I know I started this story awhile back, and I do apologize for taking so long to finish it. I can make excuses for my delays, but really do you want to hear them? Or would you prefer I just get on with it? Ok I hear you, I will get back to the story.
If you have not read part-1 and part-2 of the story you may want to check that out before continuing on. (Even if you did read it, you can refresh you memory if needed by clicking the links above.
The rest of the story behind my first quilt
A I continued to sew the 2" inch squares in rows, I soon realized I had a lot of squares to sew! In the process of sewing these squares, I also learned about the all important 1/4 inch seam allowance. Now mind you, at the time I was sewing on a very basic sewing machine. It was a machine that my sister-in-law had given me sometime ago. Just to give you an idea of the machine I was using here is a link to the manual along with a pretty good picture of the Kemore I was using. By the way, this site is a good resource for finding manuals, and parts for your older Kenmore machines, as I know I am not the only one out there with an old Kenmore! Please tell me I am not.
As you can see there were no fancy features, just a basic machine. It was a work horse of a machine and with all mechanical parts. Making it very heavy, but also easy to clean and maintain. Unlike the newer electronic ones of today. But 1/4 foot? I did not even know that existed. Never making a quilt before, or ever reading a pattern for making a quilt, how would I. Most seams I had worked with were for clothing which typically were 5/8 inch and were marked on the plate under the presser foot. My needle only had center, no positions there to choose from either, so I had to figure out what a 1/4 inch seam looked like,and then try to keep it consistent. Not an easy task if you do not have the right foot, or setting on your machine. (oh how spoiled I am now!)
To shed some light on how you can solve this problem (in case any of my readers out there do not have the fancy machines of today)I will explain a way to find and mark this on your machine.
Help me find my quarter inch!
One of the easiest ways to do this is take a ruler (quilters ruler with 1/4 inch markings on it)and place it under the presser foot. If you need a look at what a quilters rule is here is one by Omni Grid. Of course there are other brands out there, this is just one I use. do not lower the presser foot Now turn the hand wheel so that you lower the needle down so it touches the ruler on the 1/4 line from the edge of the ruler. Move the ruler as needed to get it exactly on the line. Now take a pad of "post-it notes" and place them next to the right side of the ruler. Stick them to the bed of the machine. This will help in two ways, by making the 1/4 inch easy to find, and it also gives you a nice edge to but the material up against.
Another method is to find the 1/4 inch spot the same way as above, but instead of using the "post-it-notes" you place a place several layers of painters tape on the bed of the machine. It works the same way. You can also just draw a permanent line on the machine which will show the mark, but there is room for error as there is no edge to press against. Which can result in an uneven seam. (of course that is what I did before I learned about the tape or post-it method. So you know that I had some issues in lining up my blocks later on! Oh yes I said I had to learn things the hard way, as I was too anxious to get to sewing, and did not take time to read the nice book I had, or ask questions at the fabric shop.
Lessons learned here "Ask questions the ladies at the fabric stores all love to help new quilters. And they are full of helpful tips like the one I shared above. In fact that is where I got it from." (and you thought I can up with that all by myself!)
Now the next thing I would like to tell you about has to do with being accurate. It is very important with any project to check and double check along the way. (This is something I still struggle with today) As you cut your blocks take a moment and verify they are all the same. When cutting lots of the same thing it is easy to switch measurements when you get distracted. I like to place a piece of colored tape on the ruler in the spot I need to remind me of my measurements. Hey they even sell tape in the quilters section of most fabric stores now just for that very thing! Check it out here is what it looks like at JoAnn Fabrics. I am sure if you looked in your husbands tool box you may find he has some thin painters tape that would work too, but the ones from JoAnns come in pretty colors!
When it comes to accuracy you need to also make sure you check your seams periodically to be sure they are still maintaining the proper seam allowance. We can tend to slip once in awhile, and better to catch a few off blocks then lot's of them. Sometimes you can press them into submission if the difference is slight, but more times than not, you will have trouble down the road. Especially if you are making more complicated blocks with lots of pieces. So get in the habit now of checking and rechecking with each new step in the block. Trust me you will thank me for this some day.
I thought I would get to the end of this project here, but looks like things are getting longer than I anticipated so I will need to finish off tomorrow with the quilt sandwich, quilting and binding lessons I learned.
I do hope you are enjoying reading this story, and if so, bookmark me, or subscribe to my feed so you will not miss a lesson. Feel free to leave me comments on my page I love to hear from my readers.
