I’ve got an article in the upcoming issue of Professional Quilter magazine called Developing Your Blog as a Marketing Tool. I love blogging. I get to write daily posts that let readers know a little about me and my work and connect with people not only in my own community, but across the globe. However, developing a blog can be frustrating. There is no how-to manual on how to do it, and help is often scattered.
So, I read lots of other blogs and learn from them. I especially enjoy educator blogs. Teachers are angels who devote their time to our precious babes, and teachers’ blogs are fantastic. I used to homeschool my kids and I would have loved to have known about the blogging world back then.
Here are two of my favorite teacher blogs, not only for their subject matter, but because of how much they have taught me about blogging:
Cool Cat Teacher is a middle school teacher in the tiny town of Camilla, GA. She is a techno wiz and explains a lot of the blogging world and the web. If you have kids, don’t miss her post on 11 Steps for Online Supervision of Your Child. I have learned enormously from her blog and look forward to her posts.
Cogs for Blogs is a brand new blog but beautiful in its simplicity. I wish it had been around when I began blogging, because in one place, Lenva has collected instructions for many of the tools I offer on my blog that took me months of searching for how to do them right. What kinds of stuff? Linking to my email, doing a Slideshare, changing your blog header, along with others. It’s a site targeted toward teachers, but don’t let that stop you. You can learn from it as well.
So, watch for my article, and in the meantime, trick out your own blog.
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Art in the garden is such a poetic idea. One of my favorite events used to be Barnsley Garden’s Quilts in the Garden, but since they renovated and become large I don’t think they hold the event anymore. I’ve longed to go to Sisters out in Oregon someday, but I decided to hold my little event.
Painting on the screened porch. Georgia’s summer has been unseasonably mild so far, and we have taken full advantage and practically lived on our screened porches. I spent two days creating a painting with Fredrix Watercolor Canvas and Neocolor II Water Soluble Crayons. So much fun!
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Beth at Sew Mama Sew! has an interesting interview with Westminster Fabrics about their decision to offer home decorator-weight cotton fabric. Their response is pure marketing spin, and while not necessarily untrue, here’s the real reason they’re offering home dec fabric:
They make more money.
Which requires more yardage: a quilt, or window treatments? A quilt, or a skirt? Quilters buy small amounts of fabric (surely in a greater variety), making it difficult for fabric manufacturers and quilt shops to stay in business. You could easily lose money on fat quarters when you figure in the labor it takes to cut and package them all.
But window treatments? Slipcovers? We’re talking oceans of fabric: 5, 10, or even 20 yards at a time.
Westminster Fabrics is a wise company: they have designers who appeal to home sewers, and now they’re offering fabrics that yield them a bigger profit and offer sewers more options.
What do you think?
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So what does an artist do to her generic VBS t-shirt? She adds her personal touch, of course. I painted the flowers and surfboard during a family painting session on Sunday. My older son painted a sample surfboard craft for Arts & Crafts while my younger painted his own shirt.
This is VBS week at our chapel, and I’m always involved in some way. I used to be a Director of a VBS program at our previous church that enrolled over 300 children and 80+ volunteers. Now I enjoy just getting to be a regular person and enjoy volunteering. I chaired Arts & Crafts for a couple of years, and now I’m just helping. I’m a big believer in letting talented individuals take their time at the helm.
My husband was just promoted to permanent Scoutmaster of our son’s boy scout troop last night. I’m proud of him, but wary of the time it takes to really serve that role well. Only halfway jokingly, I told him I would refuse to sew on his Scoutmaster patch in protest.
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I feel like I’ve arrived. Mary Lou Weidman has added me to her blogroll. Wow. I’m so honored. Mary Lou is one of my all-time favorite quilters, not only for her courageous use of bold colors, but also for her gracious and optimistic attitude.
I have all of Mary Lou’s books, and I’ll be adding her newest to my library as soon as it comes out. Mary Lou has a fabulous website with all kinds of eye candy, and her blog is as inspirational and cheery as she is.
Mary Lou is visiting my guild, the East Cobb Quilter’s Guild, in August, and you can be sure I’ll be in her class. Who would want to miss just being around someone so fun who creates such original and whimsical quilts?
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This is the ultimate stitch sampler. First, let me make clear this is not my quilt. I took this photograph over 10 years ago at a local quilt show when photography was not nearly as far along as it is now. This isn’t a great photo, but it will serve the purpose for this post.
This is a fantastic utility quilt, made by a wise woman. The quiltmaker had just bought a new machine with a myriad of stitches she had no idea how to use. So she set out to learn how to use them by making a crazy quilt. She used up her scraps, and used every stitch on that machine over, and over, and over again.
You can be sure after making this quilt, she knew how to make her machine purrr. I haven’t looked back at this photo since I stored it, but I remember this quilt and how impressed I was at the investment this quiltmaker made in learning how to master her sewing machine. I was also a new mom who was rather envious of the time this woman had to devote to her quilting.
My how the days fly by. I now have two children, who are not so little anymore.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this series on getting the most out of your sewing machine. Make a date with your machine to get to know it better. Your quilts will improve, I promise.
