quilting - By the Yard®

A Proposed Difficulty Level Scale for Quilting Patterns

Proposed Level of Difficulty scale for Quilting

Lots of things have rating scales. Video games have ratings, from E for Everyone to M for Mature. Recipes always tell you how much time they take to cook. Board games have both a maturity rating and a time scale. Yet when you buy a quilting pattern, you are pretty much going into it blind. That pattern may look simple – after all it’s just a bunch of cute little birdies – but in reality, you have no idea what you are getting yourself into. It is for this reason that I propose a Quilt Pattern Difficulty Level scale, so that you know if you can just work on your quilt after dinner here and there or you will have to clear the entire family out of the house for a week. Consider the following ratings:

Just Chillin’ & Quiltin’ – Made up of entirely 2 ½” strips or anything that contains all right angles. You can make a delightful quilt entirely from 2 ½” strips, such as the popular Jelly Roll Run and my personal favorite, the Log Cabin – which looks really complicated but it is really just a bunch of strips. There are many quilt patterns touted as “fat quarter friendly” such as the perennial favorite Yellow Brick Road. They are made from fat quarters chopped into various smaller squares and rectangles. With any of these patterns, you could legitimately make an entire quilt top in single day.
Officially a Quilter – Contains Half Square Triangles (HST). Once you’ve got the hang of those strips and squares, time to move on to the good ol’ HST. From the easy and fun Pinwheel block to the more complicated Broken Dishes, you can really show off your quilting chops with how well you line up those points!
Ain’t No Geometry Got This Covered – Anything that utilizes Foundation Paper Piecing (FPP). With FPP you can make beautiful flowers like the Bird of Paradise or your favorite puppy like a cute little pug. FPP is for when you can no longer make the design with rectangles and triangles. And you thought you hated geometry in high school!
Only Because I Love You – Dresden Plates, Double Wedding Ring and the like. Sure, these designs are quaint and the very epitome of quilt-y charm, but no mere mortal would even attempt them unless they were for a very special, “once in a lifetime gift”. My mother didn’t want any more grandchildren after I asked her to make a Dresden Plate baby quilt for my first.
Even Grandma Couldn’t Finish This – English Paper Piecing and anything appliqué. How many unfinished Grandma’s Flower Garden (GFG) quilts have you seen available for sale online, with the seemingly innocent invitation for you to “finish an heirloom”? Do you know why they are unfinished? Because assembling all of those tiny, hand sewn hexagons is unmitigated torture. As for appliqué, I still have a partially completed appliquéd Christmas stocking my grandmother started for me before Luke Skywalker took on his first storm trooper.

Armed with this handy guide, you are now ready to head out to the quilt shop to pick out a pattern for your next quilt!
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Clutter vs. Creativity

I have heard some creative types say that they “need” clutter around them so that they can be creative. They assert that having lots of different things around them helps them to get inspiration. I think this is true to some degree, for example if you have a specific project in mind and you are trying to choose a fabric or color scheme. But having so much stuff in your workspace that you can’t actually work may be inspiring but it is ultimately going to be a detriment to productivity. So where is the happy medium? Here are a few tips on how you can be inspired with out being overwhelmed.

Design Wall – Quilters use design walls to lay out quilt blocks during the design process. But when you are not using it for that, you can use a design wall as an “inspiration” board. Pin fabrics you like to it to see how well they go with others. Pin up printouts of inspirational objects and projects you find online. Many times, it’s more motivating to see a photograph of something where you can sit back and take it in from a distance rather than staring at it closely on the computer screen.
Organized Supplies – I find it very helpful to have my supplies nearby where I can see them but not have them right under my nose. I keep my fabric on bookcases across from my desk so I can “browse” through it, just like a library! I keep my supplies such as buttons, buckles and a myriad of other notions in clear plastic bins on a nearby shelving unit. This way its easy to see what I have and easy to come up with ideas.
Clean Up Fridays – When I worked in Corporate America as an Engineering Manager for a software company, I had a little rule for myself. Friday afternoons I always cleanup up my desk. This was for two reasons:
1. By 3pm on Friday I was usually so fried I wasn’t good for doing any real work, so cleaning up was at least something productive I could do
2. More importantly, this ensured my desk would be ready to function first thing on Monday when there was usually some crisis happening first thing in the morning
Try cleaning up your creative space on Friday afternoon. Put away patterns, hang up rulers and rotary cutters, sweep up cookie crumbs, toss fabric scraps into a bin and fold up the bigger pieces. Even if you are in the middle of a project, this once weekly re-set will keep your workspace from getting out of control and keep the creativity flowing.

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Three Ways to Save Time Binding Your Quilt

You’ve spent weeks making the perfect quilt but now it’s time for the worst part – binding. Many quilters consider it a tedious but necessary evil. Here are some suggestions for making the binding process a little easier:

Continuous Strip Binding – Continuous strip binding is the most common method of binding and has the advantage of providing two layers of fabric to protect the edge of your quilt. The binding is usually machine sewn to the front of the quilt and hand stitched to the back. You can save tons of time by machine sewing the binding on the back, but this can sometimes have the unwanted side effect of showing a machine stitching line on the front that is not so straight. This problem is easily solved by machine sewing the binding the back first, then finish by folding the binding to the front and machine stitching on the front. This way, you can see what you are doing on the front and neatly machine stitch the perfect distance from the edge of the binding.
Self-Binding – Self-binding is significantly less time consuming than the traditional continuous strip binding and it’s a great way to show off a really pretty backing fabric. With self-binding, the backing fabric also doubles as the quilt’s binding. Simply cut the backing fabric a couple of inches larger than the quilt. Press the fabric once towards the quilt, matching the cut edge of the binding to the edge of the quilt, then press again over the front of the quilt and top stitch. The disadvantage is your binding will only be one layer thick. If your quilt is going to receive a lot of wear and tear, you might want to endure the continuous strip binding.
Pillowcase Method – You can avoid binding all together with this method! Simply cut your backing the same size as the quilt, sew together with right sides facing, leaving an opening large enough for turning right side out. Blind stitch the opening closed and finish by tying. You won’t be able to quilt the layers by traditional means because the quilt could get really scrunched up and distorted but think of the time you’ll save!