Showing posts with label quilting experiences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quilting experiences. Show all posts
Friday, January 4, 2008
Thursday, November 29, 2007
This Quilt is where it all started, part 2
Part 2 starts with the all important fabric selection. Choosing fabrics can be a scary part of the process if you are new to quilting. Not only do you need to worry about the colors, but now as I looked at the quilting fabrics in the store I saw more than just colors, I saw many prints and patterns. Where do I begin? My basic instinct was to look for a color that appealed to me, and then decide on the coordinating colors. Which is a good place to start. The quilts I saw in books and magazines all used so many combinations of prints and patterns that I had no clue as to how to match them. To clear things up for me, I went back to my book and found my answers in chapter 2.
When picking fabrics, there is much more to it than picking a color you like. Although most of the time I do select by color and then move onto the other factors. Let me see if I can break this down for you. Here is some of the things to consider when choosing your fabrics: Color, contrast, overall character of the fabric, and scale.
Color the best way to learn about the relationship of colors and what works best with what is to refer to a color wheel. (You can buy one pretty cheap now days, or just type in color wheel and I guarantee you will find one on the web) Once you understand how to use one, combining colors will be easy.
Contrast is important to make your designs stand out. Most quilt pattern tell you to use light, medium and dark fabrics. Learning how to see fabrics in these categories is crucial to quilt making. One simple trick to identifying these is to remove color all together. Using a red piece of cellophane or red plastic and place it over you pile of fabrics. You will quickly see which are light, medium and which are dark. Don't believe me? Try to arrange your fabrics in a pile starting from lightest to darkest. Then place the red plastic over them and see if there are any out of place. You might be surprised.
Overall character of the fabric is simply the relationship they have with each other. Like florals, or stripes and checks, or novelty prints etc. Consider the mood you want to create, like is this a child's quilt? Then maybe brights or children's prints would be in order. Is the mood more of a romantic one, then perhaps florals, and tone on tone, or fabrics with softer color shades.
Scale is also important is making the most of the fabric prints. While large scale prints are certainly eye catching, they don't look as well when cut into small squares as you loose the design. Small scale prints from a far can look like a solid fabric. Medium prints tend to work best in large and small blocks. But a combination of small and medium prints can add interest. I tend to use the larger prints for borders, or backings.
Understanding and learning to combine all of these elements will result in great quilts.
I must be honest here, the fabrics I choose for this quilt were done by instinct and not because of some book. I got lucky as they did work well together. Some might even say I was a natural at picking fabrics. I won't say that I always got it right, but what I will say is once you understand the rules you will make less mistakes. (If you have a quilt that just doesn't seem to work finish it anyway and donate it to a shelter. I have never seen anyone there complain about how it looks)
Cutting my fabric
Next came the cutting of my squares. Now remember this was may first quilt, and of course I was not going to read the entire book before getting started right? I just wanted to start. So I scanned the section about how to use the rotary cutter and went to cut my 2 inch squares. Lot's of 2 inch squares! After cutting up my fabric into strips I cross cut them into the squares and stacked them in piles. All that was left was to start sewing. I began making pairs of 2 and then put them with other pairs which became what was known as a four patch. Once that was done I placed them in rows alternating a four patch with a solid white square. Making block after block, and row after row, then finally joining the rows. All sounds good so far right?
Well there was one problem, I started this without a pattern. What that means is I didn't even know how many squares I would need to complete this quilt. You see, I missed one very important step, and that was to determine the size I wanted the quilt to be then I could do some simple math and see how many squares I needed. That my friends is called "A Plan" which I didn't have. All I knew was I started with 2 inch squares. But how many does it take to make a quilt? And now I was wondering how many did I cut, and will I even have enough fabric? The fabric I used was some from my stash and most of what I bought were fat quarters. Fat quarters were easy to buy, since I had no idea how to determine yardage at the time. So you see this quilt ended up much smaller than I wanted. It is good size lap quilt, but it was supposed to be for my bed.
So, this was the first mistake I made on this quilt. "Not planning" The second mistake, was "cutting each separate square". You see if I only read further in the book I would have known how to plan my quilt better. I found a whole section on that later. And I soon discovered strip piecing, a much quicker way to make this type of block.
I think I will break here and continue on to part 3 where I share some of the other things this quilt taught me. Come back to see the rest of the story.
When picking fabrics, there is much more to it than picking a color you like. Although most of the time I do select by color and then move onto the other factors. Let me see if I can break this down for you. Here is some of the things to consider when choosing your fabrics: Color, contrast, overall character of the fabric, and scale.
Color the best way to learn about the relationship of colors and what works best with what is to refer to a color wheel. (You can buy one pretty cheap now days, or just type in color wheel and I guarantee you will find one on the web) Once you understand how to use one, combining colors will be easy.
Contrast is important to make your designs stand out. Most quilt pattern tell you to use light, medium and dark fabrics. Learning how to see fabrics in these categories is crucial to quilt making. One simple trick to identifying these is to remove color all together. Using a red piece of cellophane or red plastic and place it over you pile of fabrics. You will quickly see which are light, medium and which are dark. Don't believe me? Try to arrange your fabrics in a pile starting from lightest to darkest. Then place the red plastic over them and see if there are any out of place. You might be surprised.
