What do a cookie cutter and free motion quilting have in common? Find out how Jennifer uses her favorite cookie cutter shape in her quilting.
 | Hey Everyone, welcome back to Free Motion Friday. Last week I made a free motion design with the Butterfly Cookie Cutter and some free motion loops to connect the butterflies which created a contin... |
It's Monday! Are you ready to start another exciting week of quilting possibilities? I am!
I get very inspired by what other quilters are doing, here is one of my favorite posts from our bloggers.
Who couldn't use a little show and tell on a Monday?
 | We had a great day sewing on Monday. Since it was a holiday we did not have regular Monday Motivators, but I offered my studio and we had a full house. Everyone was working on their homework for some of the ongoing classes. As usual, loads of laughs and LOTS of work got done. I love that lightbulb moment when people figure out to solve their own problems. I am not going to show you that show n tell until the class on Saturday. However I will have to warn people that they are NOT allowed to bring OTHER projects for show n tell. It has happened on numerous occasions where someone brings out a quilt to show and I either have the kit, pattern or a UFO. In this case - I had the kit. Have a look............. |
Variegated thread + herringbone stitch = an 'out of the ordinary' finish for binding a quilt.
We are at the last steps for finishing up our quilted binder covers. If you are like me, then you have a HUGE collection of old quilting magazines. There are some magazines (like my complete collection of A Needle Pulling Thread) that I will never cut up.
For many of the other magazines that I read there's always at least one project or one article in each that I would like to refer back to at a later date, but sadly I never remember which magazine a certain article was in. I’ve also started to run out of room to keep all of these magazines, so I’ve started a new system where I rip out the articles I want to keep and I put each one in its own individual page protector. These then all go into a binder for future reference. I call it my idea book and I think that this cover would be PERFECT for it!
If you have been working along with me, then you too are at the stage to add binding to your quilted book cover. Pick a fabric for the binding and cut 2½” wide strips of this fabric. Make sure you have enough to go around the entire outside edge and a little extra for the corners. Use a mitred join if you have to join strips to get the correct length. But pay attention when you are sewing or you might end up doing the same thing that I did LOL:
Once all of your binding strips are sewn together, fold it in half lengthwise and press. This would be a great project to use up leftover binding strips from other projects so have a look around your sewing room and see what you’ve got stashed away!
Sew binding to the outside of the book cover, aligning the raw edges of the binding with the raw edges of the cover. Fold the binding to the inside of the cover and pin in place.
I bet your sewing machine has lots of stitches that you’ve never used before – well here's your chance! Here's what I had to choose from – I’m going to use the herringbone #22.
It’s nice to use a wide decorative stitch when you're sewing this part of the binding because it looks nice and it makes sure that you catch the back of the binding all of the way around. Use your decorative stitch on the front (outside) to sew the binding through all of the layers. When you're sewing on the binding, center your stitching in the ditch between the cover front and the front of the binding as I show in this video.
Once you finish sewing all the way around, check the back to make sure that you didn’t miss any of the back of the binding and clip all of your threads. Slide the front and back covers of your book under the inside flaps and your quilted book cover is complete!
As I said before, you can use this binder for anything, but mine is going to house all of my favorite clippings for quilt magazines, each in their own page protector pocket. The front flaps also make great pockets for holding little bits and pieces too.
And here it is – my finished book! I really love how it turned out!
Now that I’ve shown you how to make the basic book cover, you can dress it up or down and use different embellishments to make it your own.
You can piece the outside cover or add applique before layering and quilting. After quilting and before sewing on inside flaps, you could sew a Velcro™ tab to the back cover that folds around to the front, or sew on beads or buttons, fancy yarns or other fibers and then finished as I’ve described above.
These would also make great gifts, so you could get a head start on Christmas! I offered to make my son a set for his school binders but he declined - really, what 16 year old boy WOULDN'T want quilted binder covers for school!!
Join me next month when I get to try out WonderFil's rayon "Mirage" thread - I can't wait for it to arrive, but until then I think I'll browse through my thread painted idea book for some new projects to work on!
