Behold: A Southern Blizzard! "Snowed In" With the Best Beginner Long Arm Quilting Tutorials

Okay, Wisconsin and Minnesnowta readers -- get ready to laugh yourselves silly.  School is canceled today in Charlotte, North Carolina -- in the middle of exam week -- because of treacherous weather conditions that they are calling Storm Three:

Storm Three Pounds My Neighborhood with a Sprinkling of Snow Dandruff

Not only is school closed today, but businesses are closing as well.  My in-box is full of emails from the eye doctor, interior design showrooms, etc., notifying me that they are all closed due to the "storm."  All of my appointments today have been canceled, even tonight's church choir rehearsal, and I have no reason to leave the house at all.  This is clearly a message from the Universe telling me to spend the day with Thoroughly Modern Millie, my APQS longarm quilting machine.

Although I've had Millie since late March of last year, I've only actually loaded quilts onto the frame twice.  The first one was a huge King-sized practice quilt that I loaded in May, and the second one was a printed cheater cloth practice quilt that I loaded back in October, three months ago.  I've spent a lot more time getting a feel for driving the quilting machine around to "draw" quilting designs than I have with the basic process of getting started with a quilt, so now that I'm ready for my first real quilt I've been procrastinating, apprehensive and unsure about how to begin.  I'd walk into my studio and sort of circle around the longarm frame, like she and I were sizing one another up for a bullfight.

The Look My Longarm Machine Has Been Giving Me

But I'm not even the matador in this scenario -- I'm the BULL, y'all!  And I've been like, "You know what?  I'm just going to leave the ring and find a nice cork tree where I can lie down and smell the flowers!  Or cut up the flowered fabric into triangles, or pick out flowers for a new applique project...  You get the idea.

...And I Am Ferdinand the Bull, Who Would Rather Go Smell the Flowers

Ferdinand and I have the same bangs now, by the way.  They look way cuter on him than they do on me.

But no; this is NOT going to be a bull fight!  Longarm quilting is not a violent, barbaric "sport."  No one has to die, the only bloodshed is going to be if I stab myself with a pin, and Millie and I are going to work TOGETHER to create quilty goodness and not as mortal combatants.  I just need to refresh my memory on some basics, boost my confidence, and get over it already! 

"Bullfight: Death of the Toreador," by Pablo Picasso, 1933

So last night I spent some time on YouTube, hunting down the best beginner longarm quilting tutorials.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video demonstration has got to be worth a million words!  YouTube is great, but I wish it was organized better so I didn't have to scroll through so many videos to find what I'm looking for.  There are TONS of videos showing how to quilt various freehand designs, but what I need right now are the basics that a seasoned longarm quilter takes for granted and could do in his or her sleep.  That's why I'm posting these links here, so that I can quickly find them again whenever I need to refresh my memory.  If other beginning longarm quilters find these resources through this post, well, that's all the better!  I watched all of these videos last night and I feel MUCH more confident again.  I plan to rewatch these videos in my studio today as I finish loading my Math quilt today (partial float, I think), thread the machine (variegated thread or invisible?), adjust tension for beautiful stitches on the top AND back side of the quilt, and quilt it with a simple, allover pantograph design.  

Best Beginner Longarm Quilting Tutorials on YouTube:

• ·       How to Load a Quilt on an APQS Frame, Full or Partial Float Methods:

• Sparrow Quilt Co./APQS How to Load (Full Float), Baste, & Quilt a Pantograph: 

• How to Thread an APQS Long Arm Machine:

• How to Fill a Bobbin With the APQS Turbo Bobbin Winder: 

•  How to Adjust & Troubleshoot Bobbin Tension, APQS:

• How to Use a TOWA Bobbin Tension Gauge, from Superior Threads: 

• How to Adjust Top Tension on an APQS Long Arm Machine: 

•  Perfect Tension On Any Model Long Arm Machine, from Jamie Wallen: 

• Using Invisible Thread on an APQS Long Arm Machine, Top and/or Bottom: 

• How to Bury Thread Tails, from APQS:

• How to Unpick Machine Quilting Stitches, from Natalia Bonner:

•  APQS Pantograph Quilting Tutorial:

• Sparrow Quilt Co./APQS How to Align an Edge to Edge Pantograph Pattern: 

• APQS Beginner Tips for Quilting With Long Arm Rulers:

• Angela Walters' Long Arm Ruler Tips:

I plan to update this blog post with additional longarm tutorials as I find them, so please send me links to any great video tutorials that I've missed!  And of course, free to bookmark this post if there's information here that you find useful.

And now, let the quilting games begin!

Today I'm linking up with:

• ·       Let’s Bee Social at www.sewfreshquilts.blogspot.ca/
• ·       Midweek Makers at www.quiltfabrication.com/
• ·       WOW WIP on Wednesday at www.estheraliu.blogspot.com
• Needle and Thread Thursday at www.myquiltinfatuation.com

5th Grade Raffle Quilt is On!

