My March OMG Requires Reinforcements: Teaching My Mom How to do Foundation Paper Piecing

Look Who Learned Foundation Paper Piecing Today!

I looked at my calendar last night and realized that I only have seven weeks to get this quilt top made if I want it to be ready to quilt when I get back from Quilt Week at the end of April, and I gotta be honest, folks -- I was feeling panicked.

But then I remembered how much fun I had with my mom -- and how much sewing we got done in a relatively short period of time -- when she helped me make my Victorian Christmas caroling costume:

My Ridiculous Caroling Getup, Made With My Mom in 2015

I did almost all of the sewing myself, but I never could have finished it without my mom there to explain the convoluted pattern instructions, help with fittings, keep me motivated and on task, and assist with hand stitching that trim along the skirt hem while I was frantically sewing something else at the machine.  I always seem to be sewing something frantically at one of my machines, don't I?  

And then I remembered how much fun I had with my mom and HER mom back in 2001 when they helped me sew a yellow duck costume for Lars's very first Halloween:

Lars's Duck Costume Made by Me, My Mom, & My Grandmother in 2001

I wish someone had taken pictures of us working on these projects!!

Anyway, when the panic sets in and the situation looks desperate, that's a great time to call your mom, don't you agree?  Now my mom do all kinds of alterations, tailoring, clothing and costumes and even bridal gowns, but she's not a quilter (yet).  Before today, she'd never made so much as a 9-patch block before!  Nevertheless, despite not knowing anything about quilting and never showing any interest in learning, my mom agreed to learn in order to help me get Lars's quilt done on time.  If she and I make it together, then Lars's quilt will be made with twice as much love!  Still can't believe that little dude in the duck costume is about to graduate from high school...

My Mom's First Attempt at Paper Piecing on my Bernina 475QE

So we each made one of the flying geese arcs, side by side and step by step in my studio.  Another bonus of having two Berninas set up for paper piecing in the same room!  Now my mom can come and sew with me without having to pack up her machine and bring it from home.

See?  Paper Piecing Is Fun, and Doesn't Hurt (Until You Nick Yourself With the Rotary Cutter)

So now there are five completed arcs (out of 48 needed) plus two more that we started after dinner and abandoned when we realized that A: We were tired and B: The alarm clock goes off EARLY on Sunday morning.  I'm lucky that my mom lives close by but still don't like her to drive home too late at night when she's tired.

Five Arcs Pieced, Forty-Three to Go!

I am SO EXCITED about this project now -- I LOVE how those geese look together!  Pinned in the center of the circle is a swatch of the Spoonflower custom printed fabric that I'm 90% sure I'll be ordering for the backing.  I put the swatch through the laundry today to make sure it's colorfast and I didn't notice any fading at all.  The washing softened it up a little, too -- I'm going to have it printed on the same Kona cotton base fabric as the solid colored fabrics used in the quilt top, and I did NOT wash or preshrink any of those, so probably best not to prewash the backing either.

Tomorrow I'm only singing at the early church service so we can take Lars back to UNC-Asheville for a second visit.  The theatre department gave us comp tickets to a matinee performance of their one act plays.  We're looking forward to seeing the play, but also looking forward to the chance to see more students, faculty, parents, etc. to get a better feel for this school as Lars narrows down his options.  May 1st is the deadline for making a decision and sending a deposit.  

Whether I get any more sewing done tomorrow will depend on how late we get back to Charlotte and how tired I am at the end of the day!  But I do have my quilting bee on Monday afternoon and I'm planning to take this project "on the road" every opportunity that I get until it's done.  Don't expect to see much in the way of hand stitching from me until this quilt top is ready to quilt!

My One Monthly Goal (OMG) for March is to piece all 48 arced flying geese for this quilt, with mom's help!

I'm also linking up with:

SUNDAY

·      Slow Sunday Stitching at http://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/  

·      Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework http://quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.com

MONDAY

·      Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts http://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com 

·      Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts http://www.cookingupquilts.com/

·      Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt http://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/

·      Moving it Forward at Em’s Scrap Bag: http://emsscrapbag.blogspot.com.au/

Beginner Quilting Class Sample Finished and Delivered!