I had so much fun playing with my Konfetti and Tutti threads, embellishing my book cover with thread painting. It's equally important now to know how to quilt this thread painted surface!
I love how the threads make the fabric designs stand out more – check out the before and after photo of the large flower:
The next thing to do before we get quilting, is to rip out the excess interfacing from the back of the fabric. Depending on the type of interfacing you use, you may not need to do this, but mine is “tear-away” interfacing, so it is quite easy to remove. Just follow the manufacturer’s instructions for the type of interfacing that you are using.
First of all, let’s press the embellished fabric as it has shrunk in some spots due to the thread painting. Now we need to cut a piece of batting and backing fabric the same size. When I am quilting small pieces like this I love to use 505 Spray.
To use it, first spray your backing fabric with a light coating of the adhesive spray then place your batting on top. Next, spray your batting with the adhesive then place your top fabric on top. Smooth it out with your hands, flip it over and smooth the back and then flip AGAIN and smooth the front one more time. Next we are going to quilt!
Are you one of those people who just hate it when your instructions say “quilt as desired”? As a pattern designer, I'm guilty of using that phrase, but have no fear!!
For this project I’m just going to meander all over the fabric, avoiding the pieces that I embellished with the thread painting. If you would like some other ideas for quilting then you should check out my blog posts from last month in which I showed LOTS of different quilting ideas. I’m going to use the pale pink Konfetti thread to do my quilting as it will blend in nicely with the white background.
Once you’ve finished quilting, you need to trim up your book cover to the size of your binder. Lay the binder open on top of your quilted cover. Place your book on top of your quilted sandwich and mark a line that is ½” away from each side of the book. Remove the book and using your rotary cutter trim your rectangle to this size (making sure that the corners are squared up).
The inside flaps of the book cover hold the cover on the binder but they also end up being great pockets for tucking loose pages in. To make the inner flaps, you’ll measure the height of the cover and cut two rectangles that are that high and at least 6” wide.
Fold these in half with wrong sides together and press. Align the raw edges of these two rectangles with the edges of the quilted rectangle and sew along the four sides of the book cover using a basting stitch ⅛” from the edge.
Join me tomorrow - we'll finish up our quilted and thread paint embellished book cover by adding binding to the edge. Finish up your quilting tonight so you can finish your book cover with me tomorrow.
Let me know if how to quilt a thread painted surface was not as hard as you might have thought...
We are finally ready to get stitching. As I mentioned on Monday, when you are thread painting (or doing free motion embroidery – both terms are used) you can either stitch with a zig zag or a straight stitch.
If you can NOT drop your feed dogs and have to use a cover that only has a small needle hole, then you can only use a straight stitch. I’m going to try both to see which one I prefer.
I’m excited to get started with my thread painting!
I decided to stitch the leaves and stems first as they seem the easiest things to start with. First of all I’m going to try using a straight stitch. I’ve got my feed dogs down and I’ve pulled my bobbin thread up to the top of the fabric. I hold both of the threads in my left hand (to prevent them from being pulled to the back) and I start stitching!
Please note that since I'm using my left hand to hold my camera, you'll notice that I’m only using one hand to stitch instead of having two hands framing the needle like the photo I showed you yesterday. Guess I need to hire a videographer!!
I’ve figured out that, like machine quilting, the faster the machine is running, the nicer the stitches look! But unlike machine quilting, you don’t have to worry too much about keeping the stitches consistent! I think doing thread painting would be great for those quilters who are afraid of free motion quilting. You can get the feel of moving the fabric with the thread dogs down, but this is MUCH more forgiving than machine quilting. So now that I am comfortable with the straight stitch I’m going to try out the zig zag – once again, I usually use two hands when stitching!
As you see from the following picture, the zig zag stitching on this leaf caused the fabric to pucker more that when I used the straight stitch. I’m sure that I was moving the fabric back and forth too quickly, but I also find the stitching to look messy, so I am going to stick with the straight stitch.
