How to make a quilt outside your confort zone Zander's Maze

How do make a quilt you don't love? With fabric colors you don't understand? Well, it takes time and a little extra effort but it can be done. A friend of mine called me and asked if I could make her a quilt for her soon to arrive grandson. I said "OF COURSE, I'd love to!" Well what's the big deal, I make quilt all the time right? However, when she told me the colors, I was worried. She told me that the nursery was this beautiful room that looked like something out of a designer magazine. The quilt needed to be gray, white, yellow and teal with some black. For the life of me I could NOT picture this quilt. I broke out in a cold sweat and for the first time did not know what to do.

 

The next day I decided to put on my big girl pants and started working on Xander's Quilt.

 

 

The first thing I did was look for images on Google with these colors. I found a lot, but I didn't like some of it but when I kept looking I found some I loved. That was the secret, to find these color that I would probably never use together working together and looking amazing.

 

 

 

I really liked the pillow and all the colors worked! So I started getting fabric. It wasn't easy. These colors were "in" but in a much muted pallet. I needed bold. I found a fabric group called Gray Matters by Jacqueline Savage McFee for Camelot Cottons. The group had yellow, gray and the white I needed. Some of the collection was light but some were that bold rich color I needed.

 

 

Next, I started to think about the teal. So I called my friend back again and asked about the shade of teal. She told me more details about the nursery . She told me the room had wood on one wall and teal on another and gave me the color number of the teal paint they used. She sent me a picture of the nursery. It was a very dark teal and once again, I was stuck.

 

 

 

What a beautiful room for a little boy! So I started to shop for teal fabric and could not find a teal as dark as the paint but close. So I bought a range of teal colors that matched and I felt ready.

 

Now it was time to start piecing. I must say my first 50 tries were awful! I wish I had pictures to show you, but they were just so ugly. One of the mistakes I made was I didn't wash the fabric because I knew they were just samples. The problem with not wash the fabric was I didn't have the opportunity to have a relationship with the fabric. (another secret) So I started over. I washed the fabric. Then pressed and starched the fabric. I got to know the fabric a little better and started to see its beauty and what it wanted to be when it grew up. Then all the pieces came together.

 

This quilt turned out so wonderful that I had a hard time parting with it when it was done. I loved it in the end. Of course, that's why I quilt, its art we love.

Ready to quilt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Quilting  

Scan N Cut Mats

First let me say, I love my SNC! With that said when I first got my SNC there was some tears, screams, hair pulling and more! I had to walk away from my SNC a few times. After some hard work and doing a lot of reading, plus the lost of a few mats (may they RIP) my SNC and I got along. So please don't give up and NO its not you!

The first things, first. I had to learn what accessories I have and what they do. I started with the mats.

 

• Low Tack Adhesive Mat: Specially designed for delicate or thin PAPER like printer paper or vellum
  
• Standard Mat Adhesive Mat : Specially designed for a wide range of materials from FABRICS to handmade papers
• Middle Tack Adhesive Mat: The adhesive strength is between the Low Tack Adhesive Mat and Standard Mat. Specially designed for various types of paper (thickness ranging from 0.1mm - .3mm
• Photo Scanning Mat: Specially designed for scanning delicate materials such as photos and precious documents. Do not use for cutting.

Also

• High Tack Adhesive Fabric Support Sheet: Designed for multiple uses (depending on fabric type). Use with Standard Mat for cutting (not included). For cutting patterns without seam allowance, use Iron-On Fabric Applique Contact Sheet (not included). Apply sheet with adhesive area on the mat.

 After I put my High Tack Support sheet on my Standard Mat I found it was too sticky for light  quilting fabric. It would fray the edges when I tried to remove the fabric.So I bought another Standard Mat increased my starch and use the Standard Mat for lighter quilt fabric.

Happy Quilting
 

Visit my shop on Etsy

Visit my shop on Etsy

https://www.etsy.com/shop/SimplySewing?ref=hdr_shop_menu



.

Follow me on Facebook

Follow me on Facebook 

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004063530787

Happy Quilting

Starch Wonderful Starch for Scan N Cut

I wanted to write this for some of my Scan N Cut friends. I hope this helps.

Starch is a wonderful product to use for sewing. Starch is a great tool to use for quilt piecing so you don't stretch your quilt top while piecing. However, today we will talk about the basic idea of starch for beginner's. Starch is a paste like liquid to put into fabric to give you body or stiffness. Using starch for your Scan N Cut is very crucial step.

NOTE: To use starch the fabric MUST have natural fibers (cotton) in order to soak up the starch.

Spray your fabric lightly and evenly, let the starch soak in for a minute or two. Press fabric.  Repeat, The more layers you spray the more stable the fabric will become. You can also starch both sides of the fabric. Making the fabric extremely stiff is important for the Scan N Cut. Don't worry all the starch will wash out when laundered.


