Month: July 2024

There’s no debate the money in our wallets doesn’t go as far as it used to, and your boss may not be convinced you need a raise in pay just because your quilting habit needs more financial support. 

Things – everything from abacas to Zwilling knives (expensive German carving knives) – cost more today.  And on that list are quilting supplies.  Some quilting notions have remained relatively inexpensive, while some have experienced a rather sharp rise in cost.  What I want to do today is give you some ideas to keep your quilting expenses within your budget without taking away any of the joy and pleasure quilting brings.

First, we need to look at exactly what is needed to begin to quilt — the very basic supplies.  I have helped quite a few quilters get their “quilting legs under them.”  One of the barriers I immediately hit (especially if they come to my studio) is how much “stuff” I have and there’s no way they could afford all of that.  I’m honest with them:  When I started quilting I didn’t have all of this… stuff. I’ve quilted for over 30 years and what they see is an accumulation of rulers, fabric, thread, and patterns purchased over that time span – not in the first few months I began to quilt.  The supplies I had when I began quilting could easily fit into two drawers of my china hutch and still have room for the linen napkins I used on special occasions.  Below is a list of what I feel you need to begin quilting.

• A good, basic sewing machine.  You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on a machine in order for it to be a good one.  As a matter of fact, I would advise against it until you feel like quilting will be a major hobby in your life.  A good machine, such as a Brother, isn’t going to cost you an arm and a leg, and they have a reputation for reliability.  These are readily available online or at big box stores such as Joann’s or Walmart.  Technically, the machine only needs to perform a straight stitch, although most basic machines generally sew several different stitches as well as make buttonholes.  These run the price range of $150 to $300.  Even if you plan on hand piecing or hand applique, you’ll need a machine.
• A self-healing cutting mat.  It’s tempting to purchase a small one, but that can become really aggravating when you’re cutting strips which are the width of fabric (about 44-inches).  Personally, I don’t recommend anything smaller than 18-inches x 24-inches.  And if you must store it between quilting sessions, be sure to store it flat.  Please don’t roll it up like a newspaper.
• A rotary cutter and ruler.  Yes, you’ll need scissors, too, but practically no quilt patterns publish directions for cutting your block units out with scissors any longer.  Those times have sailed.  The cutter should fit well in your hand, and it should be easy to change the blade.  A 45-mm rotatory cutter is a great starting place.  It’s small enough to cut out tiny pieces and trim around templates, but still large enough to slice through several layers of fabric. A basic, straight edge rotary cutter ruler is needed for accurate cutting. A good beginner ruler is a 6-inch x 18-inch ruler or a 4-inch x 24-inch ruler. I prefer the Creative Grids rulers because they have the fabric gripper spots built in them.
• Scissors. I suggest having a pair strictly for cutting paper and another for fabric only.
• Iron. It should have a cotton setting.  For more information on irons, go here: https://sherriquiltsalot.com/2024/03/20/a-pressing-matter/
• Spray bottle.  You’ll need this for water.  Most quilters typically don’t t use the steam setting on their iron, so if a little extra moisture is needed to get the wrinkles out, we lightly mist the fabric with water and then use a hot iron. 
• Pressing surface.  This can be a standard ironing board.  You will need a pressing space big enough to handle large swaths of fabric – such as borders.
• Tape.  Either masking tape or painters tape come in handy.  And a roll of transparent tape is needed if you plan on paper piecing. 

 Those are the basics.  Even if your sewing machine is the median price of $200 (or better yet if you buy a good used one or borrow one from someone else) you can start your quilting set up without breaking the bank.  As a matter of fact the only other two items you may not already own (besides a sewing machine) may be the rotary cutter and the self-healing mat.

If you’re already a quilter, you have all the basics and probably a few more than a few extras.  The cost issues we’re running into are fabric, batting, thread, and backing.  Let’s talk about what we can do to lower our expenditures on those.

Fabric

In 2023, the average cost of a yard of quilting cotton was $13.50.  In 2022, the average price was around $12.50 per yard (no figures available yet on 2024, although the online and brick-and-mortar stores I shop at are holding steady around the $12.50 price).  Cotton fabric depends on lots of things – taxes, tariffs, and the cotton crop – so prices can possibly vary widely from year to year.   There are a couple of ways to approach budgeting for your fabric.  The first is simply to use what you already have.  Some of us have stashes large enough we really don’t need to purchase any new fabric in the near future not that I’m in this group….Quilt up what you have and only purchase what you need.  In my studio the only new fabrics I plan on purchasing are backgrounds for applique.  After quilting for so long, I have an ample stash.

 A second way to budget is to use your scraps.  I think each quilter needs to come up with an organized plan to manage their scraps.  Since I do a lot of applique, I keep anything 8-inches square or larger.  It’s sorted according to color and is stored in small bins.  When a bin gets full, I go through it and decide what I will cut into squares and rectangles for scrap quilts and what I’ll keep for applique.  This system has worked well for me for years.  If you’re not sure where to begin yourself, there are several great YouTube videos on controlling your scrappage, and there are numerous really great books with patterns for fantastic scrap quilts.  I love Nickel Quilts by Pat Speth and Charlene Thode.  The Nickel Quilts books are a series of three, and all deal with 5-inch squares – so if you have a lot of scraps you can trim to 5-inches, or you own a lot of charm packs, these may be great resources for you.  A good friend of mine just tuned me into Potato Chip Quilts.  These quilts work with 2 ½-inch x 4 ½-inch rectangles.  If you’re curious about these quilts, go here: https://www.joscountryjunction.com/from-the-comment-section-potato-chip-quilt/. Chinese Coin quilts are another pattern which can help you plow through your scrappage.  But the fact behind these patterns is this:  You can use your scraps and make a beautiful quilt and not spend an extra dime on fabric.  Plus you’re keeping fabric out of the landfill.

If you find you do have to purchase fabric for a quilt, buy only the required amount listed on the pattern.  Most patterns allow for some “wiggle” room.  The designers realize a few cutting mistakes may be made and are usually pretty generous with their fabric requirements.  If there is any doubt, do what I always urge you do to before beginning any quilt:  Google the pattern.  If the fabric requirements come up short, if they’re too close for comfort, or there are corrections for the pattern, chances are any of these issues will appear in a Google search.  However, most of the time, that extra ¼-yard we purchase for “peace of mind” isn’t needed. 

