Hidden Threads

I am not a fan of hand sewing the binding onto my quilts. Over the last year or so I’ve been exploring the machine binding attachments available on the market, and as yet I can’t find one that sounds reliable.

As a matter of fact, what I can find are horror stories about most of the major brand name and generic binders. Out of desperation, I started using the reverse method, where you sew the binding on the back of the quilt and wrap it around to the front, then stitch it in place. After a little practice, this has worked great for me, and I’d recommend it to you too.

Pricilla Bianchi has a PDF that explains the process beautifully. Give it peek when you get a chance. Once you try this method, you’ll never finish a binding by hand again: All By Machine Binding Method

One Saturday, I was standing in line at the quilt shop and struck up a conversation with a nice woman who seemed to share my taste in fabric. A number of the bolts in my cart were her favorites and visa versa. After we’d chatted for a few minutes, the conversation came around to our stashes.

She admitted to me that she hid most of her stash from her husband, secreting it away under beds and in plastic storage tubs in closets. She also admitted that she was beginning to forget which fabrics she already has, sometimes accidentally buying duplicates.

This started me thinking about my own situation. I have problems with full disclosure too. My stash has spread all over the house, and it’s outgrowing spaces that less than a year ago I’d have though were generous.

So, How Much of a Stash Is Too Much?

When I first started quilting, I lusted after the stash and scraps of other quilters, imagining an Aladdin’s cave of fabrics, notions, thread, buttons, and ribbon. It seemed to me that the more experienced quilters would always have superior quilts because of their obvious skill, and because they had so much fabric to choose from.

How can a beginner have a chance of creating anything as rich or complex as someone who has been quilting for a few decades and has drawers and drawers full of fabric at his or her fingertips?

My solution?   I spent a couple of years finding deals on fabric-by-the-yard.  Some retailers will sell odd cuts, bolt ends, and returns at bargin prices. These fabric pieces are large enough to use for piecing and appliqué, add variety to my stash, and make me feel rich – abundantly rich.  It’s true that most of them aren’t from the top mills, but they are quality 100% cotton fabrics.

After investing in this kind of variety, I moved on to more expensive fabric, opting for good manufacturers of batiks and the like, offered by online outlets that provide a discount but require a one yard minimum cut of each fabric.

Now I have an embarrassment of riches, and have started wondering when to say stop. Ever? The nice woman at the quilt shop is letting her memory be her guide. When she can’t remember what she has, it’s time to start reevaluating her stash – in her book, anyway. What about you?

As long as I can remember the fabrics in my closets and cubbyholes, can I keep hoarding? Should any of this fabric acquisition bear a relationship to my ability to use it all before I die?

You tell me. How much is too much?  Or is it ever too much if you can afford it, and it makes you happy?

Quilting is entering the green age.  If you think about it, quilting owes its existence to conservation, transformation, and the ingenuity of people who were trying to make the most of what they had.  I have a romantic notion of those beginnings, so I’m inclined to embrace the idea of going green with my quilting.

I’ve never been one to bulk up on sprays and glues.  I like all-cotton batting, and I try to conserve fabric as much as I can.  I’ll even rework or postpone patterns I like that look like they just waste too much fabric along the way. 

I’m not alone in my thinking.  Quilters and conservationists around the web are blogging about greening the way we live our quilting lives.  The links below will give you a representative sample.  Whether you admire the Amish philosophy, want to conserve by using up your stash, or would like to know more about earth friendly quilting products like soy or bamboo based fabrics and batting, there’s someone who shares your interest or point of view.

Consider the Amish

Using Your Stash to Go Green

Earth Friendly Common Sense

What About Those Organic Fabrics and Batting?

What’s Your Green?

Thinking smaller when quilting doesn’t mean the project will be easier. Some of the hardest quilts to make are miniatures. If you think you can reduce a quilt in size to finish it faster, think again. Small quilts need some forethought and special treatment. Here are a few tips that will help you make your miniature a success:

Use Quality Fabric
If you’ve been fudging by using okay fabric on some of your quilts, miniatures aren’t the place to cut corners. Good quality fabric with a nice hand (feel) is easier to use, looks better, and lasts longer.