Good morning!  I hope you all enjoyed a restful, relaxing holiday weekend (Labor Day weekend here in the United States).  My teenage sons were both away on a Christian retreat all weekend, so my husband and I got a sneak peak at what that empty nest thing feels like.  

I finally finished up my beginner quilting class sample over the weekend:

Beginner Quilting Class Sample, 36" x 36"

Although it's a simple project, it was interesting how my thought process evolved throughout construction as I imagined teaching each step to someone who had never done it before, wanting to set those beginners up for success -- but with the time constraint of two full-day classes.

So we'll learn rotary cutting and piecing in the first class, and if they don't get their tops completely assembled by the end of the first class they can catch up for homework in between classes.  Then in the second class we'll learn to layer, baste, quilt, and bind.  It's a lot, I know.  What I decided to do for basting is to spray baste the quilt layers together with 505 (temporary spray adhesive that I had on hand because I use it to adhere stabilizer for machine embroidery projects) and to supplement that with sparser than usual pin basting, so students will be exposed to both methods, quilt layers will be secure through all the tugging and bunching and twisting under the machine, yet we won't eat up too much class time pinning.

Basted With 505 Adhesive Spray Plus 4 Safety Pins Per Block

The quilting design itself is pretty basic, all done with a walking foot.  

I wanted SO BADLY to add some free motion swirlies in the sashing and something fancy in the border, but free motion quilting is an entire journey of its own.  Way too much too much for beginners, especially since they will all have different sewing machines, they may not know how to lower their feed dogs, and they will not all have stitch regulators.  I don't want to discourage brand new quilters!

Walking Foot Quilting with Guide Bar Attached

Stitch in the ditch plus a few additional lines of quilting in each block (done with the guide bar attached to the walking foot), so no marking required.  Even so, I think I'll teach the binding FIRST on the second day, with a small layer cake sized sample quilt, so everyone's brain is fresh for the corner miters.  Then they can just focus on their quilting, knowing they have their binding samples to take home and remind them how to finish up.  Students can add additional lines of quilting if they feel like it and they have time.

When I bound the class sample with this cheerful cherry red stripe, I couldn't resist the challenge of pattern-matching the stripes at all of the diagonal seams.

Stripes Matched at Diagonal Binding Joins

Nice and invisible!  (I am not going to have beginners try to do that!).  I machine stitched the binding to the front of the quilt, briefly considered finishing it by machine, but ultimately decided to slipstitch the binding to the back of the quilt by hand.  

Binding Invisibly Hand Stitched to the Quilt Backing

Yes, it took several hours to do it that way, but that's the way I always do it, I like how it comes out, and I'm not interested in learning a new technique just so I can teach it.  I was able to stitch the binding down outside on the deck with Bernie, listening to the birds and classical music from the screen porch speakers.   Very relaxing!

Finished and Freshly Washed

I also decided to toss the finished quilt in the wash before handing it over to the shop, for a couple of reasons.  First, I wanted to remove the glue basting spray and fabric glue stick that I used when I pattern-matched my binding joins, as well as all of the starch I used throughout my construction process and any hand lotion, dust, or pet fur that may have accumulated on it.  Second, since this is a baby-sized quilt, I wanted it to be soft and snuggly, not stiff.  If we were really giving this to a baby, we would want to wash it to remove all the chemicals first.  Also, with very minimal quilting, it needed to go through the wash and shrink up slightly to get some texture and to accentuate the quilting lines.  And for beginners, when they wash their finished projects and they crinkle up like this, any wobbly quilt lines or tiny oopses will be obscured.  To me, a quilt is never REALLY finished until it comes out of the wash all soft and krinkled.

Now that the class sample is finished and delivered to the Bernina shop, I just need to compile my notes into a lesson plan while the details are still fresh in my mind, and write up a class description and supply list.  

Meanwhile, my longarm frame has been sitting empty and looking lonely.  Next time I escape to my studio, I'll be piecing the backing fabric for my Math is Beautiful quilt so I can load it onto my frame and start quilting it.  My APQS new owner class is coming up in two weeks, and I'd like to quilt an actual quilt on my longarm machine before I go.  