Despite fabric frugality, there may come a time when you feel you need to “freshen up” your stash.  Maybe you need more reds for a Christmas quilt or more blues and pinks for baby quilts, but you’re really trying to stick to a quilty budget.  You can still shop for fabric in a couple of different ways.  The first is to find a sale.  Thankfully the internet allows us to shop for the best fabric at the best price with a few clicks of a mouse.  (Personally my favorite online site is Keepsake Quilting Warehouse.  Their sale prices are phenomenal.  If you live near Archdale, North Carolina or can plan a trip there, it’s worth a stop, plus their customer service is stellar.).  However, shipping costs can be as much, if not more, than the cost of the fabric.  If several of your quilting friends also need fabric, why not see if you all can place one order and split the shipping costs? 

Another way to keep your fabric frugality in check is to arrange for a fabric swap.  Many guilds do this, but if you don’t belong to one of those, there’s no reason you and a few of your quilting buddies can’t have one.  First set the rules.  My guild’s rules are pretty general.  You exchange “like” for “like.  For instance, if you bring a jelly roll to swap, you get another jelly roll.  A yard of fabric for a yard of fabric (in any combination).  You also have to note if it’s pre-washed or not and if it came from a pet-free home.  Truly what is one person’s “trash” is another person’s treasure – what you no longer need may be exact fabric someone else does. 

Finally, the last idea for your fabric budget – avoid precuts.  Inch for inch, they’re more expensive than yardage because the manufacturer had to factor in the labor for the precuts.  If you adore jelly roll quilts or 5-inch charm packs or any other pre-cut, and you’re really pinching pennies, try making your own.  It takes a bit more time, but you’ll save some money. 

Batting

There are five major kinds of batting (silk, wool, bamboo, polyester, and cotton) and several types of blended batting.  And while quilters can substitute these battings with a sheet, minky, or flannel, I want to deal with the “standard” types of batting.  The cost of a batt depends on what fibers it’s made from. For example, a silk batt is more expensive than a cotton one.  Personally, I found the best way for me to save money on batting was to find the type which worked with most of my quilts and then to purchase it in bulk.  This means I buy a roll of batting at a time.  Since I have a long arm, I can keep the roll on it.  This keeps the batt out of the way.  Like a lot of long armers, I have found the 80/20 batting (80% cotton/20% polyester) works for most of my quilts.  I’ve also found this batting works well with my Janome M7 Continental, too – it’s not too bulky in the harp.  I keep an eye out for coupons and purchase a roll as needed, but since I may only quilt three to four quilts a year, a roll of batting lasts me a long time.

You may not have a long arm, but if there’s room to store a roll of batting, you can find this is your best long-term, budget-friendly batting option.  If you don’t have the room to store a roll, watch for bagged batting on sale and buy one or two of those.  It’s always great to have a spare batt if you suddenly find you’ve finished a project before expected and want to get busy with the quilting. 

Another way to stretch your batting dollar is to save your batting scraps.  Quite often if you have a small quilt, a scrap of batting will work just fine, and you don’t need to purchase another batt.  Sometimes you can sew large batting scraps together and make a batt just the size needed (Go here to learn more about this: https://sherriquiltsalot.com/2020/01/29/this-is-the-batt-the-whole-batt-and-nothing-but-the-batt/ ).  However, one word of caution – if you use a variety of batting types (cotton, polyester, silk, etc.), keep them separated according to their content.  If you sewed a cotton batt (which will shrink when washed) to an 80/20 batt (which doesn’t shrink as much as a cotton batt when washed), your quilt top will pucker more in the cotton batting area than in the 80/20 batting area when washed and dried. 

And a housekeeping hint—those batting scraps that are too small to sew into a batt work wonderful on a Swiffer sweeper or as a dusting cloth when you’re polishing your furniture. 

Backing

One of the easiest ways to stick to your fabric budget is to eliminate purchasing wide backs and create a quilt back out of your stash.  You can easily sew a backing together which is as long and as wide as needed.  This helps you sew up your stash and keeps you in line with a fabric budget.  I do this with all the backs for quilts I’m quilting on my Janome M7 Continental.

However….my long arm machine is temperamental.  She does not like seams – not one.  I’ve even tried loading my quilt with the seam running horizontal instead of vertical, so she only has to sew over it once.

No dice. 

She hates seams.  If I plan on loading a quilt on my long arm, I know I need a wide back so my quilting experience will be reasonably enjoyable.  If you’re in the same situation, the only advice I can offer is do what I do:  Catch those backs on sale and purchase them that way.  When I do come across quilt backs at a good price I tend to purchase a couple at a time (which I can easily do if I know what quilts will be quilted on the long arm).

And Finally….

There will always be occasions when you need to replace equipment.  Because of the way Amazon is set up to allow you to compare prices, it’s the first site I hit.  I don’t purchase equipment such as cutting machines or sewing machines on their site, but when I plug the item in the search bar, Amazon will give me a range of prices it sells for as well as customer reviews.  Once I’ve determined what I will purchase, I then go to Facebook Market Place.  I realize not everyone has had a positive experience on Marketplace, but I’ve found quilters to be a pretty good group of folks no matter where they’re gathered.  I’ve always been happy with my Facebook Marketplace quilting purchases.  If you belong to a local guild, try asking other guild members if they have what you need and would be willing to sell it to you.  Even if they don’t have it, they may know where you can get it at a reasonable price. 

There may also come a time when you want to learn something new or how to perform a technique better.  Guilds are also a good reference for this.  While guild meetings themselves are generally reserved for presentations, a guild member would probably love to help you out with this.  Just put the word out and more than likely a guild member will pull you aside, set up a time and place, and be more than happy to instruct you (at least that’s how it works with my guild).  Quilters are such wonderfully giving people and we do want to see everyone learn and love our craft.  If you can’t find someone to help you, YouTube has literally hundreds of videos by stellar instructors.  Type in what you want to learn in YouTube’s search bar, and you’ll be rewarded with lots of choices.  Both of these ideas will expand your quilting knowledge and keep your budget intact. 