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Once you’ve created your general mini-stitch samplers, you should be well-prepared for any type of quilting you want to do with your machine. I still, however, create a small sampler before I quilt on a project. I need to see how those stitches will look on the fabric I’m using.
My generic mini-stitch samplers were on mostly solid-colored fabrics, but few of my quilts are that serene. They are alive with print and texture, and I don’t want my quilting competing with it. So I make a mini-quilt sandwich with leftover project fabric and I test my stitches.
The photo above was for a quilted purse I made - the Annabelle bag (click on the link to see the resulting bag and my post on how I made it). On the pattern photo the designer included specialty stitches, and I practiced those on my mini-sandwich. But I decided the stitches competed too much with the fabrics and I did freemotion quilting instead.
I couldn’t have made that decision without experimenting, and that resulted in a better-looking bag.
Last installment: the ultimate stitch sampler.
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If you’ve created your first set of mini-stitch samplers, then I recommend you create a sampler experimenting with specialty threads and changing your stitch settings. I like using the thicker machine quilting threads from YLI and Superior, so I experimented with regular straight and zig-zag stitches to see the difference the threads would make.
Then I put in regular Mettler thread and experimented with stitch widths and lengths. I often do machine applique and and wanted to see what my favorite settings would be. Notice in these photos I meticulously labeled each line of stitching as to what stitch it was, the thread I used, and the width and length settings. Don’t leave it to memory. It doesn’t work that way, unfortunately.
Next up: Practice on your good fabric!
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Being an instructor, I dutifully took the free classes offered when I bought my sewing machine years ago. Those classes didn’t even scratch the surface of what my machine could do. It came with a manual, but it didn’t really go in-depth either. I was determined to make the most of my sewing machine investment, so here’s what I did:
- Gathered my largest scraps and cut them about 5×5″.
- Backed each scrap piece with Stitch ‘n Tear so the specialty stitches wouldn’t get buried in the fabric and jam. Stitch ‘n Tear is a thick stabilizer, not a fusible, that many embroiderers use. If your quilt shop doesn’t carry it, your local sewing machine dealer probably does.
- Stitched a sample of every single stitch on my sewing machine and labeled each one.
What a process of discovery. You know what I found?
- Stitches don’t look the same on fabric as they do on that cute little icon on the machine.
- Some stitches just didn’t work. They jammed, they were ugly, why where they there?
- Some stitches were fantastic and held potential far beyond what was in the manual.
I now had a reference that held meaning for me and my machine that went far beyond what any teacher or manual could tell me.
So put on some music, get out the chocolates, and make an evening of it. Then get one of those ring clips and put all your stitch samplers on it and store them with your machine.
You might even take them to class next time. Tell them I sent you.
Next in the series: Experimenting with stitch settings and threads.
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Quilters have fabulous sewing machines that offer more stitches than we’ll ever really use. Let’s face it: most quilters use the straight stitch, zig-zag, feather stitch, buttonhole stitch, and maybe one or two others. But the remaining stitches are lonely, waiting to be remembered and at least acknowledged.
So do it. You never know what promise specialty stitches hold for use in your quilts. I use many stitches most quilters think of only as clothing stitches. I often use the three-step zig-zag stitch to sew on my bindings by machine. It’s a great stitch for baby quilts, as that binding is super secure.
Next up: Creating mini-stitch samplers.
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What if I told you I could instantly make you a better machine quilter with just one simple technique? And you wouldn’t have to invest in any expensive tools, DVDs, or books. Just use what you have.
Interested?
Here it is:
Get to know your machine better. Spend some time with it. I can always tell the quilters in my class who know their machines really well, as they are instantly more successful in class because of it. They’re not necessarily better quilters, they simply know how to make their machines purrrrrrrr.
I’ll be unveiling specifics on how to get the most from your machine next week. Stay tuned!
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Meet Maizy. She was so well-behaved in class. Her owner, Dolle, brought her to join us after lunch, and she was such a dear. Not even one bark.
We had so much fun at the Piecemakers’ Machine Quilting class in Cumming, Ga. We had hand-quilters, brand new quilters, and machine quilters who wanted to refresh their skills. Everyone did famously!
Here is Audrey, guild President, with her class sampler with both machine-guided and free-motion stitching on it:
I’d love to visit your guild. Check out my Workshops page to find out how to book me for a workshop to jumpstart your quilting creativity!
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Published at June 2, 2008
in Color.
Ever wonder who are those trendsetters who declare what the new “hot” colors will be for the upcoming season? I found out when I attended a workshop with Michael Miller fabrics at spring Quilt Market. Turns out fashion colors start in Paris on the runway, then slowly trickle down into the marketplace and across the globe. Eventually, two to three years later, you’ll begin seeing those same colors in Target in the form of Rubbermaid and Daytimers.
So what’s the next hot color? Citron. It’s a dull, yellow-green. Think “icky” split-pea green, and you pretty much have it. I’m not kidding. That’s the new hot color. And according to the presenter at Michael Miller, after awhile you get used to seeing that color and eventually you begin liking it.
I don’t know about that.
Apologies for not having any photos with this post, but BlueHost is having technical difficulties with their File Transfer program. Once it’s resolved, we’ll be back in glorious color!
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