The Long-Neglected Math Quilt, Next On My Frame

And of course my sewing time is limited, now that the kids have gone back to school, all their activities are starting up again, church choir rehearsals have resumed.  My design business also tends to ramp up once summer vacations are over, school starts, and clients turn their focus from outdoors back to their interiors, planning projects to refresh their homes for holiday entertaining.

Happy stitching, and happy (almost!) Fall, y'all!  ;-)  Today I'm linking up with:

• ·       Let’s Bee Social at http://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.ca/
• ·       Midweek Makers at http://quiltfabrication.com/
• ·       WIPs With Friends at www.mamaspark.blogspot.com 
• WOW WIP on Wednesday at www.estheraliu.blogspot.com
• ·       Finish It Up Friday at www.crazymomquilts.blogspot.com
  ·       Whoop Whoop Fridays at www.confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com
  ·       Off the Wall Friday at Creations: http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/
  ·       Finished Or Not Friday at http://busyhandsquilts.blogspot.com/

A Few More Pineapple Log Cabin Blocks: 33 Finished, 9 More Required

I did manage to make another couple of pineapple log cabin blocks last week.

Most Recent Pineapple Blocks Completed

So now I've got 33 finished blocks and 9 more that need to be made.  With 97 pieces per block, and the repetitive nature of construction, this is very tedious work.  I absolutely love how the blocks are coming out and how they look together on my design wall, but can't make any more of these blocks right now.  I need a break!

Some of my Earlier Pineapple Log Cabin Blocks

I know I am going to love this quilt when it's finished, but if I had known how long it was going to take me before I started, I probably wouldn't have chosen it.  I am going to have SO MUCH FUN with this once I get it loaded onto my longarm frame!!

I have been thinking about how i'm going to plan the layout for this quilt once I've finished all of the blocks.  Laying out the blocks edge to edge before they are sewn together, it will be about 109" x 130", way larger than the design wall in my studio, and I do want to plan my layout rather than just randomly stitching blocks into rows.  I'd like to avoid sewing blocks together in a way that puts the same fabric in adjacent patches if I can, and there may be an evolution throughout the piecing process whereby the earlier blocks use more muted fabrics and more recent blocks have more bright fabrics.  If so, I'll want to balance that out with my layout, too.  I think I'm going to bring my stack of blocks to church in the middle of a weekday when nothing's going on and lay the blocks out on the floor of the Lower Commons area at the entrance to our new sanctuary.  

Group Photo of Our High School Kids

The same way we do for group photos like the one above, I can lay out my quilt blocks on the floor of the Lower Commons and then go upstairs to view the whole thing from a distance to see if anything jumps out at me and needs to be moved.  There may be a few trips up and down the stairs involved, but a little exercise won't hurt me!  And once I have my layout finalized, I'll label the blocks with little stickers or post it notes or something before I stack them up to bring them home.  Perfect, right?

I do still need to cut and sew the outer white border to my bear paw quilt, which you see on the wall below my pineapple blocks in the first photo.  But the project taking priority this week (well, taking priority during my odd moments of free time, that is!) has got to be finishing the class sample quilt for the beginner quilting class:

37" x 37" Class Sample Waiting Patiently to be Quilted

I haven't been procrastinating with this as much as I've been deliberating over the best methods to teach my beginners for layering, basting, and quilting.  This is supposed to be a 2-Saturday class with all of the cutting and piecing done in the first day-long class, time for students to catch up if they need to before the second class, and then layering, basting, quilting AND BINDING in the second class.  It's a small quilt, only 37" square before quilting, which means that backing fabric doesn't need to be pieced or anything.  It would probably be a good candidate for spray basting, but I think I should teach them how to baste with safety pins so they know how to do that for other, larger projects -- and I am not sure how everyone could be spraying that adhesive glue around in the store without overspray getting all over the place, anyway.  

With so much to cover in so little time, I think this is going to have to be quilted in boring straight lines with a walking foot.  That way I can teach them how to stitch in the ditch, which I do consider to be a basic machine quilting skill.  I keep thinking of other ideas that would make the finished quilt more exciting, but then the reality of the time factor sets in and I keep going back to the straight lines.  

If the quilting is too involved, students won't be ready to sew their binding in class with me there to help them, and the corner miters might be tricky for a beginner trying to finish up at home.