Coming Soon to Quilt Fabric: 5th Graders' Abstract Nature Paintings

I know you were all shaking your heads in pity when I told you I had agreed to make a class raffle quilt in three weeks with my son's 5th grade class.  It's not started yet, the kids don't know how to sew, there are no sewing machines at their school, and I have only very minimal class time with them.  Also Spring Break is next week.  But I like a challenge.

So my idea was to print students' original artwork directly onto fabric with those inkjet fabric sheets that go right into the printer.  Since we are in a bit of a time crunch, I talked with their art teacher to see whether they had already created anything for her class that would work for the quilt project.  She showed me these fantastic abstract paintings that our class made earlier in the school year incorporating leaves, flowers, and other items they collected outside the school.  I love the bright, saturated colors and the fact that each one is unique, but they are unified by a common theme and medium.  I think they will look great on fabric, don't you?  Well, I met with the students at lunch today to discuss the project, gave them some options for creating new art versus using the existing abstract paintings, and was DELIGHTED when they voted to use their abstract paintings.  We took them straight to the UPS Store to be scanned in (the paintings are larger than my scanner flat bed at home) and now, as long as I don't run into Unforeseen Difficulties during the printing process, I should be good to go.  Maybe I'll add some sashing strips to frame each block, but other than that, I'm planning to just sew them all together as simply as possible.

Depending on how much time I have when I get to the quilting phase, I might stitch in the ditch around blocks and then add free motion quilting within the blocks, or just quilt an allover grid, or (worst case scenario) tie the quilt with yarn if I'm REALLY running out of time. 

Cross your fingers that all goes well with the printer.  I bought a 25 pack of fabric sheets and I have 22 students, so that leaves me only three extra sheets for oopses and experimentation with printer settings.

Book Review: The Organized Student by Donna Goldberg

Available on Amazon here

The Organized Student: Teaching Children the Skills for Success in School and Beyond, by Donna Goldberg, available here on Amazon, came highly recommended by my kids' developmental pediatrician.  I bought it reluctantly, expecting yet another unrealistic book promising miraculous transformations through elaborate sticker charts and token-and-reward systems.  I was pleasantly surprised!

Donna Goldberg, who has worked professionally with hundreds of disorganized middle and high school students on a one-on-one basis, shares a wealth of insight into what it's like to be a student today and the variety of challenges kids face in managing paper, space, and time.  The book is sprinkled with assessments to help you understand your child's school day, questions I never thought to ask but that immediately helped us to identify and solve some of the problems my son was having.  Questions like, Where is your locker in relation to your classes?  How often do you get to go to your locker throughout the day?  How much time do you have between classes, and is there one teacher who always lets you out late? 

Goldberg stresses that there are many different methods of organization, but the one that works best for your child will be the one that she or he chooses and sets up rather than something external that parents or teachers impose upon the child.  Consequently, there are lots of options and variations for each area addressed in the book. 

I read through this book off and on over a period of several months to understand the whole philosophy and process prior to attempting to implement anything, highlighting and flagging as I went along.  Then I went back and reread highlighted sections to create an action plan for addressing these issues with my sons in the order suggested by the author.  So far I've helped my 5th grader to reorganize his backpack and streamline his class binders (he doesn't have a locker yet) and the next step with him will be to set up his "portable office" for doing school work at home.  With my older son, who has been lugging around a 50 pound backpack, I will have to tread carefully and ease him into streamlining his paper flow before we even think about his desk, but I think he may even like to read a few chapters of this book on his own to help him understand why we are doing this and "what's in it for him."
I highly recommend this book to any parents of middle school or high school students, but especially for those who are disorganized and/or who suffer from ADHD related executive functioning weaknesses, but with this caveat: You and your child will need to invest some significant time into implementing the strategies in this book in order to gain anything from it.  If you're expecting to read the book and then instantly see miracles, you're going to be disappointed.

5th Grade Field Trip to the Renaissance Festival! A Snarky Recap From a History Snob

What Women Wore in the Renaissance, As Interpreted By Texan RenFest Enthusiasts

Bernie and I volunteered as parent chaperones for our fifth grader's class field trip to the North Carolina Renaissance Festival earlier this week.  I had never been to a Renaissance Festival before, so I googled it the night before and my eyes were assaulted with scores of images like the one above, taken at a recent Texas Renaissance Festival.  I thought, "THIS is where we're taking the kids?!"  Fortunately, our field trip was scheduled on a weekday designated as "elementary and middle school day," so we didn't see any butt cheeks on display; the place was overrun by nine thousand school children and their teachers and chaperones.  Whatever bawdy shows may be put on during the festival's regular hours on the weekend were replaced by lame puppet shows and such geared to the kiddos, and the multitude of alcoholic beverage stands and weaponry vendors were shuttered up for the day.  Still, the festival fell short of my expectations for what had been billed as an "educational outing to tie in with the fifth graders' social studies unit on the European Renaissance," either. 