Now that I’m getting the hang of thread painting, I can see now that if I pay attention to the thread changing color, I can use the lighter sections to highlight the lighter side of the stems and the darker sections of thread to stitch the darker side of the stems. I also find that I prefer to use the thread to outline the shapes and highlight sections instead of covering the whole shape – see what I mean in this photo:
I’ve stitched enough of the leaves and stems (at least for now) so I’m going to switch thread color and start working on the large flower. Here is a close-up of my first stitches made on the flower. As you can see, my thread choice was quite similar to the color of the fabric, so my stitches don’t stand out that much. I think for the rest of the stitching I’m going to try to pick threads that are either lighter or darker, or more heavily variegated so that they are more noticeable in the finished product.
For the butterfly I chose to stitch with the green variegated Tutti and the peach colored Konfetti thread. I found that these choices ended up making the stitching mush more noticeable.
I can see already that this new technique might be dangerous! Not only is it going to eat up lots of my threads but it might eat up lots of my time too!! The more colors you add to the thread painting, the more beautiful it becomes. I love how the design on the fabric is subtly changed and the tactile feeling of the embroidery is added to the fabric. I’m going to keep working away on my thread painting and tomorrow we’ll start to work on assembling the book cover.
Thank you to all for your entries in our contest last week!
The lucky winner of the Pfaff Foot Book (Second Edition) is ...Linda S.!
Congratulations!
Yesterday we learned a bit about thread painting and previewed some fabrics to use with the Tutti and Konfetti threads from WonderFil. Today we're going to assemble the rest of the supplies we need and get our sewing machines ready to do some thread painting.
The first thing we need to have is a sewing machine on which you can lower the feed dogs. Next, we need to have a darning, applique or free motion foot and a topstitch or embroidery needle. An embroidery hoop can be helpful for holding the fabric to prevent your hands from getting sore, but is not essential. An extension table or large bed for your sewing machine will give you extra room to move, so if you have one of these, make sure you attach it.
First of all, attach the appliqué foot or darning foot and lower the feed dogs (to do this there's usually a button to push either on the side or back of your machine - check your manual if you can't find it). Insert a new needle. Next we’re going to thread the machine and insert the bobbin. I’m going to use a bobbin thread (which is a very fine, polyester thread) to help reduce the bulk on the back of the fabric. My sewing machine has a specialized attachment to the bobbin case that helps to increase the tension on the bobbin thread so that it won't pull through to the front of the piece - see the picture bellow.
So, I’ve threaded the bobbin thread through the attachment and I’ve put a spool of the Tutti thread onto the top spool threader. Since my thread spools are wound in a diamond pattern, they are best to be placed on the horizontal spool holder.
ALWAYS make sure that your foot is UP when you are threading your machine. This opens up the tension discs and makes sure that the thread passes between them. If you realize that the foot was down when you were threading, then pull the thread out, put up the foot and re-thread your machine – believe me it’ll save you headaches later on! Nancy Prince has a series of videos on how to set up your machine for thread painting and free motion - here is the link to the first one:
I’ve decided to try thread painting on the fabric with the white background, and I have a few extra binders that were bought in the back-to-school buying frenzy, so I’m going to make a quilted cover for one of them. If you want to make one too, just cut your background fabric about 4” wider and longer than your book when it is open flat.
When you are stitching densely on fabric, you need to have some type of iron-on stabilizer on the back to prevent the fabric from puckering. There are many different types of stabilizers that you can buy, but I decided to use a tear away stabilizer. Since I’m only going to do the thread painting on the cover for the front of the book, I’ve cut a piece of stabilizer about ½ the size of my fabric. Next I need to iron it on to the back of the fabric. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for directions on how your stabilizer should be used.
Now that we’ve got the machine threaded, and the fabric prepped, we need to check the tension on the machine. You will probably need to reduce the upper tension by one and then do a few stitches in the corner of the fabric (where you will be trimming later). You want to have an uneven balance between the upper and lower threads, so that the bobbin thread doesn’t pull through to the top. Keep adjusting the top tension down (lower number) until you can no longer see the bobbin thread when you stitch. The back will look something like this:
Make sure your hands are placed correctly so you have full control of the fabric as you move it under the needle. See how my hands form a frame or circle around the needle.
