Eeek! Where has the time gone! I want to say that I’m over here killing it and knocking out all kinds of UFOs and there are a lot of pictures so get ready.
That would be a lie. I haven’t done anything on those UFO’s.
Why not? That’s a great question. The shop has been a bit on the busy side. We have had more folks express interest in our beginning longarm class (yay!) as well as quilters bringing in quilts that need quilting or repairing. Combine all of that with kids going back to school and adjusting to our new schedules and we kinda scratch the surface.
No complaints though – I love that we are getting to meet some new quilters at the shop as well as seeing the beautiful tops that we are being trusted with to bring out their beauty.
But still, why not? We have talked about the whole motivation factor before. Sometimes we just don’t have it in us to do it. Sometimes there are other things that are taking precedence where we can’t get things done. There is no real point in trying to cram in everything, sometimes there just is no time. It really is okay to take a step back and take care of those things that are demanding our attention. Thankfully for me, we are settling down into that schedule and I will be able to get back to those UFO’s very soon. I was really excited to finish off those flower wall hangings. Momentum even carried me into a UFO that I have seriously procrastinated starting (is it really a UFO if it hasn’t been started? I think intent matters here). That is the Safehaven block of the month from Thimbleberries. You can take a peek at it here. Yeah, yeah, I know it says it’s from 2000….I’ve had the kit for a while and at first is was really intimidating so I kept putting it off. Once I finished floral wallhangings, I took another look at it. Turns out that it isn’t as scary as I remembered and I have 2 blocks completed. My debate now is whether or not to go ahead and applique the circles now or wait until more blocks are completed as well as the debate of which applique method to use. I’m really leaning toward a lightweight fusible and then stitching around them as it seems that will be the quickest method for me and this project has waited long enough.
Don’t worry though, I’ve got a hand applique project (or two) still waiting in the wings. Once upon a time Char and I thought it would be great to do a P3 Designs pattern as she has done an aboslutely gorgeous Halloween Baltimore Album quilt. Seriously. If you haven’t seen it you should click here. If you like that one, you should check out the rest of her available patterns. This lady is seriously talented and her work is beautiful. Of course now that it’s getting close to spooky season, I almost want to dig this one out and see if I can nudge it along a little more.
Hmmm. It almost feels like motivation is starting to visit. Maybe I should take advantage of that while I can.
It’s time for our monthly UFO check in! How are you coming with yours? I am still plugging along and will be really happy to get this one off my list of things to do! You may remember me talking about this one in previous posts….it is a flower of the month series with fabric designed by Ro Gregg and patterns by Nancy Mahoney. I might have that backwards, but that is where I am going to stay. These came in kits with instructions and are from 2008….yes, 2008. I thought it would be easy to do one kit a month. After all they are small and while not terribly simple, they are not overly complicated. Trouble was that I was still working a full time office job, had a baby that October, and we were running the shop in the evenings and weekends. What time? What was I thinking? At the very least I did make it in to my local quilt shop and picked up each of the kits and have had them waiting. Because if you have one you should have them all! Right? You are with me on that right? Well, I thought it would be nice to hang and be able to change out each month. I’m much closer to that goal now!
Since they are a flower of the month, there are 12 kits. I had thought I was being smart and gathered those kits and read the instructions and got all the fabrics cut so I could work on them at retreats. Then Covid and no retreats. The fabric was still cut and waiting for me….but I now have to read everything again to make sure I’m doing the right thing. It slows my process down a little bit. In February I pulled them out thinking, great! This is a big project to get completed and I can wait to move this off my list or at least move it into the queue for quilting!
I’m lumping them all together rather than thinking of them individually because I really just want to get them done and it has been a long time. At the beginning of the month I had 4 of them ready to be quilted and one ready to be bound. But (of course) I added in an extra step. The fabric cuts for these kits were very generous so I kinda added a layer of difficulty. There was also a panel that went along with these fabrics and patterns. Of course I picked one up and kept it with all of the mini kits. With the cuts being so generous, I have enough fabric to complete an extra center block to put with the panel. Curious about the panel? You can find it here. I will say I did not realize that it was for stitchery and I thought it was something to be colored….either way, I have it.