Whichever method you chose, the sooner your binding is done, the sooner you can start your next quilt!

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This Thanksgiving, Make a Quilt Instead

This week is Thanksgiving, and I am having none of it: the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning… surely there must be a better way to enjoy a national holiday! What if, instead of stuffing a bird, we stuffed a quilt? Here are six reasons why the best thing to make this year for Thanksgiving is a quilt:

• Is This Really a Day Off? – You finally got a day off from work. Do you really want to spend it jostling in the store for groceries, spending the entire day before doing prep cooking, then spending all of Thanksgiving Day itself on your feet? You could be sitting. You could be quilting.
• The Cost – I’m embarrassed (or possibility horrified) to say I have routinely spent $300 or more on this one meal. Even at a whopping $12.99 per yard for good quality quilting fabric, you could buy over 23 yards of fabric for that kind of money.
• Multitasking Fail – You will spend hours or days making this meal, yet you still must continue to make three other meals per day (and clean up!) for the family at the same time you are making this epic meal. That is just wrong. If you made a quilt, sure you are doing lots of things: cutting, basting, sewing, pressing – but you only have to do one at a time. What a relief.
• Cleaning Up – After you make a huge Thanksgiving meal, you have to spend literally an entire day cleaning up. After you make a quilt, you don’t have to do anything. I think its safe to say I haven’t cleaned up my sewing room in over a year and I see no need to do so anytime soon.
• Leftovers – Thanksgiving leftovers are kinda gross. You will be stuck eating them for days, long after your enthusiasm for turkey has passed. Quilting leftovers, on the other hand, are awesome. You can use them to make another quilt!
• Permanence – After you make this huge meal, it gets eaten in 20 minutes then it’s gone. Conversely, your quilt will last forever.

All that being said, you should still make a pie. Everything is better with pie… including quilting!
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A New Perspective on the Cost of Quilting

Quilting is still cheaper than many things…

The average cost per yard of good quality quilting cotton is $10-12 per yard, which makes quilting a hobby that can get expensive quickly. Although there are many blogs and other crafty sites that offer suggestions on how to acquire fabric more cost effectively (I’m sorry… I’m just not ready to cut up old, thrifted sheets just yet), there is another way to look at the cost of quilting. Quilting may be expensive, but at the end of the day it’s a form of entertainment. What is the cost of quilting relative to other forms of entertainment? Let’s have a look:

Movies – According to www.the-numbers.com, a website that tracks data about the movie industry, the average movie ticket costs $9.16 or $18.32 for you and a date. You could stay home, watch something for free on TV and buy 1.5 yards of fabric for that price.
Dining – According to the good people at restaurant.org, the average cost per person for a casual dining experience is $12-20 per person. Would you rather have that instantly forgettable dried up Tequila Sunrise Grilled Chicken or another yard and a half of fabric?
Concerts – The average price of a ticket to the 100 most popular tours in North America is $91.86. You could instead save what’s left of your hearing, not be stuck in traffic for over 2 and a half hours after the show and still buy over 7.5 yards of fabric for that price.
Vacation – According to American Express, the average vacation expense per person in the United States is $1,145, or $4,580 for a family of four. You could have bought over 95 yards of fabric for the cost of your ticket price alone. Even the most voracious quilter would have a hard time going through that much fabric in three years!
Car Ride – According to the knowledgeable folks at AAA, the national average price for a gallon of gas is over $3.18. To fill up most tanks, you are looking at over $50. Rather than taking a car ride to literally anywhere, the obvious alternative is to stay home and quilt!

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You Might Be Addicted to Quilting

I love my morning coffee, and I’ll be the first to admit, it’s very addictive. Then… I tried quilting. After just a few stiches, I knew I was hooked. But how can you tell if you are addicted to quilting? Let’s take a look:
• If you have ever started more than one new quilting project before finishing your current project, you might be addicted to quilting.
• If you have ever snuck off to your car during the workday to get in a little hand quilting, you might be addicted to quilting.
• If you have no available closet space because all of your closets are full of quilting fabric and quilts in various stages of completion, you might be addicted to quilting.
• If you are hiding quilting fabric in the trunk of your car right now, you might be addicted to quilting.
• If you plan your vacations around hitting as many quilt shops as you can along the way, you might be addicted to quilting.
• If your local quilt shop sends you a birthday card every year, you might be addicted to quilting.
• If you ever faked being sick so you could stay home from work to quilt, you might be addicted to quilting.
• If you cannot just sit and watch TV without some quilting in your lap, you might be addicted to quilting.
• If you bring graph paper to work just so you can sketch out quilts during boring meetings, you might be addicted to quilting.
• If you save old clothes just so you can cut them up into squares, you might the addicted to quilting. (You might also be brilliantly frugal, but that is a post for another day).
• If you ever brought a quilting project with you while visiting relatives so you could avoid talking to them, you might be addicted to quilting.
• If your sewing machine cost more than your car, you might be addicted to quilting.
How did you do? If you said “yes” to 5 or more of the above, you are probably addicted to quilting. Happily, there is no known cure, so pour another cup of coffee and get back to it!
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