Well, we're all set to start stitching, so tomorrow we get to the nitty gritty of thread painting.
Join me for a 'stitch along'! If you don’t want to make a book cover, you can do your own thread painting and either frame it or sew it into a quilt block – just do the thread painting first and then decide what to do with it when it is done.
I'm so excited about the new threads I got from WonderFil – Tutti and Konfetti. I love their zany names, do you? The colors remind me of ice cream and candy of all sorts of flavors!
I can't wait to play with these on my sewing machine, but first, it's important to learn more about these threads for optimum performance and achieving the results I want in my quilting and sewing needs.
Both of these threads are 50wt, so they are a bit finer than the threads I was using last month and they are both double gassed which means they produce less lint than other cotton threads. The WonderFil website says they’re great for quilting, longarming, thread painting, embroidery, general sewing, and piecing.
 | 50 wt 100% Egyptian cotton, double gassed & mercerized. Konfetti is fantastic for quilting, longarming, thread painting, embroidery, general sewing, and piecing. Available in 60 colors in 1093yd (1000m) spools and 2500yd (2286m) cones. Use in: sewing machines, embroidery machines, quilting machines, sergers, handwork 50 wt 100% Egyptian cotton, double gassed & mercerized. Konfetti is fantastic for quilting, longarming, thread painting, embroidery, general sewing, and piecing. Available in 60 colors in 1093yd (1000m) spools and 2500yd (2286m) cones. |
 | 50 wt 100% Egyptian cotton (variegated), double gassed & mercerized. Tutti is fantastic for quilting, longarming, thread painting, embroidery, general sewing, and piecing. Available in 41 variegated colors in 1093yd (1000m) spools and 2500yd (2286m) cones. Use in: sewing machines, embroidery machines, quilting machines, sergers, handwork 50 wt 100% Egyptian cotton (variegated), double gassed & mercerized. Tutti is fantastic for quilting, longarming, thread painting, embroidery, general sewing, and piecing. Available in 41 variegated colors in 1093yd (1000m) spools and 2500yd (2286m) cones. |
Both of these threads are double gassed and mercerized and I'm assuming that it's a good thing but I wasn't really sure what that means so I Googled it! Wikipedia says the following:
This means that the thread is stronger and has a nice sheen. Since the gassing process removes stray fibers, the thread is less likely to produce lint - and since the Tutti and Konfetti are "double gassed", they produce even less lint than other threads. There's your science lesson for today!
Since the WonderFil website says these threads are fantastic for thread painting, I think I’d like to give that a try!! The last time I did any thread painting was before my kids were born – over 16 years ago – in the '90s!!! So, I guess I better do some research before I jump in!
When I Google “thread painting” lots of information comes up, and the name “Nancy Prince” is on many of them, so I checked out YouTube and found this video “What is Thread Painting?”. Her website www.nancyprince.com has tons of info and instructional videos as well.
When I did thread painting before, we used a zig-zag stitch and a darning foot, but many of the videos that I found online only showed people using a straight stitch. Nancy Prince also has this video which shows the difference between the two stitches:
Apparently you can do thread painting on paper too, but I’m going to use fabric. And, since I’m new to this technique, I want to have a design to follow instead of going at it free-hand. So, what I’m going to do is pick a fabric with a fairly large design to stitch over with my sample threads. Here’s what I found looking through my “stash”....more candy...
Usually I would first pick a fabric and then pick threads to match, but since I have the sample packs to use, I need to work backwards. Obviously, my Christmas and dog print fabrics will not work with the threads I have, but I think there are a couple that would be suitable. I think the best way to decide on a fabric is to lay the threads on top of the fabrics as I've done in the picture below and see which one works best.
I decided which fabric I'm going to use, but sadly I’ve run out of “play time” for today. Tomorrow I'll show you which fabric I decided to use with my Tutti and Konfetti threads and we'll get organized with all of the other supplies we need to start painting with thread.