In February I was able to finish 5 of the tops and have one more partially complete with the last one waiting in the wings. Even though I should be moving on to something else, I am going to stay with this one and get those last two finished. Most of the UFO’s on my list for March were new things to start (like kits I’ve had waiting or patterns I’ve matched up with fabric to create) and rather than cutting something new and creating a whole new UFO, I think I would be better off this month to finish these lovelies and look at the the UFO’s I didn’t get finished in January and February to see if I can finish up anything else like that cardinal cross stitch….. Progress is progress right? It sure is!
So, here are the ones that I did get ready this month….I didn’t worry about photographing the second center blocks because they are just going into another UFO. Originally I had thought that I would border the panel with these blocks, but now I am not so sure. It might be something that I scrap entirely or use the center blocks in some type of setting and incorporate the panel into the backing. I think that will need to percolate a little while longer before I make a final decision. Here are 3 of them….Lily of the Valley, Narcissus, and Cosmos.
The last are Cosmos (again), Aster and Rose. The last two to complete are Daffodil (which is almost complete) and Chrysanthemum. I might have miscut things on the Rose as I had to piece together some things and the green in there is not the green from the kit….I can’t seem to find that so I either lost it (most likely) or never had it (unlikely).
I wish I had more to show and I really was on track to get those last two completed but I got a little confused on some of the instructions. I should also admit that I fell down a rabbit hole with my kids as we have been playing a lot of Minecraft…I know…it’s a video game. However, they are now asking me to play with them and we can all hang out together while doing it and that is important. Since we are all playing together, it’s kind of like working on a group project and we can talk about ways to work together in a group which is another great lesson to learn. They can take the lead on most of the game because they know more than I do (for now) and can do things more quickly than I can (for now). But they are learning that we each have our own skill set and for them I am the Queen of Resources. Whenever we go adventuring I always make sure I have extra food, supplies, whatever needed for all of us which has come in handy many times. One of them is very good setting up farming and taking care of animals while the other is good at trailblazing so the rest of us have an easier path to follow. They still need to work on communication and not being bossy, but we will get there and hopefully have some fun while we are doing it. It has cut into my sewing time a bit, and I’m okay with that because I’m not sure how long this will last and I am starting to look forward to this time with them and being a part of their world.
If you are not terribly familiar with Minecraft…it’s too much to explain here, but I will say that it has the most convoluted series of tasks that you have to complete in order to battle the final foe (or Ender Dragon) that I have seen. However, battling the final foe is not a necessary goal of the game and one could spend an inordinate amount of time creating and crafting and building in their world.
Anyway, I think I am now off to google some Minecraft quilts to get some inspriation as that just might have to be a thing for Christmas…..maybe a wall hanging for their rooms with their favorite things from the game.
Happy quilting and we hope that you are also making progress on your UFO’s! I’m hoping that I will have those flowers complete and ready for quilting by the end of this month and who knows what else I will be able to accomplish!
If you haven’t changed your needle on your machine since before Chirstmas, it is time to put in a new one.
If you haven’t recently changed out your rotary cutting blade, it is time to use a new one.
If you haven’t cleaned out your sewing machine since Thanksgiving, it is time to pull out the bobbin and dig out some lint or schedule service so that your local professional can make sure that you are running in tip top shape.
If you haven’t cleaned your iron, now is the time to take a look at it and make sure that it won’t leave any suprises behind on your fabric.
Often we get so busy with our lives or our projects that we forget to take time for the basics. Our sewing can often be improved by taking care of simple things such as replacing a needle or a rotary cutter blade. Why do we wait? I don’t know, I am one that also needs to remind myself to take care of those basics.
How often should we actually do these things? You should change your needle every project. If you are working with heavier fabrics you may need to change it part way through. Our needles dull and lose their sharp points as we continue to use them, much like a pencil when we are writing. If you are noticing that your machine is making a new noise while sewing, it might be the needle thumping through the fabric and a simple needle refresh can often be enough to make it feel like you are sewing on a whole new machine!
As far as cleaning out the lint, that should be every project as well. I wish I had a formula or the ability to know how much lint fabric/thread/batting will produce. Truthfully there is no magic formula and it always seems like the projects I don’t think will produce much in the way of lint give off more than I thought possible. If you feel like your machine is having issues, start with the basics. Rethread, clean out lint, oil (if your machine requires), change the needle, or change the thread if it still doesn’t seem to work after rethreading. If you are still having trouble after the basics are addressed, it will likely need some service.