The last idea I would like to suggest to save some money is learn to quilt your own quilts.  I know with this suggestion I may be hitting a wall with some of you, because many of my readers quilt by checkbook (pay a long arm artist).  And absolutely continue to do so on special quilts.  But if you’re constructing a play quilt, cuddle quilt, a quilt that will live out its life on the back of your couch to be pulled down when you watch TV, quilt it on your machine.  Some simple, curvy quilting or straight-line quilting will work just fine, and you’ll keep a couple hundred dollars in your pocket. 

What to Purchase in Bulk – If You Can

Certain quilty notions are used over and over again – no matter what kind of quilt you’re making, how big the quilt is, or any other factors – we use some of the same things in all of our quilts.  If you have the room to store the following items, I suggest you purchase them in bulk:  Batting, rotary cutter blades, and sewing machine needles.  The initial expenditure may be a bit on the pricey side, but the cost per item (or yard, as in the case of batting) will be less.

Thread is also a great item to purchase in bulk (many smaller spools) or cones (if your machine has an adaptor for cones or you can purchase a cone adaptor).  Since quilters generally stick to gray, white, beige, and black when piecing, it’s really easy to purchase several spools or cones when you find them on sale.  You know you’ll use them up.

From My Studio to Yours

I know our dollars don’t go as far as they once did.   Food is expensive.  Gas is, too.  So are most of the items we use every day, including our quilting supplies.  I’ve quilted for quite a few years, and half of that time had to figure out where to pinch my pennies (a teacher’s salary didn’t go far then and it still doesn’t now).  I’m offering you a few suggestions from what I’ve learned, however, there are two quilting supplies I feel you should never scrimp on quality even if certain brands are cheaper:  Thread and Fabric.  Purchase the best quilting fabric you can afford and stay away from the thin, cheaply manufactured stuff.  Thread is the lifeline of the quilt – it holds it all together.  Long staple thread with low lint sews beautifully and causes less lint to build up in your machine.  Quality thread and quilting fabric makes a huge difference in the way your quilt looks.

Until Next Week, From my Studio to Yours,

Love and Stiches,

Sherri and Felix

Let’s talk about Depression Era quilts for a few minutes.  Most of us (including me until I began a life-long love affair with these quilts), assume these quilts were all made entirely from scraps in the most economical way possible.  The answer to this assumption is both yes and no.  Definitely there were those utilitarian quilts made from dress scraps and feed sacks, but there were also those beautifully pieced quilts (such as the Double Wedding Ring) and applique quilts (such as those from Marie Webster) which were made from purchased yardage. 

There is also this misnomer about “Depression Era Quilts” – that they began in 1930 and ended in 1939.  That’s also misleading.  Depression Era Quilts have certain characteristics.  They have an inherently scrappy look, using both prints and solids, sewn together with white fabric.  They are usually made from lots of tiny pieces (think Grandmother’s Flower Garden).  Applique quilts enjoyed a re-birth during this time and those quilts started out as highly stylized and evolved to complex quilts with lots of small pieces.  The fabric palette was quite distinctive – bubble gum pinks, cherry reds, yellows with a tint of gold, mint greens, and soft blues.  What quilt historians have found is these quilts had a lifespan beyond the 10 years historians class the Great Depression.  Construction of these quilts began in the late 1920’s and didn’t end until the 1950’s – and with the revival of feed sack reproduction fabrics, they still are popular now.

Besides a distinct color palette, the rise in popularity of certain quilt patterns, and the birth of quilt shows as we now know them, this quilt period gave us some wonderful quilt designers.  It was during this crucible — of one of the most creative quilting periods — that Marie Webster, Rose Kretsinger, Charlotte Jane Whitehall, and Hannah Headlee came into their own as quilters.  Marie Webster made quilting her career, producing both beautifully appliqued quilts as well as the patterns for the quilts which she sold through her mail order business.  Rose Kretsinger not only became an expert applique artist, but also wrote co-wrote books with a woman named Carrie Hall. 

And it’s Carrie Hall I want to discuss today.  I feel that, despite the fact she was one of the early Quilting Hall of Fame inductees, we kind of skip over the important role she plays in quilting because her actual quilting journey was not solely focused on the art and the end of her life was fraught with controversy and financial instability.

Born on December 9, 1866, in Caledonia, Wisconsin, Carrie Alma Hackett was the daughter of a Civil War veteran and his wife.  Dwight Hackett from Illinois mustered out of the Union Army and immediately married Carrie’s mother (I searched and couldn’t find the name of Carrie’s mother – if you know, could you please leave it in the comments?).  Dwight Hackett filled his daughter’s head with tales about Abraham Lincoln’s education and leadership.  Carrie claims these stories developed her lifelong interest in all things Abraham Lincoln – but it was her mother who instilled in her a love of books, desire for knowledge, and her discriminating taste in fashion.  In 1873, when Carrie was seven, her father moved them to Smith County, Kansas.  Like so many other folks of this time, Dwight Hackett developed western fever, but had no idea of the harsh pioneer life the 160-acre homestead would bring his family.  But they persevered through blizzards and grasshopper infestations and the destruction of their first crops. 

Despite the hardships and poverty of pioneer life, books and quilts were always a constant in Carrie’s life.  They were considered necessary luxuries in her prairie home and as a result, she became a book worm.  She often had to be chided to “Put down that book and get to your chores!” by her mother.  Besides her love of books, Carrie also developed a love of sewing.  At the age of seven, under her mother’s tutelage, Carrie pieced a Le Moyne Star quilt.  Showing needlework skills far beyond her age, Carrie’s neighbors declared the quilt a masterpiece and encouraged her to enter it in the county fair.  She did and it took first place –  a ribbon and a subscription to Godey’s Ladies Book, the fashion Bible of the times. 

Carrie never graduated from high school, much less college, but because of her thirst for knowledge, she was qualified to teach school and was even a county superintendent for a while.  In 1889, when she was 23, Carrie moved to Leavenworth, Kansas.

Leavenworth was a thriving river port, railroad hub, and the site of an important Army post.  She left the field of education, took up her needle, and launched her career as a dressmaker.  She did this in a period of time when the well-to-do entertained lavishly and dressed in fashions copied from New York and Paris.  Catering to the tastes of local society, Carrie’s dressmaking business prospered, and she employed many assistants.  As a designer, Carrie chose styles from the latest Paris fashion magazines and used fabric imported from France.  Examples of these gowns can still be found for study at the Leavenworth County Historical Museum. 