For instance, instead of festival staff and vendors dressed in authentic Renaissance period costumes as depicted in actual Renaissance portraits, such as these:


Portrait of a Woman, by Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, circa 1466-1516

Mona Lisa Models REAL Renaissance Costume, as painted by Da Vinci circa 1503

Sir Thomas Moore Models REAL Renaissance Costume, as painted by Holbein circa 1527

...We saw Pirates of the Caribbean getups like this (off by a couple of centuries, folks!):

and plenty of elf ears, furry tails, and partially equine outfits:

How On Earth Did This Man Fit Into the Port-O-Potty???

Renaissance Biker Chicks?



How Is This Even Remotely Renaissance?

If this was a Halloween party, then fine -- wear what you want.  But don't advertise that you're doing an educational event for school field trips and then teach the kids that fairies, centaurs, Jack Sparrow and the Hooters girls all pounded pina coladas together during the Renaissance!

In the interest of full disclosure, I must tell you that these photos (although remarkably similar to what I saw at our festival) were all taken by others at Renaissance Festivals across the country and are not of the actual festival I attended.  This is because my camera battery was dead, and because I was too busy trying to stop the fifth grade boys in my group from concussing one another with their overpriced wooden sword souvenirs and disappearing into the crowd to stop and take pictures with my phone.

Have you ever been to a Renaissance Festival that was more historically accurate, more educational, and more arts oriented?  Am I being overcritical and captious about this, or do you agree that the kids would have learned just as much about the Renaissance if we had taken them to Carowinds to ride the roller coasters instead?

More Quilting With Kiddos: Anders and the '51 Featherweight Sew Up Some Fence Rail Blocks

Success!  7" x 5" Pieced Units with 1 1/2" Center Strip

I shared back in August that I had started quilting lessons with my boys.  Anders went first, and then when it was Lars's turn, he had gotten engrossed with a counted cross stitch project and he has opted to complete that before beginning his first quilt.  No UFOs for Lars-of-Ours!

I was using Harriet Hargrave's Quilter's Academy series initially, starting with the beginning lessons in the Freshman Year book.  Anders, my 5th grader, enjoyed learning all the facts and nitty gritty details about thread ply, fabric grain, and rudimentary textile science in this book, but when I tried to do the first exercises with him I quickly determined that I did not feel comfortable with him rotary cutting or handling a steam iron.  After all, I still burn myself with that wicked iron on a weekly basis, and watching him try to control a slippery acrylic ruler while slicing with a razor-sharp rotary cutter made Mommy nauseous.  So I'm doing the cutting and pressing and he's focusing on learning to sew straight, even seams and keep his raw edges lined up properly so that his units finish the correct size.  For a child who is just learning to operate a sewing machine, that's plenty!  If he was trying to learn the sewing, pressing, and cutting all at once, it would be much more difficult for him to determine where he had gone wrong when his finished units didn't measure up.  With Mom cutting and pressing, he can concentrate on one variable at a time, just like they teach him in science class.  Don't you love how everything is connected to everything else?

So, as per the exercise in Hargrave's Freshman Year book, Anders was working with 2" wide strips of fabric cut into 7" lengths.  After seaming three strips together, he should have a finished unit measuring 7" x 5", and his center strip should be precisely 1 1/2" wide. 



Vintage Singer Adjustable Seam Guide on my 1951 Featherweight

Judy, my 1951 Singer Featherweight, is factory equipped with her original early style stitch plate sans markings.  I attached this vintage Singer seam guide accessory to the holes in the machine bed and used 1/4" graph paper to ensure I had the guide exactly 1/4" from the needle before screwing it down securely.  This type of seam guide is so much better than the 1/4" presser feet with attached guides, in my opinion, because I can move it a hair to the left or to the right if need be in order to sew seam allowances that result in perfectly sized finished units -- with certain combinations of needles, fabrics and thread, I need a scant 1/4" rather than a true 1/4".  In this case, because we're using lightweight cotton fabrics, a 70 Microtex needle and Aurifil 50/2 cotton thread, a true quarter inch was right on the money. 

Similar Seam Guide for Modern Berninas

Incidentally, I recently discovered that Bernina makes a patchwork seam guide for my 750 QE and other modern machines that looks identical to this one.  It's been added to my wish list!

All of Anders' fabric had been cut ahead of time, and as he seamed pieces together, I pressed and starched them.  When we measured the first unit he was very discouraged to find that the fabric edges had slipped apart while he was sewing, resulting in a fence rail unit with a center strip measuring 1 1/2" at one end and more like 1 5/8" at the other end.  I frog-stitched it for him and had him do it over.  The second try was practically perfect on that unit, and all of his remaining units finished the correct size on the very first try.  We worked for about an hour and a half before he started to lose interest and wanted to call it quits for today.



Anders' Finished Units, 5" Wide x 7" Long

You know, I was initially thinking that it was wasteful to sew 7" long strips together, only to cut them down to 5" square later, but now I'm glad I did it that way.  Anders is concentrating on keeping those fabric edges aligned at the right edge, but not all of his units have the strips perfectly even at the top and bottom.  Later this week, I'll trim these units down to be exactly 5" square with perfectly straight sides, and that will minimize his frustration when the time comes to sew the units together.  Kids need victories in the sewing room!