Rotary blades. Why oh why do we think the blades are still good when we need to saw through our fabric? They should glide like butter! Yet, it seems like (and maybe it is just me) that it is one of the last things I think to replace? I know, it seems like blades are expensive. However, we can always find a deal. I like to get mine at Hancock’s of Paducah. If you buy in multiples, they become much cheaper. You can check our their blades here. For example, the 45mm is more standard size and you can purchase 1 regular blade for $6.99. Not too bad. They do last a while. However, if you purchase 5 for $22.99, that is only $4.60/blade. Five blades would last a while. If you really want to stock up or split with a friend or two, you can also purchase them in a pack of 10 for $38.99 (which is only $3.90/blade!) They also offer free shipping at $80 so go in with a friend and see if there are any other things that you need or want (like needles!) Of course if you prefer to shop other places, be sure to check out blades (and needles) in bulk!
Our irons. They are certainly workhorses for us aren’t they? It’s important for us to check on our irons every time we use them. You never know when we will inadvertently touch something or if we are putting water through our irons if it will suddenly steam out some rust. I’m not here to tell you whether or not you should be putting water through your iron or what kind of water to put through (like tap or distilled). That is up to you. I just want to point out that we should be aware of the state of our iron and make sure that it stays in good working order so we can avoid disaster on our projects.
Honestly, I am not the best at doing all of these things. I often forget that they need to be done when everything seems to be working as it should. It’s like the frog in the boiling water. We don’t always realize the things need to be changed until we start to have problems.
If you are someone who does these thinkgs on a regular schedule, kudos! I’m sure you can speak to how efficient your work can be when basic maintenance is done on a regular basis.
If you are someone who often forgets about these things or thinks, “I’ll do it tomorrow”…it’s tomorrow. It’s time for us procrastinators to take a few minutes the next time we sit down to sew and do some basic maintenance.
Since it’s the first of the month, let’s talk about those UFO’s shall we? In case you were wondering, I did complete the latch hook complete with rug binding. Just don’t look too closely at the binding. That part is not really done well and I am thinking that at some point I will need to redo that binding.
Ta-Da! It has also been given to my son where it graced his floor immediately. One done only about a million to go (or so it feels). It is time to move on to February! One of the projects that came up was a project I bought from a quilt guild garage sale. In case your guild hasn’t done one of these, it’s pretty freeform. They set aside one of the meetings to do this once the business portion is complete. You can bring in items you wish to get rid of and sell them. So there are usually books, kits, fabric, notions, really just kind of anything. You get a little cash with the added bonus of getting rid of things you don’t like or didn’t work for you.
I came home with this:
Look at all the batik! And then it sat because that pattern looked hard. However, I have now done my own similar mandala without the fancy pieced block in the middle and figured why not! Since it’s number cam up, I should at least get it out and see what’s what.
Lots of precut strips so I can make more strata. Not necessarily my colors, but it still has some potential.
There are a good amount of wedges cut and just waiting to be sewn together. So, I figured my first step was to press everything and take it one step at a time.
Some leftovers that I can use in other things – bonus!
I thought it would be easiest to just do the things that were obvious and so I have sewn the wedges together and pinned it to what I think was intended for the background of the mandala. There are not any strips cut from the brown so that is my best guess. It doesn’t look too bad on there, but it does feel a little blendy to me. The more I look at it the more it grows on me and I’m not complaning. After all this was a quilter yardsale item I probably got for $10 or less and it’s all batiks!
If you are not familiar – this set of strips sewn together is referred to as strata. Althought maybe it should be stratum….I of course had to go look things up just to make sure that I really was using the correct terminology (Stratum: one of a series of layers, levels, or gradations in an ordered system). Either way, I started to work making my own strata and got my first couple of wedges cut. All should be good in the wood, right? Spoiler alert…there was Trouble with a capital T. Take a good look at the picture below.
Did you take a good look? Do you see what I see? I bet you do. It’s fairly obvious. The two wedges to the right are the ones that I added. You can see that things start out looking pretty good, and my strips are all in the the correct order but something has gone awry. I measured my seam allowance on the back and her seam allowance and we were both at 1/4″. The cutting was already done so that was all done by the same person. All I can really think is that it is the differences in our machines somehow….If you have suggestions or know what could be going on, please drop a comment.