Once you feel that the fabric if stiff enough you are ready to place the fabric on your mat. Before you know it you will have a perfect cut.

 



 Starches that I use

I use Best Press for my everyday quilting but I use Faultless Heavy Starch for the Scan N Cut. The Best Press is awesome but a bit pricey so I use the less expensive Faultless since you have to use so much of it. Any good starch will work.

Happy Quilting

The Ducky Quilt

The Ducky Quilt (Everything except the kitchen sink)

 

 This quilt has a little of everything! Normally when I quilt I pick a method. I do an applique or maybe a embroidered quilt but I've never done a quilt like this. It started off as a small quilt top I got from a lady on Etsy. She did simple squares with hand applique circles. I got the quilt not truly knowing what to do with it.

When I got the top I stared at it for weeks. I kept asking it what it wanted to be when it grew up. haha Since the fabric was "Moda Spa collection" I decided it looked like water. What goes well with water...well ducky's do!!! Right there the idea was born, a ducky quilt.

So I went looking for cute ducky in my stash and this is what I found.

This cute ducky is a embroidery/ applique pattern. I cut out some circles to embroider the ducky on and bought some fuzzy yellow fabric for the ducky...BECAUSE...ducky's are fuzzy! lol and they came out perfect!










Next I had to decide how many ducky's I wanted. At first I thought about putting them all over and soon realized it would be awesome to just have a few. So I put two at the top and two at the bottom.

I embroidered the ducky's on the circles and appliqued them onto the quilt top. Then I added small bubbles around the ducky's with small circle applique's. Now it was time to pick a border.




I picked a one of the fabric's already in the quilt for the border and it really came out nice. Then I loaded it on the quilting frame and thought...okay NOW WHAT?? lol Since the quilt had blue as being water and bubbles and ducky's oh my...I did a free motion water waves and really had fun quilt this quilt. So all in all this quilt has simple blocks, hand applique, embroidery, machine applique and free motion longarm quilting!

I wanted to share this because it wasn't planned. Not at all!! So sometimes you don't need a plan :)

 



 

This quilt is for sale in my shop:

 

Click here: Ducky Quilt for sale on Etsy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not all quilts are created equal

What to look for in buying a quilt

There are a lot of quilts out there for sale and you should know that not all quilts are created equal.  Here are a few tips on what to look for when shopping for a quilt. Quilts are one of those things that you get what you pay for. All of the things I've listed below will affect the cost of the quilt. Not all quilts you buy need to last for a 100 years or needs to be handed down for generations to come. Sometimes you just need a cute gift. What ever your needs are I hope this helps you make an informed decision so you get what you truly want and don't get something you are embarrassed by.

1. The kind of fabric will greatly affect the price of a quilt. Fabric can be bought as cheap as a dollar a yard and made in China all the way to 10.00 to 12.00 a yard of good fabric. Fabric that is cheap will not last AND some of it is full of toxic chemicals. Higher end fabric will be well made and last a lifetime. However middle of the road fabric, well there is some good and some bad, so ask questions before buying.

2. How the quilt is made will affect the cost as well. To make a nice quilt is not just about the cost of the fabric. It is also about the TIME that goes into washing, cut, starched, pressing, piecing, quilting and the binding. So you want to ask yourself:
  a) How is the piecing? Is it simple blocks or more detailed cuts? Is it a one piece fabric panel that is really just a print.

  b) Does it have things that take more time to do? Applique's (hand and machine sewn),  Embroidery designs or embellishing?

  c) Is it machine quilted, hand quilted, tied or longarm quilted?

Tied is where they pull thread up through the quilt and tie at the top every so often and is the cheapest option. It doesn't take much time or materials to tie a quilt.
Hand is hand sewn with a needle and thread. This can be very beautiful and take a lot of time but needs to be done by an expert. So be careful and make sure its been done right.
Machine is done with a regular sewing machine and is generally a more simple design then a longarm. Machine quilting should cost more than tied or hand quilting. Unless the hand quilting was done by a pro!
Longarm is a more professional quilting. Very few people and quilt as well on a regular sewing machine but I have seen it done. I prefer the longarm quilting, it is smooth and endless in design possibilities.

3. Binding, Binding, Binding!! The binding is more important than you think. The binding will determine the life of your quilt. The binding takes on more wear than the rest of the quilt. If its not done right you will end up with a beautiful quilt with ragged edges. So its really important and will affect the cost. This binding is a double fold binding, the best binding for quilts.


Double folded binding and machine sewn to the top of the quilt and pressed. Flipped over and hand sewn on the back with perfect mitered corners.

    

                                                                                   

                                                                              

So I hope this helps you find the best quilt for your budget. Here is a link to get back to my Etsy store. https://www.etsy.com/shop/SimplySewing?ref=pr_shop_more