Today we're going to pick up where we left off yesterday, therefore, finishing the sewing project. The zipper is in and the outer and inner panels are ready to be sewn into a case. Today the plan is to sew those sides together into a case but first I want to add in some fusible batting to give the case a bit more substance so it isn’t so flimsy.
Then the pencil case will be ready to go 'back to school' with.
I wasn’t happy with just the two layers of fabric to create the case with as I found them to be too flimsy since I had only used regular quilting cotton. If I had used a heavier twill cotton then I wouldn’t need the layer of batting but since I didn’t I am going to add a fusible batting/fleece. The fusible batting has an adhesive glue on one side which binds to another surface when heated. I don’t find that I need to use an applique sheet or parchment paper over the batting as the glue doesn’t seem to get on anything as it can when using fusible web as I did last month for the applique pieces on the agenda bag. The type of fusible batting I used I do find that the glue adheres better with steam but always make sure to read the manufacturers instructions prior to using to achieve best results for that product.
The batting I fused to the wrong sides of each lining piece.
Now that the batting is in place it's time for some topstitching. The Pfaff Passport 2.0 has a 'topstitch' stitch and it's #02. The stitch itself is very heavy as each stitch is made up of 3 strands of thread per stitch. It uses a lot of thread and takes a bit longer to do but I think it's worth it as I like the look of the heavier line of stitching. I am sure it would be great for garments such as blue jeans.
I used my Wonderfil thread Tutti again for the topstitching in a variegated yellow which goes well with both fabrics. I changed the needle to a topstitch 90 needle seeing how I would now be stitching through several layers of fabric. Also a good idea to make sure that a foot compatible with the IDT system is used to ensure a nice even feed of the fabric which will result in nice even stitches.
I also added in topstitching with the topstitch stitch on my duvet cover earlier this week and I used the new Perfect Quarter Inch foot to do this. It has a guide on the right hand side which I set the edge of the fabric against. By using this guide I was able to maintain a perfect ¼″ seam allowance between the stitching and the edge of the duvet cover. It worked like a charm.
Did you know that you can wind a bobbin without unthreading the main thread on the machine. There is an extra spool stand that can be placed beside the regular one to wind a bobbin with another spool of thread. A very convenient feature to have especially when the top thread is different from the bobbin thread.
Once the topstitching was complete I used the same thread to add a little bit of quilting. Just straight line stitching but in the front I mimicked the zigzag pattern of the feature fabric and on the back I just did parallel lines and inch apart. I drew the lines on with my Clover Chaco Liner which come in a multitude of colors, sizes, shapes and with refills. A free motion design would have worked for this little project too.
The sky is the limit as to how you want to quilt your little sewing project.
I wanted to add my niece’s name to the case but didn’t want to do any applique so I pulled out a piece of printable fabric to print her name on. I used my computer to create her name in a font I liked and in multiple colors - a different color for each letter. Then I printed it off on my ink jet printer and let it dry. I use this printable fabric for all of my labels as well.
I'm so close to finishing the sewing project now I can't wait to see how it turns out.
Trimming up the piece to square off the sides and bottom, I then pinned it together using the longer flower headed quilting pins. I added in the name label to one end making sure the label was oriented so that the name would be on the front side of the case. Using a ⅝″ seam allowance I sewed around the case reinforcing the start and finish with back tacking as well as at each corner.
Since I didn’t use a lining that would cover up the seam allowances I then had to do something about the fraying edges. A dense zigzag stitching up and back again took care of all those little extra pieces of thread and made for a nice finish.
Now Abbygale has a wonderful little pencil case to accompany her agenda bag. I'm sure in a few years I'll be needing to make her a case for the phone and ear buds but for now we'll just let her be 5.
The topstitchingcertainly added a finishing touch to the pencil case creating a nice accent around the zipper.
I had a lot of fun with the Pfaff Passport 2.0 especially making and finishing the sewing project for back to school. It has certainly proved to be very versatile in its sewing abilities with many wonderful features. I certainly put it through its paces trying out different features such as straight sewing, buttonholes, decorative stitching, applique, quilting and zippers.