I am not comfortable going on with this project as there will be a very obvious shift and I’m pretty sure that even if I shift up a little, things are not going to line up well although I am willing to give that a shot next. Thinking I could pin at each seam intersection, but I’m not certain that will be enough to bring our wedges into alingment.
So, then what? We punt. It’s pointless to put it back in the box as I will still have the same issues the next time I try to work on it. At this point, I am thinking that I will take the wedges apart and kinda flip flop them so they are more of a straight line. I think that brown might make a nice sash of somesort and I could turn this into more of a table runner without having to cut more wedges. The rest of the strips and strata that has already been cut will most likely be used up in smaller projects like table runners and mug rugs that will end up on our Etsy store. No guarantees, I might be able to figure out what is going on, but I’m not going to invest a ton more time in trying to make it work. My goal is to complete something with it and if that ends up not being the pattern it arrived with, then so be it. Fingers crossed something works!
This was also on my list…omg, it’s almost done. Can anyone explain to me why I didn’t finish it? No? Me neither. What it is lacking is the outlining stitching in black. Yep. That’s it. No, it’s not very big so what do I do with it?
Here you can see what the finished project looks like. There is not much outlining at all and I have the instructions and materials to finish out the framing of this. I’m thinking this will not take very long at all and my other son has a love of cardinals so I will pass it along to him, if he likes it.
I have some other things on my various UFO lists that I may get a chance to work on depending on how these two things finish out. One of those is to practice crocheting with crochet thread. It’s not something that I have worked with very much. I did attempt a snowflake ornament a while ago, but the smaller hook sizing feels different to me and there are different weights of cotton thread. So, I have been sitting and practicing my tension and soon I will try the little snowflakes again to see if I can raise my comfort level. I’m not sure I want to try anything larger than an ornament at this time, but maybe that will be something I can look forward to once I gain some proficiency.
How are things going with your UFO’s? I did get my sewing area mostly cleaned up….I really should finish clearing my ironing board (although I do need to get a new cover for that…) and my cutting space. It’s just little stuff that I need to find homes for and I have procrastinated about that a bit… That’s okay though, It will all get done eventually. *fingers crossed*
Hopefully you are also making progress on your UFO’s or whatever project you are working on.
So, how do you organize your fabric? If you aren’t a quilter, how do you organize your crafting supplies?
I’m sure that there are some of us who are super organized and while I would love to be one of those people, I’m afraid that it just is not in me to be one. That being said, I do have my fabric somewhat organized. My method is fairly simple. I have some drawers and anything that is a fat quarter to a 1 yd cut is uniformly folded and sorted by color. Anything smaller than a fat quarter is moved to scraps. If it’s a multi color fabric, I decided on it’s dominant color and put it with similar.
There are some exceptions, because of course there are. I keep all my batik fabrics together. They follow the same rule about 1yd cuts and under being folded, but instead of going into the general color section, they all hang out together. The same applies for my civil war reproduction fabrics as well as any fabrics that I have collected with a certain project in mind.
What about those that are more than 1 yd? Well, those go on shelves and I have them wrapped around comic book boards. You can find those on Amazon here. If you don’t want to shop Amazon, you can check out your local comic book store and see if they have any on hand or that they can order for you! I did purchase mine from a local shop and it was an interesting dicussion on why I needed so many. For me there are a few benefits. The first is that I can write in pencil on the edge of the board what yardage I have. It makes it a little easier to make sure that I have the appropriate amount when I shop my stash for a project. The second thing is that they are acid free so I feel like it is fairly safe storage. The last beneift for me is that I then get to store them standing up like library books. I like the look of that better, it allows me to have a double row of them on my shelves, and they are still neat as well as easily accessible. Whether or not that works for you is up to you. The things I don’t like about them is that they are bendable and I wish they were a little more rigid. I suppose that I could have used 2 boards at a time, but I really didn’t want to double up and need twice as many. It has been fine so far. I also wish that they were a little taller. Since fabric typically comes folded selvedge to selvedge, I find that I need to fold that fold down to the selvedge edge for the fabric to fit. It is a minor inconvenience and since I am measuring the fabric anyway, it’s not too much of a hassle to fold it again in order to wrap around the boards.
