Tuesday Tip: Trimming Threads

Thank you all for being so patient last week when I needed to take a week off. I'm back home & going 90 mph again- it's great to be back in my routine! I hope this Tuesday tip is helpful for you. In preparation for sending your quilt to a longarmer, you may have heard the request to "trim your threads." Sound familiar? The first time I heard this I had no idea what it meant. Turns out it's pretty important- more so than I initially thought. When you're asked to "trim your threads," you are basically being asked nicely to clean up your quilt. I pulled out a quilt I pieced back in college for an example. Here's a portion of the top. See those dangly threads? Yeah, they need to go away. The longarmer's hopping foot can get caught in them & things can get ugly fast. Also, if they aren't cut before hand, they could actually end up being quilted in & then it's a pain to get them out from under the stitching. Then let's look at the back of the quilt. This is a great picture of a hot mess of threads in the back: Those need to be cut away as well since they could get caught & get tied up together while the longarmer is loading the quilt. Remember- you don't want your quilt to have anything that might cause it to not lie flat! Finally, there's this: Notice my green fabric has frayed a bit? Because I've used white sashing between blocks, that green thread has the possibility of showing through the white fabric when quilted- yikes! That's something you definitely don't want to happen! So take a look at both sides of your quilt before sending it off- it will look that much nicer after a few minutes of trimming threads!

Tuesday Tip- a bit different

Life took over this week & I'm currently away from home visiting family unexpectedly, so I didn't have time to prepare an actual tip.

But I do want to share an episode from Thinking Allowed- a BBC Radio 4 show. Back in 2011 they discussed "Craft & Community".
You can listen to it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010mrzc

For me being fully immersed in the quilting & knitting community- I completely agreed with the "pro-craft" interviewee.

But the "anti-craft" interviewee made me think about the perception of crafters in the world & how we many times aren't appreciated & fairly recognized for our contributions.

What do you think?

Thanks for being patient- I hope to have the Tuesday Tip back next week!




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Tuesday Tip!: The Stay Stitch

 

This cute little quilt top was a mystery I did with Stitchin' Tree Quilts in Harlan, Iowa at a retreat back in January.  It's a great scrap quilt & a fun play with color value.  Since my neutral was more of a medium color, I chose dark scraps for my piecing- but what, this isn't a post about color theory- let me get onto the Tuesday Tip!

See how the outside border is pieced with all the different squares? Here's a close up:

Notice how those seams that piece the border together run off the quilt? This can lead the stitching on the outside edge to become loose:

See how loose those seams are? And that's just from folding & unfolding the quilt top! To keep those seams secure, we can sew a "stay stitch" around the outside edge of the quilt to keep them in place.

This is how I do it:  I simply sew around the edge of the quilt, 1/8" from the outside edge.  Here it is in more detail:

I first get my "regular sewing foot." This is the foot I use when constructing clothes or appliqueing. Basically it's the foot I use when I'm not piecing a quilt. Now my foot has an 1/8" marking on it. See where my needle is? Look just to the right of that- see that red line? That's my 1/8" line. I line up my fabric to that guide & start sewing as normal.

Now for thread, I don't usually care what color I use for this technique- I just use whatever because since I'm stitching at 1/8" from the edge & I usually sew my binding on at 1/4" or 3/8", it will be hidden in the binding. Here's I've used a dark blue thread. So I continue sewing down the edge of the quilt side, until I get to the end, here I just stitch of the quilt:

Then I turn the quilt top & start the next side from the top:

My corner ends up looking nice & crisp like this:

You may be wondering why I bother sewing to the end, cutting my thread & rotating the quilt & starting again on each side- I do this because I get a crisper corner with my sewing machine. I found if I turned the corner, the corner ended up smaller & not as nice & even something crooked with my sewing machine. So in the end do what works for you- for me, I like the method that may take a little longer & use a little more thread, but I prefer it for the nicer finish. Thank you for joining me again for the Tuesday Tip! The stay stitch makes for a much nicer top to give your longarmer when you have a pieced border or a quilt that has curved edges (like in a Double Wedding Ring.) I hope to see you next week!

J's Christmas Quilt

I was looking at my quilt photos & realized I didn't blog about J's Christmas quilt for 2012!


For the past 2 Christmas', I've made J a special quilt with distinct custom quilting. For the 2012 quilt, he actually noticed the pattern in a magazine when we were at a quilt shop. I was busy picking out other fabrics & before I knew it, there was a pile of fabric bolts next to me & him smiling saying "I want a quilt with these fabrics!" He had found a modern pattern (that I basically completely changed) that he chose batiks for (big surprise about the batiks if you know J).

I was able to piece it at a quilt retreat with friends back in June of 2012 & then it sat on the shelf. Then about December 22 I realized I didn't have a quilt for him, so I dug the top out & grabbed some Hawaiian fabric for the backing.


Since I wanted to create a secondary pattern with the quilting, I pulled out my circle templates & quilted radiating circles in a random pattern. It was so much fun to just plop a template on the quilt & have at it!

And best of all- he loved the quilt & the circle design!

Tuesday Tip! Spinning Seams

I'm very excited to let you know that I'll be starting a "Tuesday Tip" series on the blog! These will cover a variety of topics to help you make your quilts flatter and smoother before sending them to a longarmer. They will be in a variety of formats: photos, videos, etc- until I find out what works best for me.

Today's tip is actually a video (please be patient! This is my first video!) on how to spin seams. I received an email from a student this weekend about the best ways to press their seams & I wanted to share with them how to "spin their seams" so I decided to take the opportunity to share it with everyone!

Enjoy & please let me know your thoughts & if you have any questions you'd like answered about prepping a quilt for a longarmer. Linking up with Small Blog Meet

Quilts of Valor

Here are some more quilts!

These have such a special story- Quilts from the Bluffs worked with a 4-H group in Council Bluffs to make several tops for Quilts of Valor. Each child was paired with a adult & they worked together to sew the quilt top.

I was asked to quilt 2 tops & choose to use Sue Schmeiden's EZPZ Stars & Loops. You can see a better picture of it here:


I'm very thankful I was able to help out again for such a great program!

Kona Bay Fabric Contest

At the beginning of the year, Kona Bay Fabrics announced their fabric contest for the Asian Star quilt, a free pattern on their website. The first 10 people who made the quilt top & submitted a picture of it won 3, 1 yard fabric cuts!

I had actually already started this top, but it got put aside for other projects- but of course when I saw there was a contest.... I pulled it out & finished the top.



We took this picture on an incredibly windy day, so it was either a picture of the quilt top flying away or me with my eyes closed!

Anyways, I was very excited when I got the email from Kona Bay asking me to pick out the 3, 1 yard cuts I wanted! This is what I chose:


Not sure what I will make with it yet, but it sure is pretty to look at & pet!