So, there are lots of ways to make the hunters star block, and for this quilt, were gonna be using foundation piecing. So, the action starts with this triangularshaped unit, and we have the first piece that goes on here. Weve numbered the pieces. And then piece two and piece three form the diamonds. And those are pretty interchangeable. Couldve numbered those either way, so you dont need to sweat the details on which one you get on first. And then the last piece is the large triangle. Mmhmm. Piece one and four are gonna match. Mmhmm. Colorwise. Uhhuh, colorwise. And piece two and three are gonna match colorwise. And those pieces, two and three, form the diamonds that eventually form your star. Mmhmm. Im gonna pull these up here. And so really what were doing is were gonna make that triangle unit in two different colorations. Once with these pieces in red with black points. In the other case, the red diamonds with black for the rest of the fabric. And then, when those two come together, you can already see that im gonna start getting a quarter of the star that i need. Mmhmm. So, lets what color should i make . The red with black or black with red. Lets do red with black. Okay. We start with our red strip. Lets go over to the red strips. And theres a couple different ways to secure it. Youre starting to put your pieces up. This is Something Else really important i want to talk about. Yeah, yeah. Paper piecing is like dyslexia personified. Its true. Everything goes the opposite way. It takes a little yeah. And you need to have some flop room, for lack of a better term. Yep. So, it helps to precut the pieces that youre gonna use. Mmhmm. So, our piece one if we just measure how big that might need to be. Mmhmm. Right. Im not that good. Sure. Give yourself a little breathing room. I gave myself some more room. So, instead, we cut this red piece 2 inches wide. Safe. Give ourselves an extra half an inch that i thought we needed. And for length, 8 inches when we said we just needed 7. Thats a lot of extra. Well, a lot helpful. Absolutely. It saves tears later. Because the first thing were gonna do is were gonna position this piece in the numberone spot, and to do that, you turn it over. Yep. You got to flip because the dotted lines are your sewing lines, always. And having that piece bigger makes that easier. Again, we would look at the same logic for the little diamonds here. Notice that this black piece is considerably larger than what that diamond is. Right, because you have a pretty Long Distance to cover both of the sides of your diamond. And we want extra budge from there. Mmhmm. And then the triangle, again, is quite a bit larger than what it needs to be to cover this area. It just makes life easier. Dont cheat here. Youre gonna trim it all down. Its gonna be accurate. Its gonna turn out nice. So, i always have to stop and think that i want to put my fabric rightside out from the wrong side of it. Its dyslexic. It really is. Like, yeah, you got to take time, think about what youre doing. So, one of the things that helps is to be able to hold this up to the light, and im looking through. So, ive got the pretty side of my fabric its facing out on the wrong side of my pattern, and ive got that extra sticking out about the same on both ends. Youre good on either side. Youve cut it big enough. Now, you can pin, but whats really handy. Right. Is to use a glue stick. And so, what were gonna do is just put a couple dabs of glue and stick that down. Water soluble. Yep. Watersoluble glue. And it doesnt take much. You just need it to hold until you sew it, right. And that should kind of secure it in place while we do our sewing and when we fiddle with it. Mmhmm. Now, this is the tricky piece. You have to stop and think this through. And, yeah, im gonna help you as best i can. Just turn it over. Exactly. And this needs to be angled like this. Right. Right. So, that means this piece needs to hang down. Needs to hang off of this edge, because for it to bend back, and this is where. This is bending back, thats gonna cover it. Okay. Ill need to come down this way. Yeah. This is where the dyslexic and i dont know if two heads are better than one, cause, you know. And thats why i kind of did this little fold. Yes, right. Okay. This is the angle were gonna sew. No, were gonna sew this way. Youre right. Yay [ laughs ] two heads are better than one. This is the hardest step, i think, of this unit. Okay, were gonna go. Yes, thats correct. Im gonna sew this down. Uhhuh. Im gonna sew like this. Mmhmm. So, we just kind of fold that. Now lets look on the other side, and thats gonna be right. Thatll cover it. Good thing. [ laughs ] im glad. Once you get this down once, whats helpful is to repeat this process on lots of blocks. Yeah. Dont