Once they are all wrapped on their boards, they line up on the shelves each with their color family. Batiks stay together and civil war reproductions stay together and if I have yardage earmarked for a project, I might jus go ahead and pull all the fabrics and wrap them up together.
See, simple! You could totally go crazy with organization like novelties here, and multi fabrics here and and and…..and depending on your style of quilting, that might be a good idea! For me, keeping it simple is where it’s at. I keep them in Ikea drawers so that I can pull them out and look at them anytime I want to.
Lastly we come to scraps. What in the world do you do with yours? Do you cut them into uniform sizes? I have found that left me with more questions than answers. How do I know what sizes to cut? Do I cut more of the smaller sizes or cut the biggest size first? Do I organize them by color or just put all the like sizes together? Will this be a system that works for me. Turns out not so much…
So, that brings me back to the scraps. I toss them in a box. Then, when I need something, I go through the box. Not very original I know. What do you do with yours? Do you send them to friends who do more scrap quilting than you do? Do you use your scraps a lot for scrap quilts? Maybe you use them for smaller projects like placemats or wall hangings? I fall more into the camp of using them for wall hangings. I have one scrap quilt project that is in progress, but most of the time I pull out those scraps when I need to make a test block, or something small.
So, where does that leave you? How are your supplies stored? Do you have a favorite method that you haven’t seen anyone else do? Is there a trick you learned from a trusted friend that helps keep your stash organized? Be sure to leave us a comment and share!
How are you doing with your Ufo’s this week? We will just keep our updates/pictures to the first week of the month so that we aren’t going on and on and on about them, but I will say we are still making progress!
We thought we would take a little time and talk about the shop today. Some of you may be new to us or maybe you have a shop like ours in your area! We are not your typical quilt shop. We do not carry fabric or notions or batting. What we do have are 3 quilting machines. Two are considered mid-arm length and one is a true long arm. We teach long arm quilting on our machines and rent time on them so that you can quilt your own projects.
There is a class that we require you take to learn how to use our machines before you are eligible to rent time on them, but that benefits both of us. You get a chance to see what all happens on a long arm and learn if that is something that you will enjoy. We get to show you the ropes so that you can be successful and not damage the machines. It’s a win-win!
We also do long arm machine quilting for others as well as quilts on commission (such as t-shirt quilts). If you are cleaning out grandma’s house and find unfinished projects we can help get those completed as well as some repair work on quilts you may have in your home. T-shirt quilts are very popular both for kids heading off to college and as memorials to loved ones lost. Our machines are not computer guided so we (or you!) are doing the quilting.
It really is a fairly simple business – and we welcome questions and people stopping in to talk and learn. We certainly aren’t perfect quilters, and we are constantly learning new things ourselves, but we try our best.
If you have been wanting to learn how to use a long-arm or quilt your own quilt, stop in and see us! If we aren’t local to you, check your area to see if there is a shop that offers similar services. You might be surprised!
If you are new to the scene for long arm quilting I would tell you this. It isn’t for everyone. That sounds mean doesn’t it? I don’t mean it that way. If you get a chance to take a class using a long arm (and I don’t mean the 5 minutes you spend at a quilt show driving a floor model), take that opportunity. You will learn a lot about quilting. No, your machine quilting won’t be perfect the first time using the machine and it’s a different process from hand quilting and quilting on your domestic sewing machine. However, it’s not really about perfection. That comes with time and practice. It’s about the process. Is it a process you enjoy? Is it something that you can see yourself getting creative and relaxing into? It is something that you feel comfortable doing? Those are the things you should think about. It won’t be perfect the first time and that’s okay! If it ends up being something that you do not enjoy, that is also okay! There are lots of times that we think we should like something, but when we actually try we may find out that we don’t. Taking a class is a much smaller investment than buying a machine and we recommend that whoeheartedly!
That being said, I feel like everyone should try it. You never know what you will enjoy (or be good at) until you take that step. So why not?
If you have any questions about our shop or what we do here, please feel free to send us a message or leave us a comment and we will be happy to answer! If you are local to us and just want someone to talk to about quilting stop in and say hi!
How has your week been? Hopefully you are staying warm and healthy. Have you been working on any projects or maybe made any progress on your crafting area?