Anders' Sewing Setup

One more tip for sewing with children: You probably need to tweak your usual sewing setup in order to accommodate the ergonomic requirements of their much smaller bodies.  The first time I sat Anders down at the machine, this didn't occur to me.  Afterwards, looking at the pictures I'd taken, a realized that the bed of the sewing machine was up near his collar bone and the poor child was reaching up at a very uncomfortable angle to sew.  Now I'm raising the adjustable sewing chair to its highest setting so that his elbows are just an inch or two above the table.  This causes his feet to dangle in midair, so I instructed him to rest his left foot on the base of his chair, and I put the foot controller on top of an upside-down plastic thread bin so he could reach it comfortably with his right foot.  Also, since the 15 watt incandescent light bulb that belongs on the Featherweight reminds me of driving down a dark country lane in the fog with one headlight out, I have swapped that out for an LED bulb AND I'm supplementing with an Ott floor lamp to the left of the machine, to make it as easy as possible for Anders to see that his fabric edges are rubbing the edge of the seam guide, but not buckling or bending up against it.  Seeing what you're doing is half the battle!

Since school is in full-swing, we're on a bi-weekly schedule with our sewing sessions.  Usually one son is at my mom's house working on oil painting while the other one is in my studio with me, but Grammy isn't available for painting next weekend so I'm considering attempting to work with both boys at once -- Anders continuing to work on his fence rail blocks, and Lars with his counted cross stitch project.  Theoretically this should work just fine, as long as I have them each set up at opposite sides of the room...  I'll probably make my final decision about this on the way home from church next Sunday, based on the Brawling-to-Brotherly-Love Ratio going on in the back seat.  ;-)

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to starting the next block in my Jingle BOM quilt!  What are all of you sewing this week?

Have a wonderful week, everyone!

Amazon Listens: New Kindle Paperwhite with Free-Time Looks Like an Ideal E-Reader for Kiddos

All-New Kindle Paperwhite, Available for Pre-Order at Amazon

Obviously, Peter Larsen, VP of Kindle Product Management for Amazon, has been reading my blog.  And my emails to Amazon Customer Service over the years.  And the desperate pleas of a multitude of parents seeking an electronic reading device for their children.  Because today, Amazon has commenced accepting pre-orders of their All-New Kindle Paperwhite e-reading device, which seems to incorporate all of the features parents have been clamoring for. 

Both of my sons, who are now in 5th and 7th grade, have always been strong, avid readers.  If I take them to Barnes & Noble, I can't get out of there without spending at least a hundred dollars -- and that's after placing limits on how many books I will buy.  Then they will have finished reading all of them within a few weeks and will be begging for more.  Already their bedrooms look like hybrid library/LEGO factories, and there is physically no more space available for additional book shelves. 

They each already own the first version of the Kindle Paperwhite, which I reviewed here back in December of 2011.  I love the long battery life and convenience of the boys' ability to read the same book simultaneously (without Mom having to purchase two copies) and the fact that I can quickly and easily download new books without having to schlepp to the store and engage in public, tearful negotiations at the checkout line.  I was even able to send Lars's science textbook to his Kindle last year, since his teacher had posted a PDF version of the book in a SkyDrive for her class.  Each boy's Kindle contains two different versions of the Bible, Martin Luther's Small Catechism, several dictionaries, and other reference books that are useful in different situations in and out of school.  We are even able to download PDF files of missing LEGO instructions from the LEGO web site and send them to the Kindles rather than printing them out.  There are a LOT of LEGO instructions in my Kindle archives now, and this use of the Kindles is saving me a fortune in printer ink. 

I also really love the ease of looking up unfamiliar words in the dictionary when reading on a Kindle, and my sons use this feature regularly.  It's so easy to tap that word on the screen and have the definition instantly appear -- if they had to get up and go look for traditional dictionary, it would be too much of an interruption in the middle of a good story and they would just skip over that word.  Lars and Anders also use the note-taking feature quite a bit, although primarily they use it to leave silly messages for one another in their books.


The only problem I ever had with the Kindles was that, once I had registered the kids' devices to my Amazon account, they were able to easily access the Kindle store directly from their devices and my older son (who struggles with impulse control) made purchases without my permission on multiple occasions.  There is no reason why kids need to shop for books in their Kindle device.  It's not a user-friendly feature on the Paperwhite Kindle unless you already know what you are looking for.  There are also way too many digital "books" in the Kindle store that are really just chapter-length cliff-hangers that hook readers with a low initial purchase price, but lure them into purchasing sequel after sequel.  I much prefer finding books for them on the Amazon web site, which provides reviews, additional information about the books, and suggestions based on prior purchases.   


Lars's Kindle Paperwhite, with Kindle Store and Web Browser Disabled

However, soon after the original Paperwhite came out, Amazon released a Kindle software update incorporating parental controls that allow you to block access to both the Kindle Store and the Experimental Web Browser.  As you can see in the photo at left, the Kindle Store and web browser are both grayed out and inoperable on Lars's Kindle because I blocked them.  Problem solved!

