin a love affair with it. 

Now let me put my standard disclaimer here:  I’m not employed by Superior Thread Company or Aurifil Thread.  I’ve used both products for years without any compensation and have found both the product and each company’s customer service to be stellar.

Until Next Week, Quilt with Passion!

Love,

Sherri and Sam

This week we’re continuing our discussion dealing with “Think Outside of the Box” quilting.  Due to some of the questions that have been asked, I need to define the “Box” a bit more clearly.  Primarily, I consider the “Box” to be the directions that come with the pattern, or any quilting “rules” that you think can’t be broken. 

There.  With the “Box” defined, let’s think about some other ways to get outside of it.

To me, one of the most obvious ways to get really creative with your quilt is the borders.  A lot of quilt patterns just put the borders on as plain strips of fabric – completely unadorned and not planned out at all.  Consider those long, plain strips of fabric your canvas and you are Michael Angelo.  Those borders are the blank ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  You can throw in cornerstones.  You can add applique.  You can piece them.  As long as the borders fit properly around the quilt center, the sky is the limit.  Don’t ever let plain borders be the last defining factor on your quilt.  If you read my 2018 blogs on borders, you know how I feel about that – plain borders are merely an afterthought.  A period on your quilt statement that deserves an exclamation point. 

Bindings fall into this “out of the box” category, too.  Most of the time we (myself included here), cut that 2 ¼-inch to 2 ½-inch strip of fabric, fold it, press it, sew it on the quilt and call it a day.  But if desired, there are other edge finishes out there, as also discussed in my 2018 blogs.  You can do a knife-edge finish, prairie points, or throw some piping or a flange on that top.  There are quite a few ways to spice up that piping if you want to. 

As we wrap up these “Thinking Outside the Quilt Box” blogs I want to reassure you of a few things.  First, you have the ability to make changes in your quilt.  The pattern is truly just the GPS suggestion to get to from point A to the finish line of your quilt.  You may choose the most direct path by following the directions to the letter from start to finish.  There’s nothing wrong with this.  Sometimes that’s all a quilt needs or all you desire.  But every once in a while, you may want to take the scenic route to get to your destination.  Take a trip off the beaten path.  That’s when you use the directions as merely a suggestion – how much fabric to purchase, how big the blocks should be once constructed, etc.  Then turn the GPS off and take the back roads to get to where you’re going.

And the back road is where your creativity and ability as a quilt artist will shine.  And the more you do this, the brighter the shine.  So, in this year of Quilting with Passion, I would like to challenge you – and myself – to change at least one thing in every quilt you make.  It doesn’t have to be a big change.  Small changes count – from how you make half-square triangles to adding cornerstones to a border.  Small changes can lead to big changes.  And yes, you’re going to make mistakes (remind me to tell you about my spray basting fiasco), but we learn from every mistake we make.  That’s how our quilts teach us.  And thankfully, most of those mistakes stay between us and our quilts.  But these small changes will lead to big changes.  And pretty soon, all those quilts we make will be truly ours in every sense of the word. 

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So, about my spray basting fiasco…

I do have a long arm.  Her name is Loretta.  And I do use her a lot.  However, on small quilting projects – especially those using straight-line quilting – I will throw those on Big Red. 

I do this for a couple of reasons.  First, I’ve learned loading a small project on my long arm takes twice as long as loading a large project on my long arm.  And second, with straight-line quilting on a small piece, it’s just easier on Big Red than on Loretta.  This particular piece has tight crosshatching in the background, with the lines ½-inch apart.

You may remember that when you quilt on a long arm, you don’t have to baste or pin your quilt.  The long arm keeps the quilt sandwich in place.  On a domestic machine, you have use safety pins, thread baste, or basting spray to hold everything together or else some part of the quilt sandwich will shift. 

I remembered that.  And since it was a small piece (roughly 15” x 17”), I decided I would just use a shot of spray baste to keep everything together.  What I didn’t remember was how long it had been since I used my can of Quilt Basting Spray.  I layered everything, shook the can, and pushed the button on the top….

To have this happen.  It sputtered and left large drops everywhere.  All over the background fabric and batting.  I tried everything to get it out – peroxide, Awesome, even my Norwex cleaning towels.  Nada.  I set it aside, went to bed, and prayed for a miracle – that I would wake up the next morning and the drops of basting spray would all be gone.

Nope.

 I am re-making this small project.  However, this time I will pin the darn thing.  I dropped kicked that can of spray baste into the trashcan.  Moral of the story – if you use spray baste, check the nozzle before applying.  If it’s caked with the adhesive, run it under hot water to clean it and then proceed.

The upside is this allowed me an additional opportunity to try a different thread in the crosshatching.  I think I like this thread better.  So, the situation wasn’t all bad.  There was a thread rainbow behind the clouds. 

So, until next week, Quilt with Passion!

Love and Stitches,

Sherri and Sam

Once upon a time, a long time ago, when I was an educator, somewhere during the late ‘80’s or early ‘90’s the catch phrase, “Think outside the box,” came into play.  This four-word phrase was bandied about quite a bit, not only in the teaching arena, but the business world also had its fair share of the words.  Workshops were held to teach people how to “think outside the box.”  Books were written.  Articles and talk TV pushed the “out of the box” agenda.