I have! Slowly but steadily I am making progress in my room. My cutting table is just about usable and I have most of my sewing table cleared. Next up is the ironing board. Why is it that flat spaces seem to have some sort of magnetic power that attracts all the things to be placed on them? Do you find that to be true in your area? (Or maybe even the rest of your home?) I did not take any pictures of my room, maybe once it is all cleaned up I’ll share what my home space looks like.
As I was going through and finding homes for everything, I realized that I did not list every single project on my lists. Which is okay (and makes for fewer lists!). The number for this month is 12 and that happens to land on a latch hook kit that I thought I had all the yarn for. Well, one of my number 12’s. I took a look at what was listed at 12 and chose one that I could work on in the evenings without needing to be in my sewing room.
Latch hook kit? What decade are you living in?!? I’m sure we all have those older projects that have been lying around or you inherited. I haven’t done one a quite a while and had one that looks vintage modern. I thought it would be fun. However, I do not have all the yarn. 😱. I know right? Don’t they all come in kits? I used to think so, but I have two canvases that are sans yarn. This is one of them. I don’t know if you can tell from the picture but the yarns are two different lengths and I have the stuff for the long yarn sections. Although now I’m debating whether or not to do it all in white…maybe I should see about finding a light grey for the shorter sections. Either way it’s going back in the UFO pile for another time…..
Yeah, that looks every bit like it is from the 1970’s doesn’t it? But it also looks kinda cool…. However, with not having all of the materials it will just have to wait until I have everything. I’m not rushing as I have plenty of other projects to work on. I ended up swapping it out for a different latch hook that wasn’t on my list. This has been a low stress project to work on in the evenings while watching tv. The bonus is that I am a lot faster at this than I used to be and this project is almost complete. Double bonus is that one of the boys has laid claim to it so I won’t have to figure out what to do with it when it is finished. I know you are totally curious about what it could possibly be so of course I need to share a picture.
I did forget to take a picture of this project when I first started to work on it, so I folded it up to show the section that was done.
And here is where we are now. I am hoping that in a couple more evenings I will have it completed!
Honestly I’m still a little surprised that I’ve gotten so much done. It is working up much quicker than I had anticipated and I’m kind of excited to complete it. The real challenge will be remembering how to apply the rug binding but I think that I have some instructions around here somewhere. Fingers crossed that I can find them!
Hopefully you are also making progress on the things you need – whatever they may be. If you are challenging yourself to get some of your UFO’s completed, or perhaps get yourself started on a challenging project, please feel free to share your progress! We love show and tell!
I bet you thought that we forgot about our ever-so-patiently-waiting Jacob’s Ladder blocks. It is time to do something with them!
When last we left them we had our 3 trouble maker blocks flagged so we knew what we were dealing with. Now is the time to make the decisions for what to do with these blocks. The end goal for this quilt is to have a bit of a sampler at the shop to showcase some different quilting ideas to show customers when talking about how to quilt their quilt (either by us or by them). With 15 blocks at our disposal, we have the opportunity to show many different kinds of quilting and it will probably take us a little while to get the quilting portion completed as we will need to think about this quilt a little differently.
Because of how we intend to use the quilt, I felt we needed to be careful with what kind of setting was used. There is a great book for setting if you are interested – it is called Great Sets by Sharyn Craig. I may have mentioned it before, but you can find it here. She showcases lots of different ways to set your quilt and some of them incorporate a secondary design. I recommend this book for the inspiration it may give you when it comes to setting your quilt blocks.
But back to Jacob. I am opting to do a border around each block. It is a setting we often use for t-shirt quilts and it lets us use 2 colors for sashing (which is great to incorporate high school/college colors) and this will also solve the issue for our trouble blocks. I do not want to attempt a straight sashing where I will be trying to make sure things are lining up correctly and where the 3 lovelies will show how they are different. No matter how I try, they will look off because I will need to make their sashing strips slightly wider/longer to ensure that they fit with the rest of the blocks. It is true that I could cut down the rest of the blocks to the smallest size, and typically that is what we do, but I am afraid that I will lose some of my block definition if I give the rest of them a hair cut. I am not looking for perfection, I am looking for done and creating something usable.
Before I get too much farther, this may very well be a longer post and fairly picture heavy. I also hope that you will leave us some comments on the various fabric options that are on the table. Please note, that these are not necessarily the exact fabrics I would use, but to audition some different options. Maybe I’ll even talk about some options you would never have thought about!