So, what's the big deal about the All-New Kindle Paperwhite?  Higher screen contrast due to E-Ink's Pearl 2 Display, faster loading page turns due to a better processer, and not much else, according to hands-on reviewers like the editors of CNet, who evaluated the device primarily from an adult user's perspective (read their review here).  What I'm excited about as a parent are the new features Amazon will be rolling out in a software update for the Kindle Paperwhite later this fall: Integration with Goodreads, enhancements to the built-in dictionary, and a new array of special parental controls and enhancements called Kindle Free-Time.

Kindle Free-Time Features for the Kiddos, Coming Soon in a Software Update

Ooh, la la!  Creating an individual profile for each child?  Genius!  Because otherwise they are able to access any book that I have purchased for my own or for their father's iPad Kindle apps.  Fortunately, we don't read a lot of smut -- no Shades of Gray in my Kindle archives -- but Anders did download the women's health classic Our Bodies, Ourselves out of my archives, which had him rolling with laughter.  And I do think twice about purchasing anything other than juvenile fiction, knowing that my kids are likely to access them on their Kindles.  So, a personal profile for each child limiting which books in your account they can access is a great idea.  The dictionary enhancements will pull up X-Ray (don't know what that is) and Wikipedia entries as well as dictionary entries for unfamiliar terms and -- get this -- it will actually keep track of which words the kids are looking up and create flash cards with those words as a Vocabulary Builder.  Mothers and teachers are getting misty-eyed!  What's more, Kindle Free-Time will allow you to set daily reading goals for your child, will track their progress in terms of time spent reading, number of books read, and number of words looked up in the dictionary.  It will track their reading accomplishments, reward them with badges when they meet and exceed those goals, and parents will be able to access a Progress Report to see how their kids are doing.  So many teachers assign 30 minutes of reading as part of daily homework -- if you have a child who resists reading, this would be a wonderful tool for encouraging them and holding them accountable.  These are features I asked for years ago, and they are valuable enough to me as a parent to warrant the cost of upgrading both Kindle devices.

I'm not rushing to preorder All-New Kindle Paperwhites just yet, though -- the parental restrictions on the current Paperwhites was a software download, and I was surprised to discover the last time around that the software update applied to older Kindles as well, not just the latest release.  So I'm going to wait for that Free-Time software update to come out.  If it is compatible with the earlier Paperwhite device, it should download automatically when they are connected to our wireless network.  If not, I'll be upgrading their Kindles this Christmas!

Singin' the Back-to-School Blues

Femme aux Bras Croisés by Pablo Picasso, 1901

So, the kids started back to school on Monday.  Fifth grade for Anders and seventh grade for Lars.  Wasn't it just a year or two ago that Lars was posing for his First Day of Kindergarten photo in front of a big yellow school bus? 

Everywhere I look, I see commercials, comedians, and popular wisdom telling me that the kids are supposed to be reluctant to go back to school, and the moms are supposed to be celebrating.  Lars and Anders were excited, though, and this momma is sad to see them go.

The summer went so nicely, especially these last few weeks of August without day camps or traveling.  I enjoyed having them in the house.  It was nice not having to battle over homework enforcement or morning traffic on a daily basis.  We stayed up later, read extra chapters of our books, and watched episodes of Chuck on DVD.  The weather in Charlotte was atypical this summer, with so much rain and so little sunshine that it felt like an extended spring, and now the summer has ended before it really began in the first place. 

Now it's a new school year with new teachers, new challenges, new schedules and classes and expectations to get used to.  Already Anders has told me that I've "ruined his life." I mentioned his plans to take up the trumpet in band class this year (in addition to his ongoing private violin and piano lessons) to his violin teacher and she strongly advised against adding a third instrument.  I spoke with the piano teacher and the band teacher, and three out of three music teachers agreed that three instruments is too many, especially for a beginner, especially on top of all of his other homework...  So we switched him to Strings class instead of Band.  Anders retorted, "Mom, they wouldn't have known I had three instruments if YOU hadn't TOLD them!"  Ah, well.  So now, when he's an adult, he can tell his therapist all about how his mean mother deprived him of Band class in the 5th grade, crushing his dreams and denying him his destiny in the brass section.  I can live with that.

Don't feel too badly for me -- I'm sure we'll all adjust to the new school year just fine, once we get used to all the changes.  I met most of the teachers at the Open House night when we dropped off school supplies, and I think it's great that both boys will have different teachers for each of their core subjects this year -- Math, Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies.  Anders will have the same Chinese teacher as Lars this year, and she's wonderful.  I only volunteered to be the Room Parent of one class this year, and I'll volunteer in the school library once a week as well.  I may be teaching Sunday School to fifth grade boys at church this year, too, so we'll all have plenty to keep us busy.  It will be Halloween in a heartbeat.

Is it too early to start decorating for Christmas?  ;-)

When Anders Met Judy: First Sewing Lesson on the 1951 Featherweight

When Anders Met Judy: Getting to Know the 1951 Singer Featherweight

Anders' first sewing lesson was a success yesterday!  We reviewed what he read about fabric grain, and he tugged his fabric along the crosswise, lengthwise, and bias grain to confirm that the bias grain really DOES have the most stretch and the lengthwise grain really IS the most stable.  Then we pressed, straightened, and lightly starched his fabric  so it's all ready for cutting into strips on another day.  Anders learned the steps and the reasons behind what we were doing, but Mom ended up controlling the iron to avoid steam burns. 