Overall character of the fabric is simply the relationship they have with each other. Like florals, or stripes and checks, or novelty prints etc. Consider the mood you want to create, like is this a child's quilt? Then maybe brights or children's prints would be in order. Is the mood more of a romantic one, then perhaps florals, and tone on tone, or fabrics with softer color shades.
Scale is also important is making the most of the fabric prints. While large scale prints are certainly eye catching, they don't look as well when cut into small squares as you loose the design. Small scale prints from a far can look like a solid fabric. Medium prints tend to work best in large and small blocks. But a combination of small and medium prints can add interest. I tend to use the larger prints for borders, or backings.
Understanding and learning to combine all of these elements will result in great quilts.
I must be honest here, the fabrics I choose for this quilt were done by instinct and not because of some book. I got lucky as they did work well together. Some might even say I was a natural at picking fabrics. I won't say that I always got it right, but what I will say is once you understand the rules you will make less mistakes. (If you have a quilt that just doesn't seem to work finish it anyway and donate it to a shelter. I have never seen anyone there complain about how it looks)
Cutting my fabric
Next came the cutting of my squares. Now remember this was may first quilt, and of course I was not going to read the entire book before getting started right? I just wanted to start. So I scanned the section about how to use the rotary cutter and went to cut my 2 inch squares. Lot's of 2 inch squares! After cutting up my fabric into strips I cross cut them into the squares and stacked them in piles. All that was left was to start sewing. I began making pairs of 2 and then put them with other pairs which became what was known as a four patch. Once that was done I placed them in rows alternating a four patch with a solid white square. Making block after block, and row after row, then finally joining the rows. All sounds good so far right?
Well there was one problem, I started this without a pattern. What that means is I didn't even know how many squares I would need to complete this quilt. You see, I missed one very important step, and that was to determine the size I wanted the quilt to be then I could do some simple math and see how many squares I needed. That my friends is called "A Plan" which I didn't have. All I knew was I started with 2 inch squares. But how many does it take to make a quilt? And now I was wondering how many did I cut, and will I even have enough fabric? The fabric I used was some from my stash and most of what I bought were fat quarters. Fat quarters were easy to buy, since I had no idea how to determine yardage at the time. So you see this quilt ended up much smaller than I wanted. It is good size lap quilt, but it was supposed to be for my bed.
So, this was the first mistake I made on this quilt. "Not planning" The second mistake, was "cutting each separate square". You see if I only read further in the book I would have known how to plan my quilt better. I found a whole section on that later. And I soon discovered strip piecing, a much quicker way to make this type of block.
I think I will break here and continue on to part 3 where I share some of the other things this quilt taught me. Come back to see the rest of the story.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
This Quilt is where it all started
We all need to make at least one quilt, to consider ourselves a quilter. Well for me this was that quilt! Not bad for a first quilt.This quilt was quite an ambitious project for a first quilt. It looks great (well at least I think so)in this picture, but I am going to share some of the mistakes (or as I now call them design choices) I had to make in completing this project along with the story behind the beginning of my quilting journey.
First of all understand that when I made this quilt all I knew about quilting was you were supposed to sew squares together, layer it then top stitch the layers. Even though I had been sewing for years prior to discovering quilting I did not know much about this process or how much was really involved. After all how hard could it be to sew a few simple squares together after making clothing or Halloween costumes. Which before quilting that was what I worked on along with a few craft projects now and then.
Inspiration from television
My interest in quilting started after stumbling onto a cable channel where I saw a show on making quilts. Most of you should know the show I am taking about and the genius behind it. The show I am referring to is Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson. Alex has also written many books, and now has her own website "The Quilt Show" with Ricky Tims (he has his own site too which you can check out here). These sites are both worth looking at. (Alex and Ricky I hope you enjoy the free advertising. {{smile}} and maybe someday you can do the same for me! Wouldn't that be great to get some endorsement from them on Quilting Weekly. Ahh to dream is wonderful.
I think the episode I was watching was on crazy quilting. With crazy quilting you don't even need a pattern, all you need is scraps of fabric. Well as a sewer I had scraps of fabric and this did not look hard at all. So I sat down and looked through my scraps and tried it out. (Much to my disappointment, I did not like the results) It was too random and scrappy for my taste. I don't even think I got past the first square before I decided I needed more structure. But where to begin? After all all, the books I had at that time were on garment sewing, nothing for quilt inspiration there. So off I went to the fabric store. {{grinn}} Even then the fabric store was like a candy store to me.