In Carrie Hall’s quilting biography, her career as a dressmaker is sometimes glossed over in the rush to get to her contribution as a quilter.  However, I don’t think this period in her life can or should be so easily dismissed.  Like most things in her life, Carrie had a strong opinion about clothing and fashion, which she shared in a book she authored, From Hoopskirts to Nudity.  She felt clothes influence those who wear them, for good or for evil.  She pointed out that fashion illustrations were ill proportioned and unbalanced and “the poor misguided women look at (the illustrations) and try to make themselves into their image.” I have a feeling Carrie would have a field day with today’s ultra-thin models and designer fashions.  To Carrie, fashion and style were not the same thing, even though then (as now) the terms were used indiscriminately, incorrectly, and synonymously.  “Style,” she said, “in its relation to dress, is the indescribable something that is so easily recognized and so hard to define.  Style is of the person and not the clothes, for two women may wear a dress of the same design and fabric and one will look like a fashion plate and the other will look like a frump.  One will be a ‘vision’ and the other a ‘sight.’” She felt that fashions were created for “One-size-fits-all” and the poor fashion victims were squeezed or stretched to fit the prevailing mode.  “On the other hand, style, like beauty, is eternal and its essential qualities never change throughout the ages, and the woman who possesses this distinction will impose it on every garment she wears.”

Her skill as a dressmaker cannot be overlooked.  Her business prospered and she became known as “Madame Hall, Modiste.”  She not only employed many assistants, but her income also supported a large home, two ailing husbands (She married John Patterson, a University of Kansas student who died from tuberculosis shortly after they married, and then in 1906 married John Hall, a construction worker.  Neither marriage produced any children.), and it supported her habit of collecting books and memorabilia on Abraham Lincoln, Shakespeare, and fashion.

It was while Hall was a dress maker that she “re-discovered” her love of quilting.  She was kind of captivated by all the new quilt patterns on the market and decided since she couldn’t make one of every quilt, she would make one of every quilt block – an ambitious goal for sure, but Carrie was a woman of great enthusiasm and energy.  And it was just as well she found another occupation.  By the 1920’s ready-made clothing was available and her dress making business took a nosedive.  Between spending a great deal of money on Mr. Hall – who was constantly in poor health – Carrie’s finances also took a nosedive.  She constructed her blocks and decided to go on the lecture circuit, speaking about quilts and her quilt blocks.  She made herself a red moiré colonial-styled dress and went about the mid-west, offering lectures about quilting. 

In conjunction with that, she discovered another Kansas quilter, Rose Kretsinger.  Carrie was enthralled by Rose’s designs as well as her applique.  Carrie and Rose wrote The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt.  Carrie wrote the first part of the book about the romance of quilts, the quilting bee, the quilt’s place in art, and how to make quilts.  Her blocks were numbered and named, making this book the first comprehensive index quilting patterns, their names and their history.  The second part of the book, also written by Carrie, provides photos of completed quilts, both antique and modern.  Twelve of the quilt photos are from Rose Kretsinger’s collection, made either by Rose or by her mother.  Rose wrote the third part of the book, emphasizing design and the history of quilting.  The very first editions of this book were likely self-published by Rose and Carrie through Caxton Publishers in Caldwell, Idaho.  After the book was completed, Carrie donated all the blocks to the Spencer Art Museum at the University of Kansas.

Unfortunately, the publication of The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt did little to ease Carrie’s precarious money situation.  To add insult to Carrie’s already failing finances, the publishing house burned to the ground in 1927, probably destroying many books the authors had already paid for.  To add to her continuing diminishing finances, Carrie’s own home burned down the following year. By World War II, Carrie found herself in even worse financial trouble.  To address her money issues, she turned all of her personal property over to her creditors, with the exception of her books.  This allowed her and her husband to live in comfort for a while.  However by 1941, she had to leave Leavenworth, Kansas due to a financial scandal.  She was accused of “borrowing” money from clubs where she served as treasurer (she also borrowed from friends).  In due time these organizations discovered the embezzlement and demanded repayment – which she could not provide.  At 75, she sold her house, a rental property, and her books.  She moved to Rigby, Idaho, and lived with her newly widowed sister.

During this time with her sister, she began to manufacture and sell playtime and character dolls of historical figures, paying close attention to details and the craftsmanship of the dolls.  This business operated under the name of “The Handicraft Shop” and was very successful. Today, her dolls are still sought after.  For a while her money issues took a back seat to her business.  However, she found at her age, working 16+ hours a day to be challenging.  She was contemplating hiring help when she came down with a serious illness and on January 5, 1955, at the age of 88, she passed away.  She is buried in a family cemetery near her family homestead. 

In so many ways, Carrie Hall is no different than many of us (without the whole embezzling and borrowing money and not paying it back issues).  When one career hit a dead end, she re-made herself and started over – each time with great success.  If she would have handled her money differently – in a more conservative way – chances are she could have made her mark in our quilt history without that “ick” feeling knowing she absconded and robbed people who trusted her (after all, if you’re elected treasurer of an organization, you obviously appear to be a trust-worthy individual).  But these facts (despite the fact what she did was both illegal and unethical) do not negate the gift she gave us quilters.  Carrie Hall was the first person who indexed quilt blocks and their names.  While often times, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of rationale in her names, nevertheless it gave us somewhere to start. 

As quilters we rely on this information today for names, construction, and history. Today’s quilters (such as Barbara Brackman) turned to Carrie Hall and her blocks as a starting point to begin their own quilt journey.  This rich interpretation of blocks and names (as Carrie indexed her blocks, she wrote down all the known names for each block) resulted in the book Carrie Hall Blocks: Over 800 Historical Patterns from the College of the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. While not directly written by Carrie Hall, it has her fingerprints all over it and if you’re kind of an old-school quilter like me, this book is in your library along with Barbara Brackman’s Block Base and encyclopedias.