Hmmm...  I just had an idea.  What if I cut up some of my practice FMQ quilt sandwiches into mug rug sized squares and use those to teach my students how to sew their binding?  That way everyone gets to practice the corner miters and learn the technique for joining the ends of the binding, even if some students work more slowly than others and are not ready to put their binding on before the end of the class.  I knew I was holding onto those practice pieces for a reason!

I'm linking up with:

·       Let’s Bee Social at http://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.ca/

·       Midweek Makers at http://quiltfabrication.blogspot.com/

·       WOW WIP on Wednesday at www.estheraliu.blogspot.com

Do As I Say, Not As I Do: Why I Should Have STARTED With a Pressing Plan

Good morning and Happy Saturday!  Check out this lovely HOLE in the center of my bear paw block.  Nice, right?

There's A Hole In My Quilt Top, Dear Liza a Hole!

Up until yesterday, I had four of these holes at the center of every single one of my bear paw blocks, as well as holes at the four corners of most of my sashing star blocks.  When I started making this quilt several years ago, I just started sewing and "pressing to the dark side" rather than making a pressing plan. 

The goals of a pressing plan are:

• to reduce bulk
• keep points crisp and sharp, and
• create the flattest possible quilt top sans thick, knobby bumps where too many seam allowances stacked up, and
• most importantly, to create nesting seam allowances wherever possible for perfectly matching seam intersections.  

(If you're following a pattern that includes pressing instructions, the pattern designer has already done this for you).  I realized the error of my haphazard ways after sewing this quilt top together, and came up with a delusional plan to fix it (late one night when bad decisions are made and it's best to leave the studio!).  I just popped the seams at all of the offending intersections so I could press the seam allowances in different directions.  Now my quilt top was nice and flat, but there were a bazillion HOLES in it!

See?  I ripped out the stitching to free the seam allowance.

I couldn't leave it that way (although I was tempted to!), because those holes were hazards waiting to trip up my presser foot during the quilting process, and then RRIPPP!!  It was piddly, fiddly, annoying work, but I did restitch all of those blocks closed and repressed the quilt top yesterday and it's so much better now.

The Final pressing Solution

See how I ended up pressing those intersections where my sawtooth star, sashing and bear paw block comes together?  I split the difference and pressed them into little squares.  Who knows whether the mythical Quilt Police would approve, but it's nice and flat and looks good (to me, anyway) from the right side:

Same Sawtooth Star, from the Right Side

One More, 'Cause They're So Cute

After that, I added my inner white borders:

Pinning Borders, Easing Top Slightly to fit Border

Ever since I started thinking about teaching new quilters, I've had a different mindfulness to my quilting.  I typically would be thinking ahead to the next steps, or even to the next project, but now I'm more focused on what I'm doing in this step, this moment, thinking about how I'm going to teach it to someone else. 

A lot of quilters struggle with keeping their quilt edges flat and square, especially if they have multiple borders.  I deliberately included the sashing strips and border in my class project so I can teach them how to do those steps successfully. 

I did talk with my dealer and she agreed that I could teach this as a two-day class, which I feel much better about.  I'm going to continue to think about ways to streamline the process and divide things up, and will probably put together a couple more sample tops as I do that.  I'm also going to corral some family members as guinea pigs and attempt to teach them the project in the allotted class time. 

My stitching has lagged behind a bit this week due to an unfortunate illness afflicting my 2nd floor air conditioning, turning my studio into a sauna.  It's fixed now, but I'm headed out of town after church tomorrow and that's the perfect opportunity for my 'Nina 750QE sewbaby to go in for her annual wellbaby visit.  I think there's an update that I haven't downloaded, too.  Then, when I get back, she'll be in tip-top shape and ready to sew up a storm! 

Enjoy your summer, and happy stitching, everyone!

Moving Right Along: Backing Fabrics Selected for Math Quilt and Bear Paws Quilt!