Pay Attention to Detail
Inaccurate cutting, imprecise seams, and sloppy ironing will make a miniature a disaster to assemble. Get into the habit of measuring your work along the way. Keep a small ruler by your sewing machine, and use a gridded ironing board mat. It sounds like a pain, but measuring each piece as you cut, sew, and iron it will make it easier to put your miniature quilt together – and have it turn out well.

Use Foundation Piecing
Using foundation piecing increases your accuracy and gives you a stable platform on which to work.  If you are using fabric scraps, it also helps stabilize biases.

Plan Your Colors
If you have a color scheme, try looking at a mock-up from a distance. Miniatures look different from full size quilts. A bright, demanding fabric in the wrong spot will spoil the effect you are trying to create. Miniatures don’t have to be plain, but some pre-planning will help you to avoid being disappointed with the results. After the time and precision work involved, you don’t want to be bushwhacked by a bad color or value choice.

Take Your Time
The easiest way to thwart your best efforts at a miniature is to get sloppy because you’re tired. If your back starts to bother you or your eyes start to get tired, take a break. Heaven knows the quilt will be waiting for you when you feel fresher.

Resize Your Fabric Patterns
Using a large patterned fabric in a miniature quilt might have a different result from what you intended. The fabric detail that stands out in a six-inch quilt block will be lost when you downsize that block to three inches. Avoid large prints in favor of medium and small sized alternatives. The medium sized print will look large; trust me.

Use the Right Tools
When you work on a miniature, using a magnifying glass and having the proper lighting is doubly important. A hands free magnifier is a real asset.

Don’t Cut Corners
Things you may have fudged on in the past will be a definite gotcha here. Wash your fabric and batting before you begin. Use a low loft batting that won’t obscure your precise seaming. Iron all of your pieces as you sew them, and be careful to use good ironing practices in order to avoid distortion.  In a small quilt, any distortion is magnified, and it becomes much harder to conceal mistakes.

Creating a miniature can be one of the most satisfying of quilting experiences.  A good miniature looks like a jewel and really is a work of art.  Following the guidelines above will help you avoid some common pitfalls and create a great looking miniature the first time you try.

The horizon is looking grim for those of us who covet cotton.  Energy costs are up, which is making everything more expensive, but did you realize that cotton production is down, and is destined to stay that way?

Farmers rushing to take advantage of the corn and soybean bonanza are dropping cotton as a crop, and a good portion of what’s left is going overseas.  China is a big purchaser of cotton, consuming at least 45% of the worldwide market. We have to make due with what’s left, and that will be getting more expensive as time goes by.

Are Quilters on a Budget Being Priced Out of the Cotton Market?

Not to be an alarmist here, but I was kind of hoping that prices would be going down, not up.  As fabric has become more painterly, artistic, colorful and creative, it has also risen in price.  It’s getting to the point where good fabric is beyond the budget of many of us, at least for most of our projects.

This is a lament. I don’t have any ideas on how to handle the problem.  Even if you start dying your own fabric, there are costs (sometimes substantial) involved.

Diving for Fabric

My friend Emily started ‘diving for fabric’ a few years ago.  This is her term for haunting second-hand stores and garage sales for cotton garments that she can recycle.  She even uses chopped up pieces of collars and cuffs as fillers for pillows – yes she cleans them well first.

This isn’t her only source of fabric, but her system does yield some really interesting finds.  The prospect, unappealing until now, may have some merit if cotton keeps getting more expensive.

I’ve said it before: quilters are the most generous, kind people I’ve ever come across. If you quilt and want to help others, you don’t have to be a member of a guild, an award winner, or a joiner by nature. There are many organizations out there that will be grateful for your efforts, and thrilled that you want to help them help others.

Share the Gift of a Quilt With Someone in Need.

The links below are a good place to start. Let me know how it goes, or if you have a worthy charity that you want others to know about. One quilt won’t save the world, but the example of the AIDS quilt shows us that working together, our stitches can make a difference.

Make a quilt for someone who needs a helping hand, some love, or some reinforcement that the world is still a good place to live in.

If you have information about organizations set up to help with Midwest relief efforts,  please comment here and I’ll pass the word along.

Ipump
Provide quilts to children diagnosed with diabetes.

Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative
Make an art quilt to help fund Alzheimer’s research.