Lockstitch Animation by Nikolay S via Wikimedia Commons

We had plenty of time left after that, so we talked about the difference between a hand sewn running stitch and a sewing machine lockstitch, and I did a demo of each version on a little scrap quilt sandwich for him.  I used a second, contrasting thread for the "bobbin," hooked it around the needle thread on the underside, then brought the hand needle right up through the same hole for the next stitch.  I used two different colors of thread so I could show him the difference between a balanced stitch (locked inside the batting), needle tension too tight (pulled top black thread until pink thread dots showed on top) or needle tension too loose (pulled the pink "bobbin" thread until black thread dots showed on the underside).  I also showed him this fantiastic Wikimedia animation of how a sewing machine forms a lockstitch with a rotary hook.  After watching this animation and discussing what it showed, he got to look "under the hood" of my 1951 Singer Featherweight, where he found and identified the parts of the rotary hook shown in the video animation. 

Next, I demonstrated how to thread the machine a couple of times, identifying and naming the parts as I went along, and then had Anders thread it on his own a couple of times, repeating back the names of the parts.  He wanted to know what the stitch lever did, so I showed him how the machine would sew backwards if we flipped the lever up, and that we could increase or decrease the length of the stitches by moving the screw on the lever.  Then I took away all the thread, switched to an old needle, and got out the lined composition paper.  Anders spent some time practice "sewing" along the blue lines with the machine unthreaded, trying to make the needle hit the blue line every time it went down.

(I wish I could take credit for this idea, but this is actually how the saleslady at the Husqvarna Viking store in Charlotte had me practice "driving" my very first sewing machine in a straight line back in 1999).

First Efforts

Not bad for his first try!  As you can see in the photo above, Anders had a tendency to press down so hard on the paper "fabric" at times that the feed dogs couldn't pull it through the machine properly -- that's what caused those clusters of very closely spaced needle holes, most noticeable in the bottom row of stitching.  He also often forgot to take his foot off the "gas" to stop the machine before repositioning his hands, which would cause a slight wobble like you see in the top and bottom rows of stitching.  Overall, though, he improved with practice.  After I explained about letting the feed dogs move the paper through, he wanted to SEE the feed dogs, so he had to run the machine a bit without any paper or fabric, forwards and backwards, so he could watch the circular motion of the feed dogs with each stitch until he was satisfied that he understood how they worked.

Oops -- I Should Have Adjusted My Chair for Him!

You know, I didn't notice it at the time, but now that I'm looking at the pictures it's obvious that Anders' chair was MUCH too low for him, causing him to reach up to the sewing surface of the machine.  I didn't adjust the chair height after I sat in it to use my serger at this station a few days ago.  Next time Anders is sewing, I'll raise the chair and I'll bet he'll be able to sew a lot straighter when he doesn't have to hunch up his shoulders and stick his elbows out to the sides like a praying mantis!

Lars's Counted Cross Stitch Project

Lars won't get his lessons on straightening fabric grain and basic sewing machine operation until next weekend, when it will be Anders' turn to go to Grammy's house for oil painting.  Meanwhile, he begged me to help him get started with a counted cross stitch project that he bought at Michael's at the beginning of the summer (using some of the money he was awarded by the school for his science fair project). 

I thought he was wasting his money when he bought this kit.  I had taken him with me to Michael's to get some embroidery supplies for my Jingle BOM and he got very excited about a large, expensive cross stitch kit to make a highly detailed wolf embroidery.  I said no and explained that a kit like that would be too difficult and the instructions would assume he already knew a lot about how to do cross stitch, and he had to do a smaller beginner project before I would let him buy the wolf kit.  He thought all of the true beginner kits, especially the ones labeled "kid friendly," were "lame," so we settled on this small "Laundry Today or Naked Tomorrow" kit even though I told him the directions in the kid friendly kits would be easier to follow.  When Lars opened the kit at home and saw that there were no colors marked on the fabric and the directions didn't make sense, he nearly agreed with me.  But I helped him get his fabric hooped straight and taped the edges with masking tape so they wouldn't unravel on him, and I loaned him one of my embroidery books that had color photos and much clearer explanations of how to do a cross stitch, demonstrated by stitching the first row for him, and he spent about an hour working on that this Saturday afternoon.  When he ran off to play video games, I checked over what he'd completed and saw that he kept going with yellow Xs right over where he should have left a blank spot for a green, so I picked out a row and a half, left the space for the green, and then redid his row of stitching so he wouldn't feel too discouraged when he came back to it. 

Stitching Chart Enlarged and Colored In

To make the stitching chart easier for him to follow going forward, I enlarged it to 160% on the photocopier, and then I colored in the squares with colored pencil so it would be more obvious when he needed to leave space for another color.  When I finished, I was struck by how much the cross stitch chart resembles a LEGO instruction diagram.  Hmmm.  Lars is already talking about how he can take pixelated computer images of Power Rangers or Dragonvale characters to create his own cross stitch designs after he finishes this one.  Funny how everything always ends up connected to everything else.