The compactness and light weight features make this a great machine to take to class, retreats or the cottage to work on your sewing and quilting projects. A great little machine to complement your other quilting machines.
See you next month when the ghosts and goblins are out and about.
Happy Quilting!
Last month I made a cute little agenda bag for my great-niece to take to school for all her important papers and since I haven’t mailed it off to her yet I figured why not make a pencil case to go with it. Does everyone know how to sew a zipper because the case requires one and if you don’t I'm going to show you how it's done easily on the Pfaff Passport 2.0.
It has been a while since I put a zipper in anything - the first being the pants I made to go with the blouse in grade 9 Home Ec and the second being a bag I made when I was living in Australia, and well the third, were some hidden pockets I put into our pants when we took a trip to South America a few years ago. So this is my fourth zipper attempt in my sewing career. I did watch my sister put a zipper in my new housecoat when she was here last month and she made it look so easy.
I’m ready to give it a go if you are.
If you would like to follow along and make a pencil case as well, you will need:
1. A feature fabric for the front: Cut 1 - 3½″ x 11″
2. A coordinating piece of fabric for the front: Cut 1 - 3 ¾″ x 11″
3. A piece of fabric for the back: Cut 1 - 6 ¾″ x 11″
4. Two pieces of fabric for the lining: Cut 2 - 6 ¾″ x 11″
5. A 10 inch zipper to match fabric
6.Two pieces of fusible batting: Cut 2 - 6¼″ x 10″
7.Thread for piecing and topstitching
8. Pins
9. Seam ripper
First off, sew the feature fabric to the coordinating fabric to create the front panel of the pencil case using a quarter inch seam. To attach the zipper to the front of the case pin it to the right side of the front panel centered at the top along the feature fabric. The zipper will be facing down on the fabric and will not be quite as long as the front panel.
Find the zipper foot that belongs to your machine in your accessory box. The zipper foot for the Passport 2.0 is #4 and looks like this.
Attach the zipper foot to the sewing machine. This zipper foot can be attached so that sewing is done either from the right or left of the foot. I chose to sew to the left of the foot. Check to make sure that the needle moves freely along the edge of the foot. This foot is also one that the IDT system can be engaged with which makes it much easier to move the layers of fabric through.
Place the fabric and zipper under the foot starting at either end by lining up the edge of the zipper foot with the edge of the zipper teeth.
Sew down the length of the zipper keeping the foot along the zipper teeth as a guide for an even seam allowance. There's no need to back tack at either end of the stitching as the ends will be sewn in later.
Press the seam towards the front panel. One seam down, one to go.
Pin the zipper to the back panel centered along the top. Sew the zipper to the back panel in exactly the same manner as the front. Press the seam towards the back panel. I probably could have moved the zipper foot a bit closer to the teeth so that the fabric hid more of the zipper but I don’t think my 5 year old niece is going to be that much of a critic.
Wasn’t that easy? Now to attach the lining.
Originally I was going to make the case so that the lining would hide all of the seams but changed my mind and went for the no hand sewing required option of adding the lining.
Pin a lining panel to the front panel with wrong sides of fabric together along the zipper.
Line up the zipper with the zipper foot as above and sew along the initial seam. This makes it very easy to know where to sew when there's a line to guide you. I did open up the zipper near the end to make it easier to go around the zipper pull.
Repeat with the other piece of lining but make sure you have the wrong sides of the fabric facing each other otherwise you will be ripping out just like I did...
The lining is in place with the right side of the fabric facing up while the right side of the zipper faces down.
Since I ended up sewing the lining in differently than planned I then had to finish off the edges of the seams so that they wouldn’t fray. A nice close zigzag which I sewed twice along the edge of the fabric made for a very nice finish - very professional looking.
Join me tomorrow to finish off this little project with some topstitching and quilting. I figure knowing how to sew a zipper into a bag, garment, etc is probably a good skill to learn as you never know when you will need to add a zipper to something in your future sewing or quilting ventures.
Happy Quilting