Carrie Hall chose the Spencer Museum of Art as a housing location for all of her quilt blocks and their information.  As a result of this, Sallie Casey Thayer also chose the Spence Museum to house her collection of quilts (over 5,000 pieces of antique textiles and other items).  One of the Thayer quilts supposedly is from the family of Alexander Hamilton.  In 1974, Elizabeth Szabronski retired to Florida.  In the spirit of both Sallie Thayer and Carrie Hall, Mrs. Szabronski was both a quilter and a collector.  Elizabeth both collected quilts and had a library of quilt books.  She felt her things belonged with Carrie’s and Sallie’s items, so the Spencer Museum also took those in.  This resulted in one of the most thorough quilting libraries in the world, when combined with Hall’s.  Carrie Hall’s information covered quilting from the twenties and thirties.  Elizabeth Szabronski’s covers the fifties and sixties – a quilting era that definitely suffered a low interest in quilting.  However, the publications Szabronski provided shows that even during slow quilting times, there was as strong network of quilters and quilting information out there. 

Also in the spirit of Carrie Hall, Szabronski developed her own quilt index, except she drew the blocks instead of making them.  She drew them on an index card, filed them alphabetically, and cross-referenced them to other names for the same pattern her source indicated.  These were also donated to the Spencer Museum – five boxes of index cards containing approximately 5,000 individual cards.  During the 1970’s, when quilting was enjoying a resurgence in popularity, the Hall/Szabronski collection provided the inspiration and raw material for Quilt Kansas! By Jean Mitchell and An Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns  by Barbara Brackman.

Despite her dubious moral, ethical, and legal failings, in spite of her lack of monetary skill, the quilting world owes a debt of gratitude to Carrie Hall.  What we have as far as quilting software programs, historical context, block construction, and indexing we owe to her.  If she had not had the gumption to begin the arduous process of making one quilt block from every pattern, would we have as comprehensive knowledge about block history as we do?  She wasn’t perfect (as none of us are), and she certainly fell short in many moral areas, but she has to be admired for her comprehensive work, as well as her inner strength to get up and keep moving even when life knocked her down.

Until Next Week, From My Studio to Yours,

Sherri and Felix. 

PS.  This book:

Contains the drawings and information about the Carrie Hall blocks – all 800 of them.  For the most part, it’s out of print (I believe).  There are few copies available on Amazon, Thrift Books, Ebay, and other sites.

It’s also interesting to note Spencer Museum of Art has all of these blocks except Crazy, St. Louis Star, Kaleidoscope, Ornate Star, Octagon Tile, Double Peony and Wild Rose, Water Lily, Hickory Leaf, and Roman Stripe.  At one point, Hall wrote to the museum and asked for a few of her blocks back to “add some bright patches to” for her sister.  I’m not sure if these were the blocks returned to her or if any were at all. 

The title of this week’s blog may confuse you just a bit.  I mean, as a whole, quilters are pretty “techy” people.  We can navigate websites, design software, Adobe, Photoshop, and a myriad of other computer programs.  On a personal level, we may use Word, live with an Alexi, consult Siri, and use navigation apps.  But AI?  Really?  Should quilters be wary of this kind-a-sorta-new technology or embrace it?  In all honesty, this isn’t a yes or no kind of question.  It’s more of a “Depends on the circumstances” sort of thing.  Let’s start first by defining exactly what AI is.

AI (artificial intelligence) is computer software that mimics how humans think, in order to perform such tasks as reasoning, learning, and analyzing information.  It allows a machine to display human-life capabilities such as planning and creativity.  Artificial Intelligence enables technical systems to perceive their environment, deal with what they perceive, solve problems and act to achieve a specific goal.  A machine with AI software can absorb hundreds of thousands of data bytes, sort them, and process them in all kinds of ways – much, much faster than humans can.  The goal for a machine with AI embedded in it is to recognize patterns, make decisions, and judge like humans.  Think you don’t already use AI in your life?  Think again.  Artificial Intelligence is already working in our taxi booking apps (such as Uber), voice assistance (such as Siri and Alexi), chatbots, Netflix, Spotify, Hulu, YouTube, personalized marketing, face recognition on some phones, social media algorithms, the texting section of your cell phone, fraud detection in banking, gaming platforms, navigation/GPS apps, fall and crash detection (often found on Apple watches), self-driving vehicles, speech recognition (found in the dictation part of your texting and memo apps on your cell phone as well as in many word processing programs), security software such as your Ring doorbell, email filtering, image generators, and weather prediction.  I’m sure I’ve missed some.  There are literally hundreds of applications/machines we use which employ AI. 

So how does AI work?  We’ve touched on it briefly.  A machine or software program which has AI can absorb the data thrown its way far faster than the smartest human ever could.  It may not know exactly what to do with this data, but it begins to sort it and store it.  Over time, when presented with an opportunity, it may helpfully suggest words or other things it thinks you need.  For instance, I live in Greensboro.  If I am entering shipping information on a website from my phone, as soon as I type Gree, AI automatically suggests filling in the rest of the blank with nsboro.  Binge watching YouTube?  Let’s say you’re looking up videos on the best way to bind a quilt.  After you’ve watched the first couple of videos, the AI in YouTube very helpfully suggests several more quilting videos, along with some videos by folks you may have watched in the past.  Artificial intelligence is eager to learn and remembers in perpetuity. 

On the whole, AI sounds like a useful tool.  I understand the fact that a machine or computer which has AI can make some folks uncomfortable.  The AI is trying to reason, plan, analyze and create – all very human characteristics.  They may be wary about an inanimate object becoming too human like.  While it’s great our word processing program wants to correct our spelling (jury is still out on the grammar thing – I’ve almost gotten in fights with Word over its bad grammar), is too much AI too much of a “good” thing when it comes to quilting?  First, let’s talk about exactly how “smart” artificial intelligence is.

It’s important to remember AI works from the data it can gather.  So to give AI a “test run” on how much data it had on quilts, I went online to DALL.E.  This is an AI image site.  You type in a prompt and AI will return a picture of what you request – at least what it thinks you requested. 

I gave it three chances.

The first quilt image I asked DALL.E to retrieve was a picture of a quilt made from 150 half-square triangles. 

Here’s DALLE’s result:

Not exact, but not too bad.

The second quilt image I requested was a New York Beauty.