So, both boys are taking well to their needlework so far.  At the very least, they will come away from my sewing lessons knowing how to iron their own shirts and sew on their own buttons!  Lest you think they inherited all of their sewing aptitude from me, I should disclose that both of their great-grandfathers on Bernie's side were schneidermeisters (master tailors) in East Germany before World War II.  As their Opa likes to say, we are who we are (at least in part) because of our genes.

Harriet Hargrave Is Teaching My Boys Quilting!, Or Mayhem at Mary Jo's Cloth Store with Lars and Anders



Boys' Fabric Picks of the Day

My son Lars, who is now twelve years old, has intermittently asked to make a quilt many times over the last five years.  The first time he asked, the memory of him pouring glue down the needle hole of my sewing machine's throat plate was a bit too fresh in my mind, and he was unilaterally banned from the sewing room entirely.  (I am eternally grateful to the tech who painstakingly removed every speck of glue from the bobbin case and hook race of that sewing machine -- and grateful that the glue was of the Elmer's School variety that peels off when dry, rather than super glue or Gorilla Glue).  But both of my sons are artistically inclined, and they have seen me having great fun playing with fabric and thread over the years, so they kept asking.  They want to play, too!

At first, I looked into some of the Beginning Quilter or Kids Sew type classes offered by my local quilt stores, but the class descriptions were a big turn-off.  In the classes designed to introduce kids to basic sewing, the projects always seem to be skirts, aprons, and little purselike tote bags.  Then there's a footnote about how, if any boys want to take the class, they can make something called a "Do Rag."  I didn't even know what a Do Rag was, so I turned to my trusty search engine and found a slew of delightful images like this one:

Do Rag, or Du-Rag, image from NikeTalk What IS a Du-Rag

Hmmm...  So girls in this sewing class will learn to read a pattern, operate a sewing machine, and construct a skirt, and boys will learn to tie a piece of cloth around their heads and glare at everyone?  I can see how valuable this would be to those who aspire to piracy, gang life, or a career in rap music.  Every mother's dream for her little boy, right?

Then there were the beginning quilting classes, but they didn't seem like a good fit for Lars and Anders, either.  First of all, Lars and Anders have LOTS OF ENERGY.  They bounce in their seats, get up and run around the table to smack one another, and are prone to fits of uncontrollable giggling.  I don't feel like they would be very welcome in an introductory quilting class of mostly retired ladies who have been sewing for years and are new to quilting only, not entirely new to sewing.  My sons have never threaded a sewing machine or used an iron, for instance, and most beginning quilting classes at least require students to be familiar with how to operate their sewing machines.

Typical Beginner Quilting Class, photo courtesy Bernina Chattanooga

I am pretty sure that my boisterous boys would be highly disruptive in a class like that, and it would be a negative experience for everyone involved!

Occasionally I will see a shop offering a beginning quilting class geared specifically toward kids, but again, reading through the class description, I was underimpressed.  Why do so many adults think that everything needs to be dumbed down so much for children?  Cutting up novelty prints into huge squares, or worse, starting a with a bundle of 10" "layer cake" squares to avoid teaching kids to cut accurately, and allowing the kids to sew them together crooked, with wobbly, mismatched seam allowances just to complete an entire quilt project in an afternoon sounds like a terrible idea to me.  I think adults too often underestimate what kids are capable of learning.  At school, my kids are studying subjects like Chinese, algebra, music theory, and chemistry.  Anders, my rising 5th grader, has memorized the first 18 digits of Pi and half of Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy -- just for fun.  Both boys even learned some basic embroidery stitches in art class at school (love that art teacher!).  There's no reason these kids can't learn about textiles, sewing, and quilting at the same level it would be presented if this was a class offered by their school.


Quilter's Academy Vol. 1, available from Amazon here

Recently I discovered Harriet Hargrave's Quilter's Academy series of books.  Perfecto!  Harriet is a highly respected, trailblazing machine quilter and author who has been teaching and inspiring new quilters since the 1980s.  I have her other books, and didn't know whether any of the information in this Freshman Year volume would be new to me, but I was pleasantly surprised.  Not only did I find lots of new-to-me information to highlight in this book, but it's also an absolutely ideal textbook for teaching the fundamentals of quilting to bright students of any age -- this is the Gifted and Talented workbook of quilting!

When my mother and I took a class with Harriet a few months ago at the North Carolina Quilt Symposium, she talked to the class about a disturbing trend away from beginner classes that teach fundamentals in favor of project-based, "quilt in a day" type classes.  This approach gives new quilters the satisfaction of making a quilt right away, but can leave them ignorant of the basics of precision cutting, accurate piecing, color and design theory, and drafting.  After several classes, the student may have made several entire quilts, but is unable to apply what they have learned to other projects and completely unable to design an original quilt.  Even worse, by rushing through the process to finish by the end of class, many new quilters develop bad habits that result in small inaccuracies.  If your seam allowance is off by 1/16" to 1/8" in a simple quilt with few pieces, it's not a big deal -- but when that "minor" inaccuracy is multiplied by all of the pieces in a more advanced block, it results in units that don't fit together at all.  For this reason, many younger quilters especially, who typically have no prior sewing experience, find themselves stuck at the beginner level and believe that intermediate and advanced quilts are just "too hard."