What I found at the fabric store
I soon discovered a new section in the store, one dedicated to quilters! What an exciting discovery it was. Now I had been in this store for years, but never noticed all the books, tools, and gadgets that were just for quilters. Needless to say, I started looking at the books for my instructions, and inspirations. Well as you can imagine I lost hours in that store. (Good thing my husband doesn't keep close track of my where abouts during the day). He would have never understood how I could loose hours looking at all the books, and quilting toys. I soon realized I needed to start at the beginning. I needed a book that could take me all the way from fabric squares to bindings.
This book is still a book I use today. It is one that I recommend any new quilter purchase. This book is the how to of how to books. It covers everything from tools to fabric, to bindings. There are sections from beginner to advanced techniques, from hand quilting to machine quilting. I like to call this the "A to Z" quilting book. It is "The Complete Guide to Quilting" by Better Homes and Gardens. It comes in a paperback and a hard cover version. If you can afford the hard cover it will be well worth the extra dollars. The hard cover version has nice spiral binding, so the pages lay flat.
After purchasing this book, and reading the first section I soon realized that I needed a few basic tools as well. Rotary cutters rulers and a mat would make cutting my squares much easier. (here is an article on these tools if you are not familiar with them) After purchasing my book and my tools I was drawn to the fabrics. {{grinn}} yes the wonderful fabrics...................
The next part of this story will take you though the fabric selections and cutting of the squares. So come back again if you want to hear the rest of the story.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Well I have to start somewhere
We all need to start somewhere, and for me this is the beginning of my story. The middle and the end is still being written. So sit down, and hang on for the ride. I will do my best to keep your interest as I share my story with you.
As far back as I can remember, I have always had an interest in working with my hands. Creating something from scratch and finding out what I can do with the raw materials is very exciting and rewarding. I have worked with many different materials along the way, like fabric, thread, yarn, clay, pencil, and paper, paints, chalks, and so many more. There have been many different results some good and some not so good. (Not going to share those right now {{grinn}}. But I will over time share some of my creations with you once I figure out how.
You see this blogging thing is relatively new to me, so for those of you who are seasoned bloggers, you may need to bare with me as I figure out things here. (if you want to share you expertise with me I am open to help)
Anyway back to me, as this is my story. Though trial and error I discovered my true passion and I am driven to follow this passion. It has plagued me for years, and I really did not know what it was or why but all I knew is I needed to continue until I found my destiny. (which I think I have) You may be asking yourself what is she talking about? My dream was to have my own place where I could teach others how to create. I have had many jobs along the way which were all part of my journey here. Over time you will get to know more about them. But right now I want to let you all know that this blog will give you an inside to my experiences and I hope to inspire you to follow your dreams too!
I know there is not much to read on this blog now, but I promise to work at daily so if your at all curious then bookmark me, and come back to see the rest of my story. This blog will also promise to provide you with lots of information on quilting, and sewing. I want to share what I know with you, and I want you to learn what you can from me. Sound good? Then come back and see what else I have in store for you.
In the meantime, I would like to invite you to check out my website: http://www.quiltingweekly.com This is also a new venture for me. It is an online quilting classroom dedicated to quilters around the world. You can register for free, and pay for a class only if you want to take it. I even have a free class which you get when you register so why not check it out!
Until next time,
Remember in quilting there are no mistakes, only design choices to be made!
As far back as I can remember, I have always had an interest in working with my hands. Creating something from scratch and finding out what I can do with the raw materials is very exciting and rewarding. I have worked with many different materials along the way, like fabric, thread, yarn, clay, pencil, and paper, paints, chalks, and so many more. There have been many different results some good and some not so good. (Not going to share those right now {{grinn}}. But I will over time share some of my creations with you once I figure out how.
You see this blogging thing is relatively new to me, so for those of you who are seasoned bloggers, you may need to bare with me as I figure out things here. (if you want to share you expertise with me I am open to help)
Anyway back to me, as this is my story. Though trial and error I discovered my true passion and I am driven to follow this passion. It has plagued me for years, and I really did not know what it was or why but all I knew is I needed to continue until I found my destiny. (which I think I have) You may be asking yourself what is she talking about? My dream was to have my own place where I could teach others how to create. I have had many jobs along the way which were all part of my journey here. Over time you will get to know more about them. But right now I want to let you all know that this blog will give you an inside to my experiences and I hope to inspire you to follow your dreams too!
I know there is not much to read on this blog now, but I promise to work at daily so if your at all curious then bookmark me, and come back to see the rest of my story. This blog will also promise to provide you with lots of information on quilting, and sewing. I want to share what I know with you, and I want you to learn what you can from me. Sound good? Then come back and see what else I have in store for you.
In the meantime, I would like to invite you to check out my website: http://www.quiltingweekly.com This is also a new venture for me. It is an online quilting classroom dedicated to quilters around the world. You can register for free, and pay for a class only if you want to take it. I even have a free class which you get when you register so why not check it out!
Until next time,
Remember in quilting there are no mistakes, only design choices to be made!
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