Good morning, and a big thanks to all of you who responded to yesterday's post with feedback about teaching beginner quilters.  You guys are reinforcing my own gut feeling about this.  This opportunity may or may not be a good fit for me right now, what with everything else I'm trying to juggle and balance.  I'm not looking to reap dazzling financial rewards from teaching (hah!).  I'm only interested in doing it to reap those intangible rewards that come from motivating and empowering others.  I don't want to simplify the project any further because I think my current design incorporates the bare minimum amount of practice with 1/4" seams and intersecting seam allowances that students need to reinforce and master those skills.  I also don't want to just do something using precuts, because someone who only knows how to quilt with precuts and doesn't know how to cut her own fabric is very limited in what she or he can do.  Cutting, 1/4" seams, and matching seam intersections are the three basic skills that everything else builds on and I feel I would be doing a disservice to cut those out.  It would be like teaching beginner math, but skipping addition and subtraction to save time!  So I'll talk to the shop owner again and see what she says.

Meanwhile, I found and ordered backing fabrics for two of my own projects that are nearing completion.  First, for the Math Is Beautiful quilt:

Koi Garden Tiny Droplet in Chartreuse, available here from eQuilter.com

...This quilt was based on a graph paper doodle that my son Lars made in his 8th grade Math II notebook:

Lars's Math Doodle

Lars is going to be a junior this fall, so that tells you a bit about how long this quilt has been languishing as a UFO... 

Math Is Beautiful Quilt On My Design Wall (Anders Watching TV)

Anyway, it's destined to be the first real quilt that gets loaded on my long arm frame once I've finished my giant practice quilt.  I was having a tough time picking backing fabric for this one because all of the fabrics in the quilt top are so busy, but I think the chartreuse and magenta dot fabric will complement this OOP Kaffe Fasset poppies and irises print really nicely and help to brighten up what ended up being a very dark quilt top:

OOP Kaffe Fasset Print, Can't Remember the Name

Backing Fabric for the Math Quilt

Better Shot of the Math Quilt, Taken Prior to Borders

I probably should have mixed in a solid somewhere, but ah, well!  This may very well be one of those quilts that grows on me once it is finished.

And the second backing fabric I ordered yesterday is this one, for my Butterflies and Bear Paws quilt:

Tula Pink Slow and Steady Orange Crush Pit Crew available here from Fat Quarter Shop

I am going to finish the borders on this quilt top TODAY, I PROMISE...  But here's what it looks like at the moment:

Butterflies and Bear Paws Quilt, Borders Not Yet Attached

I'm planning on solid white (Kona Snow) inner and outer borders on either side of my pieced batik stripe border, and I'm thinking the Tula Pink fabric would be a nice surprise on the other side of the quilt without risking color showing through the white sections of the quilt top.

OOP Lou Lou Thi Fabric by Anna Maria Horner

Of course, there are drawbacks to online fabric shopping.  Colors can look very different in real life than they do on the computer monitor, based on monitor settings, camera or scanner settings of the photo you're looking at, etc.  There's always a chance that what comes in the mail doesn't look just right with your quilt top, after all.  If that happens, it goes in the stash and I have to start looking all over again.

I would much prefer to shop for my fabrics locally, but I don't have a shop near me that carries fabric that I like: solids, text prints, Kaffe Fassett, Tula Pink, etc.  

Do any of you shop for fabric online?  If so, what are your favorite online quilt shops?  I shop with Fat Quarter Shop and with eQuilter a lot, mostly because they both have a huge selection and their sites are well organized so it's easy to browse and come up with enough fabric in my shopping cart to qualify for free shipping.

The other thing that happens to me in this online quilting community is that I fall in love with fabric someone else is using on their blog, fabric they have had in their stash for a few years that is now OOP (Out Of Print).  That happened to me this week with this fabric, which I just found 5 yards of on eBay:

OOP Tula Pink Royal Elizabeth

How did I miss that loveliness when it was first introduced?!  I snatched it up, of course!  When I'm buying fabric for my stash, without a specific purpose in mind, I typically only buy a fat quarter or half yard, so this is the first time I'm stashing a backing.  It might coordinate with the Tula Pink clam shell quilt...

Alright, I'm off to my studio to get those borders attached to my bear paw quilt!  Have a great day, and happy stitching!

Today I'm linking up with:

·       Let’s Bee Social at http://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.ca/

·       Midweek Makers at http://quiltfabrication.blogspot.com/

·       WOW WIP on Wednesday at www.estheraliu.blogspot.com