Christmas Gift #2

This 18" round footstool is made of black, white, and yellow fabric. The pattern is The Tuffet, designed by Myra for PM Lane's Patterns. I took a class to put this together and it was great fun! I've been wanting to made this design for quite some time. In my next post, I'll share some photos of the other tuffets made by my classmates.

Some of the fabric is newly purchased but much of it came from my stash of black and white fabrics. My oldest daughter's room is decorated with black and white with yellow accents so this will look great in front of her black futon.

Our first class consisted of sewing fabric strips to eight panels. I think it would be fun to free motion quilt over these panels before putting the tuffet together, but I had to be realistic with this first time around and just focus on putting it together to get it done.

At the second class, we put the sewn top onto a 6" foam insert over an 18" round plywood base. Batting is added to the top to fill in all the soft spots and make a firm cushion.

Once the tuffet is covered, the center is secured with a fabric covered button. We used a 2-1/2" button made by Dritz but a large standard 2" button could also be used.

The bottom of the tuffet was covered with a black felt circle and stapled in place. Then the necessary hardware was added to the bottom of the plywood base over the felt, so the four feet could be added. These bun feet were purchased at The Home Depot. Interestingly, everyone in the class had a different set of feet for their tuffet.

I spray painted the feet with black matte paint. I set up a box in the garage and sprayed them in that. Light sanding between coats help achieve a better finish. I adhered non-skid 1" circles to the bottom of each foot.

The most challenging part was dealing with the winter temperatures so I ran a small heater/fan to dry the feet between coats and to ventilate the area. Next time around, I'll do this process on my back patio during the summer.

Copyright ©2011, Sharon Baggs

Christmas gift #1

I made a couple of non-quilted, handmade gifts for Christmas. The first is a messenger bag, constructed of canvas fabric. I followed the directions provided by http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/projects-ideas/bags-pillows/messenger-bag_1.html which were very clear and easy to follow. I did, however, make three modifications: the addition of two D-rings, a slightly larger pocket and larger velcro closures.

First, I added two D-rings, one to each end of the strap to allow items with clips to be attached to the bag. I wrapped the end of the strap over the straight edge of the ring and sewed through all thicknesses onto the bag, using a zipper foot attachment so I could sew closely to the ring. I double-stitched a long rectangle and sewed an 'x' through the center.

On the inside of the blue canvas lined bag, I attached a black pocket. The original directions call for a 7" zipper but I had a 9" zipper so I made it slightly larger. In addition, I added sew-on velcro, a 2" x 2-1/4" strip to each side of the bag. The original directions list 7/8" fusible squares but that didn't sound like enough security to me.

A final personal touch is the "tap" pin. Having lost other pins in the past, I secured this one with some thread. My youngest daughter dances tap and ballet and she's ready to go back to the studio in the new year.

Copyright ©2011, Sharon Baggs

Should I prewash my quilt fabric?

Back 12 years ago when I started to piece and grow a fabric stash, this was the question I asked every quilter I knew. With a short history of sewing my own clothes...6th grade home ec., a bit in high school and college, I figured pre-shrinkage was the way to go. I washed, ironed, and stored every bit of fabric I purchased. It was a lot of work! Now I stack my fabric on the shelf until I'm ready to use it and then decide if I want to prewash or not.

Whether to prewash really depends on the look you want for the quilt and how the quilt will be used. For example, for most of the lap and bed quilts I make, I love the scrunchy texture that results from using unwashed fabric and batting out of the package once the quilt is washed and dried for the first time. However, for wall hangings and applique, I will use prewashed fabric because I desire a flat look to the quilt and may not be washing the quilt at all.

My decision to prewash is really determined by what type of quilt I'm making which also helps me decide which type of batting to put inside the quilt. For example, if I'm making an heirloom quilt and want an antique, scrunchy texture that old quilts have, I will not prewash the fabric. The batting will be 100% cotton and the quilting lines will be close together (1-2"). After quilting and binding, the quilt can be washed and dried to produce the look I'm after.

The worst advice, which I've actually read in some quilting books, is to wash your fabric in the hottest water to shrink and set the color. The rationale being this will be the toughest treatment so you'll have no worries later. Well, that fabric just took a beating it didn't need which is an ignorant way to approach fabric care. Lukewarm water and a phosphate-free detergent that will not strip the color from the fabric is the way to go.

If you logically think about it and educate yourself a bit, you will learn how to care for your fabric, not tear down the fibers before cutting it up for quilt construction. For an educated look at fabric and how it is processed and should be handled, read From Fiber to Fabric by Harriet Hargrave. She and her daughter, Carrie Hargrave, are co-authors of Quilter's Academy, a new 6-volume series by C & T Publishing, which is a skill-building course in quiltmaking. Education=success!

Copyright ©2010, Sharon Baggs

Binding with dotted fabric

For the binding on the feedsack quilt, the fabric chosen was Mama's Feedsacks by Darlene Zimmerman for Robert Kaufman. It's a reproduction of the original red so it matches nicely to give an attractive edge to frame the variety of prints in the quilt. The same fabric was used to back the quilt as well. Love, love, love this red.

Using about 2/3 yd. of the fabric, fold in half, selvedge to selvedge, and cut several 2-1/2" strips. To join one to another, lay the strip right side down and fold the end over on a 45 degree angle. Finger press the fold or use a light iron.

Then position this vertical folded piece directly on top of a second horizontal strip, right side up. Notice how the fold is positioned so the dots are evenly spaced.

The dot pattern needs to remain even while joining strips so check each one for proper placement as you go. Once it looks correct, lay the fold out flat so you see the wrong side with the diagonal crease. Pin in place along the diagonal crease.
By folding the tip down you can see that the dots line up. The fold line is just to the left of the dot and will be the line that is stitched. The dots on the right will become part of the seam line as you will see in the pictures below.

Start at the corner and stitch down the visible fold line to the opposite corner. If you have prepared all your strips, you can continue to stitch the next one by allowing your machine to take a few stitches in between, then sew the next strip without breaking the thread. By chain piecing in this way, you will end up with your strips completely joined in one go. Snip between each thread join to make one continuous strip.

Double check your stitching before trimming the seam lines. Using an acrylic ruler, line up the 1/4" mark along the stitched line.

Trim the seam to 1/4" using a rotary cutter.

Press the seams open.

A perfect seam makes the fabric's pattern look continuous.Trim the thread tails. Fold the strip in half, right sides facing out, and press. This creates a double-fold binding strip. For more details on the process of sewing the binding to the quilt, please see posts from Feb. 2009--Straight Grain Binding and Binding Corners and Joining Ends.


Copyright 2010, Sharon Baggs