But first, it’s good to know exactly what kind of layout I’m talking about – so here is a picture of a t-shirt quilt we completed and it is sashed as I plan to sash the Jacob’s Ladder Blocks.`
You can see in the picture above how each shirt is bordered in either blue or gold and then set in an alternating layout. Darker shirts put with gold to brighten them and lighter shirts with blue to help them pop and not get lost in the gold. Blue shirts put with gold so they don’t get lost in the sashing. Just little things to think about, but I’m sure you get the idea. This will be the layout for this quilt.
As we already talked about, with this setting I can make everything a uniform size easily and our trouble maker blocks shouldn’t stand out too much. It also will let us treat each block as a bordered mini quilt to showcase different types of quilting for a shop sampler.
However, finding the fabric to balance everything without turning it into something crazy is going to be a challenge. Never fear! I took some chances and now we can look at some different options! I know it’s not really fair to say that it would be this style of fabric but not this exact fabric, but some are ear marked for other projects and some there may not be enough of to do the job.
Let’s Dig In!
Here are our first two options – a dark and a light….tone on tone…pretty traditional. The dark is a dark dark grey/black and really lets the colors of the blocks shine. The gold lets the scrappy block shine through but it muffles the brown/gold of reproduction fabrics block. While they look okay, the color combination might not be the best and I don’t feel much when I look at it. It’s okay, but I think we can do better.
This time I grabbed a nontraditional type of fabric to go with the black – a lovely blue watery stripe. I initially thought that the gold was not what I was looking for while the black was okay. Since the blue is a directional print, I would need to be sure that I cut the fabric the correct orientation which means more tricky math. However, I don’t hate it. I’m not sure that it is paired well with the black, but I don’t hate the blue. We tend to think of our sashing as needing to be plain most of the time. However, we are going to challenge that a little bit. I hope.
I thought I would look to see how that stripe looked on the other direction as well as how it paired up with the gold. I grabbed two different blocks for each audition so that they would all get to play and so that we could have things like this to talk about. It’s a great illustration for how the blue block gets lost in the blue fabric and how the blue strip makes the pink/white block really pop while it looks boring on gold. I’m not hating this combination, but I need to think through a little more on stripe orientation if I choose a stripey fabric.
I know, we are totally taking this train off the rails. Why can’t we use a busy print? We can. Is it right for this quilt? Maybe. Maybe not. You can easily see that the busy floral fights with block made up of busy prints. However, for the calmer tonal block, it works fine. My eye drifts right to the block without dwelling too much on the busy sashing fabric. My eye also skate over the gold fabric and right to the tonal block because that floral is successfully framing it. While I don’t love it, it certainly does give me some options that I might not have thought about before. I think it is important to note that the busy print is not so effective for the block with busy prints. Having a busy print is fine and it looks like these blocks would need a calmer option as well to really be effective.
Egads! What did I do! If one is good, more must be better, right? Maybe not. Putting these two lovely prints do work with each other, but not so much with the blocks. The green leafy print is absolutely eating the orange and green block. When flipped, the green and orange block is not faring much better with the floral. If there were a calm option, the green and orange block would be begging to land there. Sometimes more is not better, but we never know until we try. Auditioning fabric can be so important!
Well, what happens if we choose a calmer print? Let’s bring back our blue watery stripe. It looks okay with the green leafy print and it doesn’t fight much with the tan/red/green block. The blue and print block gets absorbed by our stripe and doesn’t seem too bad with the green leafy print. Hmm. I was kind of liking this combo to start with.
Let’s get our gold back out and see how it looks with our leafy green print. While they aren’t fighting much with the blocks, I don’t feel like this combination is really adding any interest to the quilt. Both of these blocks are easily seen on either fabric, but it just feels boring.
Here is our last block and since there was only one left, it got to lay over our black and leafy green. This is not a bad combination either. The green obviously won’t be the right fabric for all of the blocks while the black is calm enough that it can handle any of the blocks.
So, there you have it! There are 8 different pairings above. I’m still feeling partial to the blue stripe. Which one was your favorite? Hopefully this will help you look at sashing fabrics a little differently. I like my sashing to unify things and this is definitely a scrappy quilt so some unification is necessary.
