Monthly Archives: August 2009

Using Quilter’s Vinyl

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I LOVE this stuff! It’s great to help you decide how you want to quilt an area. Lay the Quilter’s Vinyl (down slightly on the page) over the space. Trace the shape with a wet erase marker. (I use Vis-A-Vis” fine point waterbase pens for overhead projectors from an office supply store.)

If you want to leave a ¼” border around the quilting, mark your area that size. If there are guide lines you need, draw those too. (In the first photo, you can see the shape I traced on my paper pieced Feathered Star wallhanging. I drew a spine and one feather.) Turn the sheet over and draw your quilting lines. In the second photo, I practiced drawing feathers. You can see the spine and first feather that were on the other side.

The third photo has another idea I was trying out. The neat thing is that you can erase it with a damp paper towel, and keep practicing over and over! (Do this away from your quilt.) The more you practice this way, the better you’ll be when you get to the actual quilting. It’s called “muscle memory” and it really works!
You can draw the same guidelines on your quilt. If you use a water soluble ink marker, the Eraser Paintbrush (almost half way down) is great to remove lines.

If you draw one you like, but don’t want to do it completely free-hand on your quilt, you can trace the design on Quilt & Tear on a Roll (about 2/3 down). See my July 6th post for more detail on this method.

I ended up doing the feathers a little differently. Here are some closeups and the finished wallhanging. I used the Twirly Whirly Feathers DVDs and book (down a bit on the page) to get these ideas, and tried them in place with the Quilter’s Vinyl before deciding. The book and DVDs are great if you really want to do fancy feathers.
(I had help marking the borders, as you can see!)

We have the Feathered Star Wallhanging pattern and a fabric pack for the colors I used. I added Piping Hot Binding to finish it up, with the touch of green piping to set off the dark purple binding.

Paintstiks!!

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I’ve liked Paintstiks from the first day I saw them, way too many years ago to remember when it was! You don’t have to be an artist to use them! They give a look to fabric that you can’t get any other way.

I made a sample using Karen Montgomery’s fun 3 Pocket Tote pattern (about 3/4 down on the page).

Here are some notes on Paintstiks, with photo steps from that little tote.

To add any shape of Paintstik design to a project, cut out the shape from freezer paper.

This is what I did for my tote sample:
(1) I pressed the freezer paper to the front corner of the flap.

(2) I taped off the top part, marked the center, and put ¼” tape from the center to the points as shown in 3.

Before using the Paintstik, I went around the inside of each shape with a Sewline chalk mechanical pencil. You can see the lines drawn in (4).

I put “404″ on one of the Floral Fantasy Rubbing Plates and used the side of the Paintstik to transfer the design into the spaces.

Then comes the hard part- letting it dry 4 days!!

I fused the lining fabric to Heat and Sta Light Fusible Fleece (39147), then fused Lite Steam-A-Seam® 2 (86949) to the other side of the fleece, then the outside fabric to that.

Then I stitched on the lines I drew (5) and added serpentine stitching to do the rest of the quilting on the tote. There is so much you can do with Paintstiks!!!

We just got in a new project that is on my list to make a sample of. The Holiday Quilt Kit (half way down the page) includes the Paintstik Patches pattern, 6 Mini Iridescent Paintstiks (my favorite kind!) and the Holiday Rubbing Plates. This is a quilt that you paint the blocks rather than piece them. I saw it at Bernina University and it is stunning! It’ll be great with the popular Jet Black fabric we have (92732) or the new black Sateen we have coming in soon.

Tip: We have a search box in the upper left of all our web pages. To find items mentioned in the blog, first click the link, then do “Ctrl F” and enter the name of the item or the item number. That will take you right to it anywhere on the page!

Cute and Quick Projects

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It’s time to think about gifts, and making them. The gift giving season will be here before you know it, and as we all know, making beautiful homemade gifts can be time consuming. If you are pinched for time or are trying to make something on a budget, I have a suggestion for you. Have you ever made or given decorative towels? We have some DARLING patterns and embellishments, not to mention a huge selection of fantastic prints and colors of towels in both light and dark colors. We also carry some fabulous cross stitch and embroidery towels, patterns, charts, and iron ons.

I recently used this design (item 37523, down about 2/3 of the webpage) for a gift towel for my daughter, and it turned out cute as the dickens –

If you are a Nancy Halvorsen fan (like me!), we do carry a huge variety of her books, which all feature fun and fast towel designs. Her latest book, item 43212 I Believe,

even has some darling aprons, one of which is made using a towel!

Not only are these projects quick, cute, and fairly inexpensive, they are always appreciated as gifts. You might want to make two of each one you do though, so you can keep one for yourself! Don’t forget to plan ahead, because some of these items sell out quickly, especially the closer it gets to the holiday season. You don’t want to miss out on these cute and useful projects.
Happy creating!

Broomstick Skirt

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One of my earlier posts had a Tab Front Shirt that was an easy addition to a shirt, ready made or one you make yourself.

The skirt I made to go with it is the Broomstick Skirt. I made my first one about 20 years ago from verbal instructions I got from my friend, Judy Murphy, of Atlanta, Georgia. I think we were on a bus in the mountains of Madeira!

I enjoy making and wearing them to this day.

Of course there was this one exception… Since I memorialized that day on our website years ago, I have gotten more comments on it than from anything I’ve ever done. Sew-ers from all over the world can commiserate with an experience like the Broomstick Skirt from Hell. When I look back at that story, even I find it hard to believe, but I swear to you that every word is true! Thank goodness I’ve made many more without problems since then! (You just have to get back on the broomstick! LOL!)
We now use panty hose instead of broomsticks, and still have the beautifully wrinkled look. Here are the instructions I updated for our Creative Sewing Club. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!
P.S. when you take several of these when going to a seminar and rooming with an unsuspecting friend, you might get some strange looks when you open your suitcase! (Huh, Mary?)