Project Linus
Give a quilt to a needy, sick, or traumatized child.

Warming Families
Help the homeless.

Soldier’s Angels
Help American soldiers and their families.

I had a blue day today.  The sun was shining, and the humidity was down.  It should have been a great day, but I was still blue.  It’s not like there isn’t enough to be worried about.   Gas prices are up, property values are down, and food is more expensive.  There’s flooding in the Midwest, and good people are dying entirely too young.  (I was thinking of Tim Russert.)

Okay, so I felt lousy.  What did I do?  I took out some fabric and started ‘noodling’ a quilt.  Noodling is my affectionate term for planning, plotting, and scoping out fabric for my next project, or the one after that.  It fixed me right up . . . a little anyway.  I can always count on fabric for that: instant contentedness, textile hope.

If you’ve stumbled on this blog, aren’t a quilter and have never considered quilting, just imagine, a hobby in which merely fingering the raw materials has the power to lighten your mood and give you hope.  Now that’s worth a few dollars a yard, isn’t it?

Quilt assembly methods go in and out of style, and the log cabin quilt is a good example. When I made my first LC quilt, I cut long strips and then assembly line pieced the strips to my blocks-in-progress much like the graphic. This worked pretty well, except for the occasional miss-cut when I was separating the blocks from the latest strip. Cutting the strips while keeping them true is harder to do than it looks.

Nowadays the preferred method seems to be to cut all of the strips to size in advance and then sew them together. Frankly, I have to agree that this is a more precise method. The prep takes longer, but the blocks go together faster and better. I just cut my strips and put them in piles.

Admit it, quilting is addictive. The more you quilt, the more your style and technique improves. Eventually, artistic development leads to a desire to share, promote, and monetize your craft. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’ve posted a little about Etsy, the site for unique one-of-a-kind arts and crafts pieces, including quilts. You can start your own quilt and craft store as part of the site.  Sign up is free.  You can find the blog here: Etsy Quilting.  A quick link to Etsy is available in the Blogroll on the sidebar of this page.

Etsy isn’t the only place you can grow as an artist and share your unique vision with the wider community.  Art Market Blog has a list of sites that will give you a lot to consider, help you become member of a large, robust artistic community, and maybe teach you a little something about art in the digital age. Take a look at: How Artists Can Get Noticed Now for more information.

One thing you’ll find is that many of these promotional and educational sites are free or available at a nominal fee. The opportunities out there for artistic development and promotion are staggering.

If you’ve ever longed for a way to make your hobby pay for itself, make a profit, or get the respect you deserve as an artist, explore some of these sites. You’ll be surprised and pleased, and maybe you’ll discover that your vision resonates with more people than you ever expected.

Let me know how it goes.

Sara

The log cabin can be such a versatile block design because it makes great use of contrast. Using the contrast of light and dark in creating quilting patterns and layouts is one of the best ways to build interest and make quilts more graphic.

The creative use of contrast is sometimes even more important than color in making your quilts come alive. I am naturally drawn to muted, medium value fabrics. My first choices when I visit the fabric store aren’t too light or dark, have medium sized designs, and aren’t very rich or fiery in color.  Without challenging my fabric comfort zone, my quilts wouldn’t be very interesting.  After the first five or so, I think I’d have pretty much said it all.

When I first started quilting, the log cabin block taught me a lot about the way fabrics work together successfully. I learned, sometimes the hard way, that fabric colors and values (lights and darks) need to contrast in order for a quilt to come together well. Playing it safe is one of the worst recipes for quilting success. I’ve put too many quilts together that looked like a single piece of printed fabric after I’d finished. What a disappointment.

Because learning to use contrast in quilting is so important, and because a log cabin quilt is a great place to begin, I’ve started a page that shows some of the more popular layouts for the basic log cabin block.

Remember, what makes these designs so striking is the contrast of light and dark. Without too much study, you can see that it’s contrast that makes the patterns sing. We’ll get into color later; for now, just take a look at what you can do with some simple lights and darks (or lights and mediums).

In the examples, I use shades of rust and cream, but many wonderful scrap-fabric log cabin quilts are made using many colors in one block. The one constant is the separation of lights and darks:  Log Cabin Layouts.