DALL.E gave me this:

An interesting quilt for sure, but definitely not a New York Beauty.  And how does AI explain taxis and boats on the same thoroughfare? 

Finally – at least for this part of my experiment – I asked DALL.E to return a quilt designed by sherriquiltsalot.com.  I didn’t ask for Sherri Fields, because my blog and website are sherriquiltsalot.com.  I knew AI would mine what computer data was out there for that and there are certainly several years’ worth of blogs on WordPress.  After thinking for a while, DALL.E came up with this:

Gotta give credit where credit is due.  Those are my colors.  It has a pieced border and a floater.  Lots of clever piecing…but somebody…anybody… tell me my quilts aren’t quite that chaotic.  And there’s no applique, so there’s that little factor.

On a scale of one to ten, I’d give DALL.E a six.  Slightly above average, but needs work.

This part of my AI experiment was fun.  I got some laughs out of its attempt to come up with the quilt requested (you have to admit that DALL.E’s New York Beauty is something else).  However, what’s not so funny is this:  Remember AI is continually gathering data, sorting it, reasoning it out.  I plan to return to DALL.E in a month and request the same quilts to see if I get the same results.  If, in true AI fashion, it’s been gathering data, reasoning, and creating, I should get better results the second time.  We will definitely revisit and see.

What may not be so much fun – in fact it could be both scary and financially devastating – is if this AI begins to mimic quilt designers.  Quilt designers – the ones who make wonderful quilts and quilt patterns – put food on their table by selling their goods.  This usually includes their patterns. I did not request a quilt by Bonnie Hunter, Kim Diehl or any other well-known designer because I didn’t want to give DALL.E any more data than it already had.  Well-known designers already have enough information on their websites that the AI software could easily pick it up and design a quilt similar or just like the designers.

Which brings me to my next point.  When does this sort of AI infringe on copyrights?  Those of you who have read my blogs for years know I am fervently against copying patterns and giving those copies to your friends (go here https://sherriquiltsalot.com/2019/02/06/the-grumpy-quilter-or-copyright-policies-with-apologies-to-steve-bender/).  This robs designers of their well-earned money for designing all those beautiful patterns we like so much.  If AI can gather enough data on any designer to produce patterns identical to or pretty similar to existing quilt patterns, it has the potential of damaging the pattern market for both quilters and quilt designers.  I don’t know if AI can be charged with copyright infringement, but it does have the potential of making a huge, chaotic mess for the pattern market and the quilt designers’ well-being.  What, if any, do quilters and their quilting goods have to protect themselves from AI?

According to the Harvard Business Review, not much – at least right now.  The courts are still sorting things out.  Writers  Gil Appel, Juliana Neelbauer, and David A. Schweidel stated in the April 7, 2023 Harvard Business Review “Claims are already being litigated. In a case filed in late 2022, Andersen v. Stability AI et al., three artists formed a class to sue multiple generative AI platforms on the basis of the AI using their original works without license to train their AI in their styles, allowing users to generate works that may be insufficiently transformative from their existing, protected works, and, as a result, would be unauthorized derivative works. If a court finds that the AI’s works are unauthorized and derivative, substantial infringement penalties can apply.”

In other words, it may become possible for some big names (such as Getty Images, who has already started the ball rolling to protect themselves from AI), to force the courts to reach a decision concerning AI which would set precedence for smaller fish in the litigation sea like quilt designers.

This is it.  This is the dark side of the AI technology we need to be careful about.  However, like all technology – the internet, streaming entertainment, gaming – it is neutral.  AI in and of itself, is neither good nor bad.  It’s what people do with it that can make it inherently evil or inherently good. 

The good side to AI is that it is pretty creative.  If the quilts referenced above from DALL.E doesn’t prove it, let me tell you about the second part of my technology experiment.  I’ve been on a quest for an applique pattern with a cat ever since Felix was adopted.  I wanted a pattern with a black and white cat (he’s developed more white patches as he’s gotten older, so he’s no longer solid black) with some tulips and daisies.  I’ve searched but haven’t been able to find a pattern and had started drawing my own.  Just for giggles, I asked DALL.E to create an applique quilt of a black and white cat with daisies and tulips.  This is what it returned:

Not too bad.  It’s enough to give me inspiration to push forward with my quilt.  As much as I can determine, this is DALLE’s design and has not been pulled from other quilt designers.  Now, let me raise another question.  Let’s say I make this quilt and enter it in a quilt show.  Do I give DALL.E credit for the pattern?  I mean, the quilt isn’t completely all my work.  The pattern itself was imagined by AI.

See what a can of worms AI opens for quilters and other artists? 

This is definitely uncharted territory for quilters, artists, musicians, and product/software proprietary designers.  There are a lot of decisions which need to be made and not all of them legal.  There’s just as many ethical questions to be answered.  Again, technology in and of itself – including AI – is neither good nor bad. 

It’s what we do with it that matters.

Until Next Week, From My Studio too Yours,

Sherri and Felix

PS I did decide to ask DALL.E to create a Marie Webster design. Marie Webster was a well-known quilt designer in the 1930’s and her designs remain popular and the images of these quilts are all over the internet. Since Ms. Webster is deceased and her estate is no longer printing her patterns, I saw no harm in asking DALL.E to deliver one of her designs. This is what it returned:

Not exactly anywhere near a Marie Webster design. Again, I’ll check back with DALL.E in a month and see what happens.

We’ve seen them before.  In a world of quilts where there is balance and beauty there are these:

Busy quilts.

 A quilt can be considered busy if it has many colors or small pieces, or if it uses big, bold fabrics.  Whenever anyone mentions a busy quilt, I automatically think of this quilt: 

The 1718 coverlet.  While yes, it’s technically not  a quilt (it doesn’t have three layers and it’s not quilted), quilt researchers will find it in the quilt category when they research oldest quilts.  In 2014, Susan Briscoe drafted the blocks from the coverlet into a quilt pattern.  This quilt is the oldest dated patchwork in the United Kingdom and it’s entirely English paper pieced.  That fact alone (the English paper piecing) is enough to prevent me from making the quilt (English paper piecing is probably my least favorite quilting technique).  But another contributing factor to the “There’s no way I’m making this quilt” column is how busy the quilt is.  There’s nowhere to rest your eyes for a second before moving onto another part of the quilt.   So much is happening in this quilt, you’re not sure where to look first.  There are swans and square-in-a-square blocks.  There are trefoils and half-square triangles.  Something is happening in every square inch of this quilt and you’re not sure where to look first, and there’s nowhere for your eyes to take a breather before you jump to the next block.

