Quilt As You Go, Simply Done

Simply Done

sewing and quilting videos

WillieMae’s Quilting Table Story

by

My favorite kind of email!

Good morning,

I want to thank you for your video and sharing with us how you made your table. I decided to make me one. I use a Pfaff machine and the machine sits on it’s own platform which sits on the table. After making the extended table it still needed some support, so I used short spool of thread/with or without the thread as legs.

Well, here is my little creation. I didn’t get the kind of foam you got. I did see something I think was like what you have but, it was so big and tall and I’m not 5 feet so it would have been not easy for me to handle, even though they said they would cut it. So what I got was a package of 6 sheets 14 1/2 wide.about 48 long and 3/4 in wide.I cut 3 layers and glued them together. Then I put the plastic on and had to tape some of it down. I’m a little disappointed that the fabric does not slide across the table like I thought it would. However I’m still new at this. All in all I like my table and I’m sure I’ll get better as time goes on.

Thanks, WillieMae

I love that WillieMae adapted what I did to meet her needs, using what was best for her. That’s the whole idea, to open your mind to see materials and resources in a way that solves your problem!

Nouli’s Table in Athens, Greece!

by

Quilters, I am always left speechless when I see how far my videos reach. I’ve received questions and comments from quilters in Australia, South America, the Middle East, and now Athens, Greece about my videos. I now have over 2 million views to my videos, and this one video has over 200,000. Unbelievable.

Take a look here at Nouli’s great blog post about building her table. She’s got great photos of the steps she took to create her custom sewing table and then gorgeous pics of her quilt.

For quilters all over the globe, it’s a small, wonderful, helpful world.

If you have never seen it, here’s my video:

Nina’s Custom Sewing Table

by

Nina sent me her adaptation of my “Cheap Custom Sewing Table” along with this note:

Ninas-Table

I recently saw your fantastic video on making your own sewing table. I was all set to do as you suggest, the sturdy insulation, etc., when I hit upon another idea.

My son had a set of Enclycopedia Brittannica many moons ago and they were just on a shelf collecting dust. I worked out that stacking them in twos was just the right height for my Bernina.

Who knew??!

I then found some old travel books that work perfectly in front of the machine….. very easy to pull out when changing a bobbin.

So I followed the rest of your tutorial and bought clear vinyl, I believe it is 7mm thick, very sturdy, and
I have my sewing table! I am so thrilled with it.

Thank you so much for your tutorial. It is much better figuring out a workable table rather than wishing for a Koala table that is way$$$$ up there.

If you haven’t seen it, I made myself a custom sewing table for about $100. I did this about six years ago, and I even made a series of videos about it. You can watch them by clicking here.

The benefits of having a table like this is the large, flat surface that holds your quilt, yet lets it glide like melted butter. No more struggling as it falls off the edge of your sewing machine bed or small table surface. Every quilter I know who has tried this has raved about it and about how much easier it is to handle their quilt for free motion quilting.

The fun thing is, I take it to quilt shows and it stops people in their tracks:

10-2013-006a

Cutting Fabric for a New Quilt

by

Hi Quilters, I was giving a trunk show a couple of weeks ago and the topic of fabric cutting came up. So, when I started cutting my fabric for a new quilt I thought I’d video it and share the process that I use for cutting my binding and all of my joining-sashing strips from the same length of fabric and, most importantly, why I do it this way. It’s a little on the long side but I hope it has a few tips that might help you.





Rotary Cutters – Holding and Safety

by

I have been meaning to make this video for a long time. What prompted me to finally finish it was seeing two instances, in the past week, where quilters were holding their rotary cutters in a way that actually makes it harder to cut, and watching one quilter cut toward herself – which made my heart skip a beat!

It’s not a gorgeous video, but it does address how to hold a “stick” cutter and some safety issues. One more tip: use caution where you place your other hand while cutting – never place it in front of the blade to hold a ruler. My friend Joan tells me that she uses a meat cutter’s glove on her left hand (I’ve seen them also with fishing gear, called a “Fillet Glove”) and that’s probably a good idea also.

A New Quilt Design

by

Red & White Crazy Shortcut Quilt

Hi Quilters, we found some quilt inspiration on YouTube! This quilt was inspired by a video that I watched on YouTube and that I talked my daughter Sarah into making. She loved it so much that she made about five different tops! Check back here regularly because I’ll be playing with new designs on the rest of her tops all summer 🙂

Below are all the videos – mine on how I made this quilt, and Heirloom Creation’s “Jelly Roll Quilt Race” video and link to their pattern. If you can’t watch video on your computer, give me a few days and I’ll have a pattern for download on our “New CSCQ Patterns” page.

Here’s the link to the Jelly Roll Quilt Race Pattern -it’s important to follow the instructions to cut off the first 18″ and sew as instructed.