What I love about the Quilter's Academy format is the way that in-depth academic information and advice for selecting equipment and setting up your workspace is interspersed with the hands-on exercises and projects, and that each "class" in the book builds on the knowledge and experience gained in previous "classes."  It's exactly the way a good science textbook would be laid out, so students can read the chapter and understand what they are doing before they get out their little goggles and do the lab exercise.  I also love that, even in this very first "Freshman" book in the series, Harriet teaches the basics of understanding base block grids and beginning drafting and design.  The math involved really isn't difficult, and I seize any opportunity to reinforce what they're learning at school by making everyday connections.  (In other words, YES -- you really DO need to know that stuff!)

I purchased a paperback workbook for myself and also downloaded the digital version from Amazon so the boys could read this on their kindles.  I had them read the first 26 pages on their own, through Lesson Four of Class 130, and then gave them a multiple choice quiz on the material to make sure they were paying attention.  Then Lars had to go back and reread to find the CORRECT answers, because he INcorrectly assumed that Mom's quiz would be so easy that he could just skim...  Hah! 
Once I was satisfied that they both understood fabric grain, thread weight, fiber content, and ply, the pros and cons of prewashing their fabric, and the basics of rotary cutting and pressing with starch, we headed off to Mary Jo's Cloth Store in Gastonia, North Carolina for our first field trip! 

Quilting Fabrics at Mary Jo's Cloth Store, photo courtesy Mary Jo's Cloth Design Blog

I was tempted to take them to one of my favorite boutique quilt shops instead, but I'm glad I didn't because they were LOUD and EXUBERANT and by the time we checked out, EVERYONE in that 32,000 square foot store knew them by name, and was relieved that we were leaving! 

Sampler Quilt from Academy of Quilting Vol. 1

The boys were each told to select three fabrics for the sampler quilt exercise they would be starting in Class 130, Lesson Five.  Harriet suggested a dark solid, a lighter print, and a white background, as in the sample quilt at left.  I told them to find a print first and then find coordinates, but they kept getting hung up on HUGE scale novelty print fabrics with gigantic pirate skulls, Star Wars panel prints, etc., and they had a hard time understanding that they needed smaller scale prints because they were going to cut their fabric up into small pieces to make their blocks.  But they finally did find appropriate fabrics (not stereotypical "boy" fabric, either), and then at the cutting table Anders explained to everyone (loudly) why the saleslady should tear the fabric on the crosswise grain instead of cutting it off the bolt with a scissors.  Harriet would have been proud!




Lars's Color Theory: Everything Goes with Orange!

Once we got home, I told them to reread the section about the pros and cons of prewashing their fabric and make their own decision.  They came back to me and told me that they were NOT going to prewash because stiffer, unwashed fabric will be easier to work with as beginners. 




Anders Had Starbucks Cake Pops On his Brain...

Because I'm not COMPLETELY insane, I'm going to do the hands-on exercises involving hot irons, rotary cutters and sewing machines ONE AT A TIME.  We're going to break this up into small, manageable sessions so no one gets frustrated and overwhelmed -- especially not mom! 

First they will do the exercise in the book where they learn how to straighten their fabrics, which will be their first experience using an iron. 

Another day, they will take the length of fabric they straightened and do the exercise from the book where they learn how to cut straight strips of fabric with a rotary cutter and acrylic ruler.  Again, neither of them has used a rotary cutter or done any kind of fabric cutting before, and we might waste a bit of fabric before they get the knack of how to hold the ruler in place so it doesn't slip when they are cutting.  Hopefully this can be learned without sacrificing any digits, but we do have an Urgent Care facility within 5 minutes of our home, so we should be good either way.

After that, I think I'll need to create my own Meet-the-Sewing-Machine exercise, because neither one of them knows anything about how to thread a sewing machine or how it works.  They will be learning to sew with Judy, my 1951 Singer Featherweight, because it's the perfect size, it sews beautifully for piecing, won't give them any trouble, and doesn't have a gazillion distracting buttons across the front.  Once they are good with how to thread and operate the sewing machine, THEN we can move on to the next exercise in the Quilter's Academy book, learning to sew with an accurate seam allowance so that their pieced units finish the correct size.  Again, since they haven't used a sewing machine at all before, I'll start them off with "disposable" fabric instead of their good stuff.

So that's four hands-on lessons before they actually start working on their sampler quilts.  Again, I'm really glad that I found this book, because without it I wouldn't have realized that a complete beginner would need to spend so much time on the basics before starting their first project, but I feel confident that this is the best way to ensure that they both have a good time AND that they gain the skills they will need to be successful.  Once they both have the basics down, I MIGHT let them work on their projects at the same time (which is why I needed that second Featherweight!).  I'll play that by ear.

Wish us luck!