Please drop us a comment here or on our Facebook page to let us know which are your favorites! I’m not completely sold on any of our combinations, but am finding some of them to be interesting. Leaving us a comment just might be what we need to narrow things down a bit. You never know, the choices you suggest just might just end up in our quilt!
We made it, we survived, and we even sold some things! We weren’t sure what to expect over the weekend except for one thing – we would be tired at the end of it. And we certainly were, and thus why we are a little late (and short) with our posting this week.
Usually at these types of events we meet some interesting people and hopefully make some connections for people to come to the shop. While there are a couple of guilds in our area, many of our customers are not part of guilds and this becomes a great way for us to meet people and advertise ourselves.
There were some common themes for our discussions – mainly shipping and holiday shopping but there was another topic that came up that I didn’t anticipate. Quality of Goods.
We had many folks stop by to check out our wares and received compliments on our items. Many compliments went along the lines of, “Oh, I love these and they last forever!” Most of our items are not consumable, so they are meant to last a long time. Some of these conversations went further into how at these craft shows you find people that make a thing well and it lasts for a long time unlike purchasing mass made products from a big retailer.
To be honest, it wasn’t a conversation that I had been expecting to have and it got me thinking. Many of us crafters make our items so that they will last a while. We can be particular about the quality of materials that we use while crafting our items as well as the methods to put items together. We take pride in our work and our finished items reflect the fruits of our labor. Which is why we receive inquiries about repairing quilts and afghans. These items we often made to be used and to last.
To be honest, it is a bit of a double edged sword. How wonderful that we have created items that last with use! It makes items harder to sell when they have a long life…after all how many coasters or hot pads does one really need? (We, of course, would say all of them! ha ha!) However, we are often not open for the same convenient hours as the big retailers or maybe have the same variety. What we can offer is a well made product that lasts.
So, as you do your shopping for gifts or look to replace worn items in your home don’t forget about the crafters. It may cost a little more on the front end, but you will be getting a product that will often last you much longer than you anticipate.
We talk about the tip of the iceberg at home a lot. How icebergs are tricky things…that you can only see a portion above the water while the greater mass lies below the surface. We talk about how the tip of the iceberg represents our final product; the result of our work. The mass below represents the work that it takes to get the result, or the part of the iceberg you can’t see. The boys wanted to start a podcast – so they are learning a lot about the work that lies beneath the surface.
A couple of weekends ago they also got to watch us go through a bit of that as well. They helped to load items that we had lovingly crafted and packed them into our vehicles so we could unload at show one. They came to see our end result where we had our items unpacked and displayed. At show two they had the opportunity to see how we turn a stack of boxes and crates into a shopping display, talk with shoppers, and then dismantle it all into packing boxes and load it all up once again. At this point all I have to really say is, “Think of the iceberg”, and they know.
Our quilting is like icebergs, people enjoy the finished product but don’t always understand the work that goes into the creation. There are seemingly unlimited pattern and fabric choices and combinations. Then there is the money for supplies which always seems to be increasing. Lastly (and possibly most importantly) is the time we dedicate to the creation. Some of us have projects that are really large icebergs. We hope you keep plugging away on those – we know the effort you are putting into things!
A lot of the time when we talk about icebergs, we are talking about how no one really cares about the part that is below the surface – the unseen work that needs to happen. That is until that work isn’t done. Everyone likes to focus on the part that can be seen. That’s our Wow! Factor.
Previous to opening QBY – we both worked in a law office and occasionally I would bring in a finished project and my boss would always ask the same question, “How many hours did that take you?” I didn’t really get it at first because it was my creative outlet and the hours didn’t matter. However, to him where hours are billable, he was attributing a value to it in way that I never thought of that also gave credit to the effort I put into it. A lot of people take our finished creations for granted so it was nice to have recognition for the time put into things.
There are countless memes or posts about how much fabric costs, hours totaled, the monetary cost of other needed supplies like thread and batting and finally adding up to a grand total showing why quilts can cost so much. Honestly, I think that type of thing just gets passed around by and to most of us who understand and gives us a way to commiserate with each other.
Hopefully you don’t find yourself having to field these kinds of questions regularly, if at all. Maybe a better way to start explaining things is to talk about the iceberg. After all, we know how the Titanic turned out!
Happy quilting – and don’t give up on those projects that have a larger iceberg!
Quilting By-You 