For this quilt, you’ll need 20 Fabric Strips – 42″ long & sewn using the Jelly Roll Race Method”
51″ of complementary fabric (or buy 1 & half yds) – this is the white fabric portion of our quilt
3 yards of backing
50″ of 90″ wide batting
1 yard of complementary fabric (this is the extra red fabric that I mentioned for sashing and binding)

My Design Wall

by

***UPDATE*** I have been getting a LOT of requests for specific information on the design wall fabric that I buy. Here’s the label from the bolt of my most recent purchase:

Rainbow Classicfelt by the KUNIN Group

Just a Few Projects

I started digging through some unfinished projects recently and put some on my design wall, then I thought I’d make a video about the design wall and share it 🙂

5 Minute 5 Dollar Organizer

by

My pal Judy Wedemeyer gets credit for this one and she’s going to post about it on her blog too 🙂

5 Minute 5 Dollar Craft Organizer

We were chatting about making quilted Art Cards and she wanted to show me some of the decorative bits she’d collected that she used to both make the cards and to give her inspiration. Colored feathers, beads, buttons, strings and more filled her little organizer bag. When I asked her about her bag, she flipped through it and told me how she’d made it from a tapestry book cover and some zippered food storage bags. I was in awe!

No amount of arm twisting could get her on camera but she did give me permission to share it all with you and so I’ll post the steps here, along with a video. I must say, I’ve made three of these so far, all as gifts, and I just LOVE them!

I started by scouring second hand shops for the tapestry book covers but could not find one in months of searching. I did, however, find a multitude of zippered bags, and a gift bag, and I’ve transformed several of them. I learned that it helps to have one of the plastic baggies with me while shopping, to check sizes of the zippered bags against the size of the plastic baggies. While it’s easy to shorten the depth of the plastic baggies, trimming the “zipper top” down was not something I wanted to do.

Use a bobbin thread that matches the exterior fabric

I look for the full zipper closure on the bags and the ones with two zipper heads are quite nice; I love a few extra interior pockets but they aren’t necessary, and I search both the “purses & bags” section and the luggage section of shops looking for likely candidates for this project.

What’s absolutely necessary, for the way we make them, is some type of fabric spine (like a book spine) for sewing the baggies to.

Offset the zipper pulls when sewing them in

Judy explained how she grouped the baggies for sewing (we both use 12 baggies per organizer) and offset the zipper tabs of the baggies, to reduce the bulk.

Stapling the bottoms keeps the baggies from slipping while sewing













For most of the organizers I’ve made so far, I grouped the baggies by three, and stapled the bottoms of the bags together to keep them from slipping while I am sewing them. I backstitch at the beginning and end of each row of sewing the baggies in and I used a cotton wrapped polyester thread for strength, with a slightly longer stitch length than normal.

Supplies




Supplies I’ve been using so far:
Zippered bag from second hand shops, laundered
Zipper pull plastic food storage bags
Strong thread
Stapler
Scissors to trim the excess off the bottoms of the baggies, if needed
Sewing Machine 🙂

Here’s the video – if it “hiccups” please press the Pause button and let the video fully buffer (watch the red line get longer, which indicates that the video is loading and buffering) and then press play.

Here’s another one that I made for my granddaughter:

Quilt Binding by Machine

by

There are many good methods of putting a binding on a quilt but I’ve never seen how to flip the corners specifically demonstrated and that’s what my friend Rosemary asked to see, so I made a video for her.

When preparing for the binding I start by measuring all four sides of the quilt and then determining the length of binding that I need and exactly how long each side of the quilt should be. If you don’t measure your quilt and binding, it’s easy to stretch either the quilt, or the binding, or both, while sewing them and that can give a wavy finish to your quilt, instead of a nice, straight, flat finish.

I always cut my binding on the length of grain (going WITH the selvage) [this is just my personal preference] and often I cut my binding before I even cut my fabrics for my quilt. I don’t like piecing small bits of fabric to make up the binding, and because I use the length of grain, I find it easier to start my quilt by cutting the binding first 🙂

When I am finished quilting my quilt, I measure out the length of binding for each side of the quilt as I go along, but I only “measure and pin” one side at a time as I sew the binding on. I hope that makes sense! I sew the binding onto one side of the quilt, and its corner, and then I take the quilt out of the sewing machine and measure and pin the binding for the next side.

The video is about how I turn the corners on the binding, AFTER sewing it to the *BACK* of the quilt, because all my bindings are 100% by machine. I never hand quilt anything, but that’s just my preference also. Oh, and the video asks you to subscribe to my channel if you like my videos, which requires you to create a YouTube account. I can’t tell you how much I have learned from watching video tutorials on YouTube on all kinds of subjects. I highly recommend YouTube if you like to learn by “seeing how it’s done”.

Here’s the older video I made for Linda about sewing down the corner on the FRONT of the quilt:

Vote for Vanessa!

by

Quilters, you might have noticed that I am loving making videos and putting them on YouTube. I also *watch* a lot of videos there – in fact, when I want to figure out how to do something, like use a piece of software or cook something, well the first place I go now is YouTube.

Oprah Winfrey is doing a talent search and a gal that I’ve watched on YouTube is trying to get her own quilting show. Her name is Vanessa and you can see her “pitch” here.

If you like what you see, please give her a vote. I personally would LOVE to see some new, young, fresh representative of quilting on national TV and this gal just crush’s it! Go Vanessa Go!