adventures of a quilting diva

I’m sure we all have some of these. Every once in awhile it’s fun to get the fabric scraps out and just play! As a bonus, if you use them up every so often, you are less likely to drown in them.

Here’s what I like to do with my fabric scraps. Using the sew-and-flip method, I piece them together crazy quilt style. I try not to think too much about which pieces go next to each other. I grab two pieces and stitch them together. But if the occasional combo really bothers me, I don’t use them next to each other, after all this is supposed to be fun.

Next I flip the pieces open, finger press and grab another piece to sew to that unit … sew and flip, sew and flip, and so on.

Once I get a bunch of them pieced together, I sub-cut them further into little shapes: squares, circles, rectangles etc. On the wall hanging below, I cut them into inchies (1″ square fiber art pieces) and appliquéd them onto a black wool felt background. I love how the black really makes the colors pop!

If you look carefully, you’ll see that my “squares” are not really square. That’s because I simply laid them onto the felt and stitched around them with a zig zag stitch: no basting, no pinning, no fusibles web. I let the sewing machine gently stretch them out of shape into these lively dancing shapes.

If you prefer your shapes not stretched out of shape, just iron some fusible web onto the back of your pieced scraps before you sub-cut them into smaller shapes. Then you can fuse them to your background.

Have fun with the design. Try geometric as well as freeform layouts before you commit to sewing or fusing them down. Or better yet, make two wall hangings: a geometric AND a freeform.

While you relax and play with your fabric scraps, your mind will have a chance to wander. By the time you finish you may very well have several new ideas to choose from, and you’ll be ready for your next big project.

happy quilting! =(^_^)=

Remember the classic Necco Sweethearts Valentine’s candy hearts? Now they’re available in new Red, White & You colors for Independence Day. Red, White & You Sweethearts will be included in care packages to U.S. military troops and feature patriotic messages such as: My Hero, Miss You, and Home Safe. And they have new great-tasting flavors too. (strawberry, blueberry and vanilla crème … Mmmmm!) They’re a perfect inspiration for Fourth of July crafting.

Here are some fun and crafty ideas for using Red, White & You Sweethearts in your Fourth of July festivities.

First is the Red, White & You Patriotic Shaker. You can find complete directions for this and other easy crafts in the Sweethearts Patriotic Crafts for Kids booklet. Since I didn’t have all the exact supplies, I made do with what I had. I used an empty candy sprinkles plastic jar in place of the flip-top container and 20″ lengths of 1/8″ and 1/4″ wide ribbons, tied in the middle around the metal brad before sticking it through the lid. I tied red, white and blue pony beads onto the ends of the ribbons.

Next is the Folk Art Heart Party Favor. Cut two 3-1/4″ tall x 3″ wide pieces of wool felt (or you could use craft felt if you wish) and a strip 1-1/4″ wide x 9-1/2″ long. Cut a heart out of the middle of one of the panels and blanket stitch with 2 strands of embroidery floss around the opening. (Scroll down to the bottom of this post for the pattern. Click on the image and then print out the full-size pattern.) Click here for a great tutorial on blanket stitching on felt from Future Girl Craft Blog. (Variation: cut a heart out of a contrasting piece of felt and use blanket stitch to appliqué it onto the panel.) Blanket stitch one panel to each long side of the strip. Wool can sometimes be stretchy. If the strip stretches out past the edges of the panels, just trim it down to size. Put a box of Red, White & You candies inside the pouch.

Or use a small bag of Red, White & You Sweethearts to make a quick and easy Mini Favor. Simply cut a 6″ to 7″ square out of patriotic fabric with pinking shears or a wave rotary cutter, place the bag of candy in the center, gather the fabric around it and tie with a 1/8″ wide ribbon. Tie mini pony beads onto the ends of the ribbon if you’d like.

And finally my favorite, the Red, White & You Candy Dish Rug. You will need two circles of wool felt. I used a lid to trace around. My circles are 7-1/4″ across. That’s about the smallest circle that will handle four hearts. You can cut a larger circle and give more space in between the hearts or enlarge or reduce the size of the heart pattern for a different size rug if you wish. Check your candy dish to see what is a good size for you.

Next trace four hearts onto fusible web (click on pattern image at the bottom of this post for full-size heart pattern that you can print) and fuse polka dot cotton quilting fabric to the hearts, cut them out and fuse the hearts to one of the wool circles. Note: when you fuse the hearts to the wool circle, use the wool setting on the iron, you don’t want to scorch the wool.