That’s what we’re discussing in today’s blog.  What to do with a busy quilt and how to calm it down a bit. 

For most of us, whether we follow a pattern or make our own design, we tend to throw in some neutral areas to break the quilt up – some sashing, some setting squares, floaters, etc.  Remember this quilt?

This is my Halo Medallion and there is a lot going on in this quilt.  This quilt is comprised of a pieced center medallion surrounded by multiple pieced borders.  In order to give the viewers’ eyes a place to rest and to balance the quilt, there are multiple “floaters” between the borders.   These “floaters” – made of narrow strips of solid color fabrics — give the quilt and your eyes a chance to rest.  Largely either by instinct (if we are designing our own quilt) or if we follow most standard patterns, we have neutral areas which break the quilt up and calm it down.  Personally, I think scrap quilts cause one of the biggest, busy quilt problems. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I love scrap quilts.  They are awesome and I love making them.  However, I do think there are a few things to keep in mind as we throw a lot of different fabrics in all kinds of color and patterns together to make a quilt.

•  As you make your blocks, find a neutral to surround them.  This neutral will give continuity to your quilt and make all the blocks play nicely together.  My favorite color to use for this is white.  To me, surrounding my scrappy blocks with a white fabric immediately brings peace and calm to a quilt.  Everything tends to go together, and nothing sticks out like a sore thumb – even any really ugly fabric you have no idea why you have in your stash.  Your neutral doesn’t have to be white; it really can be any color that plays well with the scrappage. 

This is my Sunny Lane scrap quilt. The pattern is from Nickle Quilts by Pat Speth and Charlene Thode. It’s a great scrappy quilt pattern book. I randomly pulled fabric from my stash for this quilt. I really liked the way the white fabric made all the fabric calm down and play nicely together. this was a super-fun quilt and I would definitely make another one.

•  Try a monochromatic scrap quilt.  Sort through the fabric you intend to pull from and see if you have more of one color than the others and play to this color in your quilt. Between your scraps and the rest of your stash, a one-color quilt tends to calm itself down.  Hint:  If you have a favorite quilt color, you probably have enough of this hue between your stash and scraps to make a monochromatic quilt.  And what’s not to love about a quilt made entirely out of your favorite quilt color?

•  When you find the neutral you plan to use, make the most of it.  Use it in the sashing, floaters, narrow borders, and maybe even the binding itself.  The use of the neutral will make all those busy blocks calm right down and get along together just fine.

•  Try organizing your scraps for the quilt in a different manner.  Normally we sort our scraps by color – it makes our quilting life just a bit easier.  But if you are planning to use your scraps to make a scrappy quilt, try to think out of the scrappy box.  Instead of organizing your scraps by color, try organizing them by print.  For instance, if you tend to favor floral prints, pull all the floral scraps from your scraps and use those in the quilt.  If you favor geometric prints, do the same with those.  The same type of print in a quilt does give it more cohesiveness. 

Just about any of these four ideas can also be used for non-scrappy-but-still-busy quilts.  For instance, let’s say we have a stack of quilt blocks like this:

These are great blocks.  If we put them together in a horizontal quilt setting, the quilt may look something like this:

This is a great quilt!  Nothing wrong with it.  But it does make me a bit edgy because I’m not sure where to look first and the entire top is a bit overwhelming.  But look what happens when we add some neutral to the sashing…

Or make an alternate block with neutrals….

The entire quilt takes on a different persona.  The neutral breathes some space into the quilt.

Now what would the same quilt blocks look like if we pick one color from the block and make an alternate block entirely from that color?

Again, this calms it down and pulls the quilt together beautifully. 

We get the same effect if we pull a print from the block and make an alternate block with this same type of print.

One last thought about calming down a busy quilt before we call it a day.  In my research I heard from several folks who quilt their own quilt either on a domestic machine or a long arm.  They suggested several different quilting motifs which help bring cohesiveness and calmness to a quilt.  The most frequently mentioned motif is straight-line quilting – such as a grid, hanging diamonds, crosshatching, or simply quilting the entire quilt with straight vertical or straight horizontal lines.  “The repetition of the same pattern, instead of a motif that has a lot of curlicues and such, gives the quilt a quietness – or at least I think so,” mentioned a long arm friend of mine.  Other suggested quilting options were meanders and loops – designs which are both easy to do and tend to flow over the top of the quilt without adding to the busyness of it. 

I realize this blog isn’t as long as my usual ones, but I have a few things in the hopper for a series of longer blogs in the near future.  I do hope this column gives you some ideas about what to do with a quilt with bold prints or lots of pieces or lots of colors.  There are lots of options you can use to make everything play well together and not make your eyes bleed.  Find your favorite option and use it or you may find the option used depends on the quilt.  Either way, enjoy the process – because that’s really what quilting is all about.

Until Next Week, From My Studio to Yours,

Love and Stitches,

Sherri and Felix

Mistakes happen.  They do.  They happen to me.  They happen to you.  They happen to the best of quilters, including those who have YouTube programs with thousands and thousands of followers.  All quilters have their strengths, and all quilters have their weaknesses.  My question this week is this: When do we let mistakes guide the completion of the quilt?  Is it good to stop the process and correct every little wrong thing or is it better to just keep pushing through the process until we get to the end?  Is finished really better than perfect?

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit, there are quilts, and then there are quilts.  There are quilts meant to grace our beds and quilts meant to be thrown on the ground and picnicked off of.  Then other quilts exist to dazzle judges and hopefully bring home ribbons.  Obviously the latter requires more attention to detail than the former, but how much should you let mistakes hold you back from completing a picnic or play quilt?  Let’s take a hard look at the whole “Finished is better than perfect” mantra and see just how it fits into our quilting. 

