Dixie Saga

I had a wonderful day in mid-May at a class taught by Barbara Yates Beasley on creating a quilt from the photo of an animal.  She is a good teacher, organized and professional, and I had a lot of fun.  In this post I will share with you what I learned.

Class
One of the requirements of the class was to have a full-sized photo of our animal.  The size was limited so mine is 12 x 16 inches.  We brought a piece of muslin for the background of our projected quilt and a piece of foam core board on which to work.  We taped our photo to the board and were each given a large piece of clear mylar (acetate), which we laid on top of the photo.  Using a fine-tip, black Sharpie we outlined areas of different value and/or color.  If we made a mistake we had a tiny bottle of alcohol and a cue tip, which erased Sharpie ink lines.  It was nice because the ink does not rub off or smudge, but we can still correct misdrawn lines.  Using a pencil or brown Sharpie (I prefer pencil because it is erasable) we lightly traced the drawn lines from the mylar onto the muslin to serve as a guide for arranging fabric pieces.

Drawing on mylar (acetate)

TIP:  Painter's masking tape is a must to keep the photo and/or the muslin in place while working.

The next step was to turn the mylar over and write "Pattern" on the back somewhere to remind us which side was front and which was back.  Working from the WRONG (i.e. Pattern) side we traced one area from the mylar pattern on Steam-a-Seam 2 Lite (this is the only fusible she would allow us to work with in her class).  It has paper on both sides of the fusing material.  Once drawn we cut roughly around it, removed the paper backing, and ironed it onto the WRONG side of the fabric.  Finally we cut the pattern piece about 1/16 inch outside the line we had drawn on the fusible paper and removed the remaining piece of paper.  Once cut we could lay the piece on the muslin in its proper place, fusible side down, where it clings lightly.  Once the animal is done you cut pieces for the background, tuck them in under the edges of the animal, and when satisfied that all is right, iron the whole thing (animal and background) down to the muslin.

We took our project home to finish (I still had a lot to do).  It was easy to transport as we put the mylar over the whole thing and the pieces that were already in place stayed where they belonged with the foam core board supporting all.  Slick!

Home
I got busy at home and soon found that the fabric was running the asylum.  I totally lost control and my dog didn't look very good...except the eyes, which are perfect (see last week's post).  I decided to start over... except for the eyes and a few pieces around them.  I also felt that I was missing an in-between value of brown and needed some more fabric.  Sound familiar?  Since I was in Seattle for a couple of weeks it wasn't too hard to find time for a mother-daughter quilt shop jaunt.  After that I felt better about my doggie.

Once home, I was excited to try a new tack.  I created a black and white posterized version of the photo in Photoshop.  This is a great way to define value.  Using alcohol I erased all the Sharpie lines on the mylar that defined the out-of-control portions and redrew them from the new image version.  Then I restarted the trace and cut process, using the black and white image as a value gauge and the color photo as a color guide.  I finally ended up with a pretty good likeness of my cute pet.

Posterized black and white to show values clearly

Next week I will write an evaluation of my experience with two methods of creating with fusible so stay tuned.

Sew a Happy Seam this Week.

Some Thoughts about FMQ

I can't remember when I started FMQ (free motion quilting), but at some point I decided I was going to have learn.

       My fingers refused to cooperate when quilting by hand.  

       Quilting by hand takes too long.  

       Having someone else quilt for me is too expensive.

       I don't want someone else to finish the quilt I have created.

In order to start the learning process I took a class at the local sewing machine store.  I was told that I had to sew fast.  Every time the teacher came by my table she said, "Speed up, you are going too slowly."  When I speeded up I immediately lost control.  It was like my running:  if I run too fast I fall flat on my face.  What did I get out of that class?  Discouragement, a mess on the fabric, and a fierce determination to quilt only straight lines with my walking foot.  

    

Walking Foot Quilting

The walking foot quilting looked fine and was easy, but terribly boring.  I really needed to tackle FMQ again.  I had the opportunity to take a beginner's class with Harriet Hargrave, the lovely lady who began the FMQ movement many years ago.  She was a rebel, but persisted and taught others her craft.  Her philosophy is that you can go any speed you want as long as you keep the machine running at the same, regular pace...your pace.  Ah, that fit so much better with my psyche.

Now I was on my way.  All I had to do was:

       *Keep my foot steady on the pedal.  Riiiight!

       *Use my hands to move the quilt through the machine in such a way that the stitches were all the same length.  Riiiight!!  (It helped to discover that my machine has a slow speed button.)

       *Keep my eye ahead of the needle.  I was promised that my hands and needle would follow. Riiiight!!!

       *Manage the bulk of the quilt so it doesn't pull, doesn't hang up on a corner somewhere, doesn't fall off the machine, and goes through the harp neatly and smoothly.  Riiiight!!!!

       *Prevent needle breakage and thread shredding.  Riiiight!!!!!

       *Somehow do all the quilting without ever stopping because when restarting, the needle created an unsightly jog off onto a new trail of its own choosing.

...and so it went for awhile.

Early FMQ

The quilt above fits a double bed, and the quilting is all FMQ on my domestic machine.  I spent half my time changing broken needles and broken thread.  The other half of my time I was manhandling the quilt trying to maintain some control.  There wasn't much time left for sewing.  The stitches were not terribly even, and the quilting didn't follow my imaginary lines.  I hadn't marked my design because I was not able to follow the lines anyway.  I finally finished, was happy to be done, and learned a great deal about how to manage the process.  Although not exquisitely beautiful, it is functional, I did it, I got a little bit better.

TIP:  Be gentle on yourself.  I know you would like to be another Leah Day or Diane Gaudynski, but give yourself time.  Don't quit.  You'll never improve unless you practice, practice, practice.  Watch tutorials.  Read books.  Practice, practice practice.  Concert pianists didn't become professionals by sitting on the couch wishing for music technique to be assimilated by osmosis.

       

Does all this sound familiar?  Please don't get discouraged.  I caught on and you can too.  Tune in next week and I will share with you the things that have most helped me become a better FMQer.

TIP:  Did I mention that PRACTICE is the single most important ingredient in learning to FMQ?  

A Class Quilt

Today's quilt is the result of a class taken by my daughter and myself many years ago.  Everyone in the class made the same quilt, but used different fabrics.  The main thing we learned was how to use freezer paper for appliqué.  We learned to secure the turned edges of the pieces to be appliquéd and then blind stitch them to the background.  The paper was then removed by making a slit in the background fabric.  I am not going to share the method we were taught in its entirety because it was very confusing and I generally don't use it.

The most interesting thing I learned was how to do Sashiko.  It is a type of decorative quilting sewn with relatively large running stitches and heavy, contrasting thread or yarn.  It is an Asian innovation to embroider the top fabric or to secure the top to the batting.  It does not go through the backing.

This is a very small quilt, only 12" x 12" and did not require extensive quilting.  At least we didn't do any!  Obviously this is one of my early quilts and I consider it a valuable learning experience.  The binding is horrible, but it was a start.  It takes time to learn to do a perfect binding.  Fodder for a future blog.  However, I will never look at this little effort of mine without remembering the fun it was to spend this time sharing quilting time with my daughter.

TIP:  Take classes.  I can guarantee that you will learn something no matter how little or how much experience you have had.

TIP:  Take time to share an activity with one or more family members.  It is very rewarding.