Blanket stitch (click here for Future Craft Girl’s blanket stitch tutorial) around the hearts with two strands of embroidery floss, then blanket stitch the second wool felt circle to the bottom of the rug. (Variation: use solid wool felt hearts, no fusible web necessary, and embroider Red, White & You messages onto the hearts before embroidering them to the circle.)

Why not gather together some Red, White & You candy hearts, red, white and blue fabric, scrapbooking papers, beads, trims and embellishments and see what you’re inspired to make …

If you’d like to sponsor a USO Care Package and send a personal message to encourage a deployed U.S. service member, click here for the USO/Sweethearts secure donation page.

Here’s a quilt I recently made for a friend’s 3 year-old niece who is going into chemo for leukemia soon. It’s an I-spy with 4″ squares and a few 4-patches thrown in for variety. It’s backed with warm and cuddly sherpa fleece and tied with prayers. Hopefully it will provide both comfort and entertainment for her in the coming weeks and months.
Fabrics like polar and sherpa fleece (a textured fleece fabric that feels like curly lamb’s wool) make great backings for kids’ comfort quilts. They’re soft, cuddly, and easy care too! There’s no need for batting or binding, just layer the quilt top and fleece backing right sides together and sew a pillowcase finish (sew around all the edges, leaving an opening on one side to turn the quilt right sides out, then hand- or machine-sew the opening shut). Fleece comes 60″ wide on the bolt, so you probably won’t have to piece the backing. Most fleece fabrics can be machine washed on a cool gentle setting and dried on low heat.
Tips for backing quilts with fleece:

• Lay the backing fleece right side up on a flat surface and gently smooth all the wrinkles out. (On some fleece fabrics, the back and front is very similar. Whichever side you like best is the front.) Fleece can be stretchy. Be careful to smooth and not stretch or your backing will end up smaller than the top. Lay the quilt top right side down centered on top of the fleece backing and gently smooth the top’s wrinkles out.

• Pin the layers together every 3-4 inches around all the edges to encourage it to stay put while you sew.

• If you have a walking foot, use it. If you don’t have a walking foot, place the pins closer together and sew slowly.

• Fleece is thick. Reduce the sewing machine foot’s pressure so that there is enough room for the feed dogs to move the two layers forward freely without resistance. (Sherpa fleece is one of the thickest. Anti-pill fleece tends to be thinner.)

• An 8-10″ opening will give you enough room to turn the quilt right side out and arrange the edges and corners into place. Backstitch at the beginning and the end to secure the thread.

• Tying fleece-backed quilts works much better than quilting, and looks great too! After you turn the quilt right side out and sew the opening shut you can tie the quilt every 4-6 inches. I used YLI Jeans Stitch, but crochet yarn or perle cotton works great too. Here’s a quick video demonstrating how to tie a secure knot. For more information on prayer quilts visit Prayers and Squares.

• You can wrap the quilt for gift-giving with a ribbon of fleece left over from the backing.

In case you were wondering, I have not turned in my appliqué needles for knitting needles. Here is February’s UFO sighting: This is one of those crazy quilt deals like Stack-N-Whack except the cuts are all random. I made these blocks quite a few years ago and did a little bit of machine quilting on it almost every evening in February.

Once upon a time there was actually some sort of plan for the borders and what this quilt was supposed to be in the end … only the border fabric got separated from the blocks along the way. Now I can’t remember what it was, but I decided it’s going to make a nice little kitchen table runner once I get the binding on (perhaps the binding will be my goal for March).

If you want to try it out for yourself, this is a fun little project. Here’s how:

1) Stack up 8 squares of different fabrics a few inches larger than you want the finished blocks to be. (They will shrink up quite a bit depending on how many times you cut and sew them back together again.) Make a random diagonal cut through the whole stack at once so each square has the same 2 pieces, “A” and “B”. (A sharp blade on your rotary cutter really helps here.)

2) Mix the pieces up so that each square has different fabric for the “A” shape and the “B” shape. Sew the new pairs together. (Don’t stress overly much about making them exactly square. You can square them all up at the end.)

3) Stack the blocks together and repeat cutting, mixing, and reassembling until you get a good mix of crazy quilt pieces in the blocks, then square them up.

4) Rotate some of the blocks when you sew them together into your quilt top and it will be hard to tell that they are the exact same block “pattern”. Or repeat with 8 new pieces of fabric and mix the second set of blocks with the first for a larger quilt top with even more variety.

=(^_^)= happy quilting!

This is a Fidget Quilt that I made with a kit from my guild, Citrus Belt Quilters. Fidget Quilts have a variety of different textured fabrics such as chenille, corduroy, fleece, faux fur, knits, lace, tapestry, terry cloth, silk, velvet, wool and more. Their bright colors and varied textures offer sensory stimulation that relieves anxiety for Alzheimer’s patients.
Fidget Quilts are easy to make. Why not make them as a guild project and create kits, or even make a day of it and hold a workshop where everyone brings a prewashed remnant or two of fabric and their sewing machines, exchanges the fabric, and assembles the quilts together.