The first thing about the “box” was defining it.  It wasn’t a box as we know it (like what all our Amazon goodies come in).  The “box” represented the status quo.  And to stop using the status quo, you had to think creatively.  In my field (education), it meant employing different teaching techniques to meet the learning needs of your students.  It meant (sometimes) abandoning the lesson plan and employing a more kinetic-type of class room. In other words, the mind set of “We do it this way because we’ve always done ______ this way,” was no longer an excuse not to be effective.  The times demanded change and that change (to whatever field) had to work better and be more effective than the past.

Did it work?  Sometimes.  In the teaching field there was some big breakthroughs.  The point was, we were finally given permission to use other creative learning techniques in the classroom. 

That’s what I want to do in the next blog or two.  I want to help quilters begin to “think out of the quilting box.”  I’ve played around with this idea a bit in 2018, when I confronted the myth of the quarter-inch seam and a few other standard quilting rules.  But what I want to do with the next few blogs is to challenge you to think out of the box as a quilt artist.  Making a quilt is more than just choosing the fabric and then working towards that last binding stitch.  It’s an entire creative process and sometimes it’s good for the soul to change up the plan.  This is not only what makes for a good quilt, it makes for an innovative and creative quilter, and becoming a better quilter should be just as much of a goal as making a better quilt. 

So, let’s start at the beginning – or at least my usual beginning – and that’s the pattern.  On rare occasions I will find a fabric and design a quilt around it.  However, most of the time, I find or design a pattern and then pick out the material.  Usually the pattern has some type of applique on it, since that’s my first love.  The first thing I do with the pattern is pull out the direction sheet and read it through.  This gives me the GPS coordinates to my destination — my finished quilt.  Then I Google the pattern to see if anyone else has made the quilt, blogged about it, or better yet – has a YouTube video on it.  This can let me know if there are errors in the pattern, or if it’s simply a pain in the butt to make.  Either of those (depending on the error or the degree of the PITB) may make me re-think the quilt.

From there those GPS directions are merely a suggestion.  I may not opt to take the closest path from point A to point B.  I may determine an alternate route.  I may decide to take the scenic route.  For instance, see this seam?

This is called a Y-seam.  In order to make that, there is a series of starts a quarter-inch from the edge as well as stops a quarter-inch from the edge and then setting that piece into other pieces.  If that sounds a little complicated, well, it is…sort of.  It’s definitely not a beginner quilter technique.  In Harriet Hargrave’s Quilter’s Academy series, it’s not taught until the fourth book.  I can execute the technique, but I’ll be honest with you – I hate Y-seams.  Hate them.  And why do them if you can make some half-square triangles that can be positioned to look like a Y-seam without the hassle? 

I can make HSTs all day and make them very well and produce the desired look a lot faster than I can make a Y-seam.  If the quilt is not show-bound, I will change up the pattern to use HST if Y-seams are involved.  However, if I do plan on entering the quilt in a show, I will stick to the Y-seam.  Why?  It’s more difficult to execute and if done well, scores serious points with a quilt judge.

This is part of what I mean by thinking outside the quilt box.  If there’s a technique I don’t like to use, I see what I can do to change it or eliminate it.  No one is going to know the difference but me and I certainly won’t lose any sleep over it.

Picking my fabrics is the next thing I do, and while this is my very favorite part of making a quilt, it’s also one of my pet peeves.  When I work with my quilt students or am with a fellow quilter doing some strategic fabric retrievals (i.e. fabric shopping), nothing irritates me more than hearing the phrase, “I want my quilt to have the exact same fabric that’s on the pattern.” 

Seriously?  You want your quilt to be the exact replica of another person’s quilt?  Really? 

I get it on some level.  There are some absolutely gorgeous quilts out there on Pinterest and other websites.  And sometimes making an exact replica of that quilt works for your home or for the person you will give the quilt to.  But a steady diet of copying quilts exactly color for color, fabric for fabric, and stitch for stitch can stifle your creativity.  I would really, really like to take this chance to encourage you to use the camera on your phone and take a picture of the quilt.  Use whatever settings are on your phone to transfer the photo into a black and white image. Take this quilt for instance:

It’s made from wonderful fabrics with wonderful colors.  But what if, as much as you may like this quilt, those colors either aren’t your favorites (or the person you plan on gifting the quilt to may not like them) or they simply don’t go with the colors in your home?  Before you make a trip to the hardware store to buy paint to make the walls match your quilt, there is a simpler solution. 

Let’s flip the quilt image to black and white.

When this is done, you can see the quilt image in hues of white, gray, and darks – almost blacks.  This is all you need to take the quilt design and make it work for you.  For the white areas, choose true lights.  For the gray areas, pick medium fabrics, and for the dark areas, pick true darks.  I say this with emphasis, because the minute you choose a medium and try to make it work as a dark, it muddies your quilt.  I promise blog on this very soon. 

If I were making this quilt, this is how I would change up the colors: dark purple, white, medium purple, lavender, medium green. I think I would leave the pinks as they are.

These are some of my favorite colors and they go well with my home’s interior.

We will discuss a couple of more ways to think out of the box next week, before I discuss the “Muddying of the Fabric  Franchise.”  That truly is a topic that needs to be dissected, because it’s rampant. 

Until next week, Quilt with Passion!

Love and Stitches,

Sherri and Sam