I’m starting with a question:  How many projects do you have both in progress and patiently waiting in the wings?  Zone of Truth

I have so many it’s embarrassing to mention.  It wasn’t until I realized my project accumulation was exceeding my life expectancy that I slowed down accumulating them.  I love pretty fabrics and fabulous projects.  Both keep my creative juices bubbling.  However, I came to some pretty hard, cold facts about myself.  First, I’m a slow sewer.  For someone who has sewn nearly every day since she was 24, I’m not a pedal-to-the-metal speed demon quilter – primarily because I want to keep the relationship I have with my seam ripper virtually nonexistent.  If I wanted to finish all these projects, I would have to pick up the pace, and a faster pace meant I would make some mistakes and if the mistakes were bad enough, I would have to develop a much  better working relationship with Jack (the seam ripper).  Second, I declared a moratorium on any additional projects.  I must finish these UFO things.  With that in mind, I know if I don’t embrace the “Finished is better than perfect” point of view, I will drown myself in a sea of unfinished projects, fabrics, and patterns.

And you will, too.  The Zone of Truth here comes with a couple of hard facts:

• You can’t finish if you don’t start.
• You can’t finish if you fuss and obsess over every little mistake. 
• You can’t become paralyzed by perfectionism.

Let’s stop for a moment or two and discuss perfectionism and quilting. Overall, perfectionism can be a difficult task master.  While the goal of perfection is pretty lofty, the execution of it can make your life miserable because none of us are capable of being perfect or producing perfect quilts.  We can do good work and make wonderful quilts, but in order to keep the project moving ahead, you have to let go of perfectionism.  This doesn’t mean you aren’t careful with your technique or that your work is inordinately sloppy.  It means you’ve decided what to accept and what to let go in your quilting journey.

I also think the whole “Finished is better than perfect” mantra actually helps you in some areas (besides the whole getting over perfection if you have that problem). 

First, I think it gives you the confidence to redesign blocks, patterns, and applique.  Think about it.  If you’ve made a mistake in a pattern, exactly how many people will know you’ve made a mistake if you don’t tell them?  Go ahead.  Think about it.

No one.  Unless someone else who views your quilt has made that exact same quilt, no one will know if you’ve made a mistake.  You can take that little goof and make it a design change, a pattern re-draft, or any number of things.  Personally, I think some of the best quilts I’ve made came about through a mistake or two.  I was forced to put down the pattern and come up with my own ideas.  For instance, after I discovered  I was to be a Mimi for the first time, I naturally wanted to make my future granddarling a crib quilt.  I consulted with my daughter who had decided to use owls in the nursery.  I found a cute pattern with appliqued owls on them and set to work, only to discover I made a huge mistake when I began to assemble the quilt.  The owls in the pattern were set on-point. I appliqued them like a standard, horizontal block. 

But they were finished, and since finished is better than perfect, I had to develop my own layout design.  This little fiasco forced me to learn to set aside the pattern, trust my own creative abilities, and make that sweet quilt.  I survived the process and came away with the confidence to realize something I’ve told you for years:  The pattern is merely a suggestion.  The quilt is your quilt, and you can make it the way you want to.

Second, finishing a project will give you the courage to keep pushing forward.  If you’re like me and you’re a recovering perfectionist, it’s so easy to feel that every little mistake is this giant hurdle you can’t get over.  Unless that mistake truly alters the entire construction of a quilt, you may just want to keep pushing forward.  That tiny tuck in a seam will probably not be noticeable at all once the quilt is quilted.  The one tip you accidentally cut off your flying geese will not be seen.  Just remember all progress is some progress and the more stitches stitched gets you closer to the last stitch in the quilt. 

Third, the more projects you finish, the more you will find yourself as a quilter.  As you keep stitching, you will realize your own strengths and weaknesses.  You can play to your strengths and work on your weakness, minimizing them until you feel like you’ve mastered them.  For instance, let’s pretend you want to make a pieced and applique quilt.  Your piecing skills may be stellar, but applique may still be a technique that you need to work on.  Don’t start with a quilt such as this:

With every other block having a bit of applique in it.  Choose one which may have a bit of applique in the center (which also means the applique pieces will probably be larger and easier to work with).  If this is successful, then the next time pick a pattern with more applique.  However, unless you push yourself to finish a project, you’ll never master the techniques you admire in other quilts. 

Finally, finishing something gives you confidence as a quilter.  And confidence breeds more confidence.  With each finish you feel a bit more like patting yourself on the back (which you should) and feel as if you can do it again – this time with something a little more challenging (which you can do).  Finishing a quilt – even if it’s not perfect – excites you as a quilter.  You want to feel that feeling again.  So you push to finish another project.  And then another.  And another.  Trust me, that excitement of finishing never dulls.  It never goes away.  It’s a hit of dopamine and serotonin you want to feel again and again.

A couple of additional thoughts before we close this blog on finishing. 

1. Once that top is complete, quilt the quilt.  Sandwich it up and put it under your needle (either hand quilting or by machine) or find someone to quilt it for you.  Don’t let the top languish in a pile of unquilted tops.  You’ve come too far for that.  Quilt it, bind it, put a label on it and display it.  Trust me, chances are other folks won’t see any mistakes you’ve made.  They’ll admire your handiwork and wish they could make something as marvelous as your quilt. 
2. The whole mantra “Finished is better than perfect” is not an excuse for sloppy work.  Some mistakes need to be corrected in order for the quilt to square up and quilt well or they’re so visible they’re obvious.  A tiny tuck in a seam is one thing, blocks which are out of line by a half inch or more is another.
3. You are the boss of your quilt.  The quilt is not the boss of you.  In the end, it’s fabric. Just fabric.  Don’t let it get the best of you.

If you are a perfectionist in recovery or you simply feel your quilt has too many mistakes, there are three options available to you.  You can fix it.   You can complete the quilt, mistakes and all.   Or you can abandon the project.  The choice is yours.  If I have made a mistake and I really am struggling with it, I set the quilt aside for at least 24-hours.  When I return to it, if the mistakes still rattle me, I fix it.  If they no longer bother me, I pick up where I left off and keep moving.

Have I ever abandoned a project I have so many mistakes in?  You bet.  And most of the time this was the right decision for that project. 

The decisions are yours to make.

Until next week, from My Studio to Yours,

Love and Stitches,

Sherri and Felix