To make a fidget quilt:

1). Collect a variety of fabrics in different colors and textures. Check out the remnants at your local fabric store for all kinds of possibilities. If you’re an art quilter you probably have many interesting fabrics in your stash already. Iron a fusible interfacing to the back of any stretchy or sheer fabrics, then wash all the fabrics to pre-shrink, remove excess dyes, and test for durability. Do not use any fabrics which don’t survive the wash. Fidget Quilts receive a lot of use and will need to be sturdy.

2). Cut 36 7-1/2″ squares of fabric in different colors and textures for each Fidget Quilt. Lay the squares out in 6 rows of 6 square each. To make things easy on yourself and your sewing machine, avoid placing two thick fabrics such as faux fur next to each other. Sew the blocks together into rows with a 1/2″ seam allowance and then sew the rows together. A sturdy sewing machine (not your lightweight travel machine) and walking foot is highly recommended.

3). Layer the quilt top and a 40″ square of fleece right sides together. Sew around all 4 outside edges with a 1/2″ seam allowance, leaving a 12″ opening. Turn the quilt right side out and sew the opening shut by hand or machine.

4). Using a machine bar tack or needle and embroidery floss/yarn, tie the quilt together in the center of each block and at all block intersections.

Your local nursing homes and Alzheimer’s care centers can advise you about any special needs their patients might have.

Priority: Alzheimer’s Quilts are mini art quilts 9″ x 12″ or less (fits inside a USPS Priority Mailer) created and sold to help make finding a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease a priority. This year 39 of my Quilt Art internet friends and I participated in a Stay-At-Home Challenge for quilters who weren’t going to Houston but didn’t want to simply sit at home and feel sorry for ourselves, so we took this opportunity to create Priority: Alzheimer’s Quilts.

Priority: Alzheimer’s Quilts are part of The Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative, founded by quilter Ami Simms to make a difference one quilt at a time. Here is my first Priority Quilt, On a good day. Artist Statement: I imagine snippets of memories floating by on a breeze. On a good day you can almost reach out and touch them.
This quilt is made from cotton and lamé fabric, with fusible machine appliqué, machine quilting and hot-fix Swarovski crystals. Fusing tissue lamé for machine appliqué is not as hard as one might expect. Just follow these simple steps:

1). Iron WonderUnder to reverse side of tissue lamé (the right side is whichever side you like best, if you can tell a difference between the two) using a medium-hot iron and a dry press cloth (I like to use a piece of cotton jersey cut out from an old T-shirt or a scrap of muslin as a press cloth for this).

2). Cut out your appliqué shapes, remove the paper backing, and iron shapes to the background fabric with your medium-hot iron and dry press cloth. Don’t hold the iron in place for longer than the recommended fusing time, instead check to see how well it is fused and then give it another 10 seconds or so if necessary, repeat ironing and checking until all the edges are securely fused. It is better to check and repeat a few times than to iron too long in one go and melt the lamé.

3). Machine appliqué around the edges with a zig zag stitch. Use a sharp new needle and sew carefully because it’s better not to rip stitches out of the fused tissue lamé if at all possible.

This is a terrific technique for art quilts and wall hangings that will not see a lot of rough handling or excessive washing. I have never tested it on a bed quilt or wearable art garment.

Here are the Swarovski crystals I used on my Priority Quilt. These are different than the usual bling bling hot fix crystals that we all know and love. It is an opaque turquoise and is perfect for those times when your quilt calls for a little embellishment, but not the sparkle. You can find them at Kandi Corp.
Stay tuned for part 2 for directions on how to make an Alzheimer’s Fidget Quilt.

The March issue of Cotton Spice was released today on PDF. Here is my project, found on page 14, a needle keeper that for all you beaders out there, also holds tubes of beads and doubles as a beading mat. There are quite a few quilt patterns as well. I flipped through it with the intent of choosing my favorite one so I could tell you all about it, but could not decide. So you’ll have to go to www.cottonspice.com (it’s free!) and decide for yourself.

This weekend we attended a birthday party complete with a petting zoo. Annika liked holding the bunnies, but I couldn’t resist the chocolate brown Merino lambs (below).

(Actually according to Morehouse Farm, brown sheep are actually black sheep whose wool has been bleached from being out in the sunshine.) Brown or black, I wanted to give those lambs a good shearing and go play with my needle felting machine.