go ahead to another step. Do all of these at once so we get into the groove. Then we need to also get this the right position this way. Yes. So, to do that, i actually flip this over. Theres lots of flipping involved in this. Mmhmm. And thats where you can get things wrong. Put a pin through this corner and come over and kind of put a pin through here. So, ive pinned that black on there. I dont know if you got through your red. Take a look. Missed the red. Okay. So, through the red. Through the black. And now were gonna kind of line that up. Mmhmm. Okay. Great. This is lots of fiddling around. Its true. Its true. And we can set that pin like that cause youre gonna sew this way. But i also kind of sometimes like to put another pin over here out of the way were not sewing. Now, ive got that pin in place, and youre gonna sew from this side. Yes. So, youre gonna sew from this point. You can actually start out a little ways from it if you want. Okay. And you can sew on into the seam allowance if you want. Do you sew with the pin, or is that a big nono . Uh, depends on the day. Id probably here because we got the paper and all the rest of it. Yeah, i would probably get it positioned. Yeah. Put my needle down and pull the pin. Okay. Thats what i did. Okay. And i did shorten my stitch length, since you talk about you really need to shorten your stitch length cause were gonna eventually be tearing this paper away, and the stitching is more likely to stay there. Exactly. If its a shorter stitch, it wont tear out as easily. Great. Oh. Wasnt my best sewing down a straight line, but. Pretty close. Close enough. So, we want to sew on that line. Now lets see if we happened to do it right. I know. [ chuckles ] its always a surprise. Were gonna open it out. Yep. And i kind of fingercrease that. Okay. And gosh, it looks like its gonna be fine. Its gonna be okay. So, the next step now is to trim this extra off. And i love how you were doing this before. What i do rotary cutter. No, i use scissors. So, i fold it back on my stitching, and then. Make sure im not cutting anything off that i shouldnt be cutting off. Right. Well, and thats why i love that you do it with scissors because i think thats whats really hard about when youre trimming the paper and trying to get the ruler and the rotary cutter. Its just so much stuff. Im way more likely to not cut it apart if i use scissors, i think. Right. And you want to cut roughly a quarter inch. Doesnt have to be exact because weve done what measuring were gonna do. All right, then i just kind of finger crease that and hold it while im going the rest of the way. And im gonna put another pin in here to secure it. Yeah. Okay. Okay, now were gonna see if we can [ laughs ] the other one, right. All right. So, im pretty sure that the trick is its got to face away from your arrow, so its almost as though were making an arrow going like that. You know, its just this is like the stalk of the arrow, because if we sew that, then. That way. That way. That should work. Okay. Okay. And now we got to do the little pin in the corner. Okay. And i think a little bit of like, there. Yeah. These are key, too. So, were gonna pin that set corner. Want me to help you . Yeah. Ill let you do the pin matching. I find it easier to start that from this side. Mmhmm. Actually, that came through pretty good. So, were gonna line that up. With that square. Mmhmm. Okay. Okay. And if we look, we have a pretty good right angle here. Mmhmm. I should just be able to pin somewhere off over here where it wont bother you too much. And again, now, youre gonna sew with that shorter stitch length. Mmhmm. And i like to start out in the seamallowance area. Okay. Just secures everything a little bit better. And im gonna make sure weve got the iron on here. At some point, were gonna crisp this up. At this point, i like to just do finger pressing. Sure. cause we dont need yeah, youre gonna press them. Oh, i sewed a much straighter seam. I think mom told me you were the one who said some days, you just have bad sew days. Oh, yeah. Just like bad hair days. Yeah, you just cant sew. Then there are days where everything matches. Isnt that nice . But i love those days. They dont happen often enough. No, they dont. All right, so again, lets flip it out. Okay. Make sure its gonna cover everything, and that kind of, again, helps to look at the light. Were a little scrawny here, but i think. Just make it . Think were gonna just make it. Okay, good. And we got these great tv lights to hold it up to the light, but a window would be a good place to go over it. The back. Mmhmm. Make sure this is not gonna cut off. And well trim this down. Mmhmm. And now open it out. Cool. Were gonna make it. We dont have a lot to spare. But thats why you want that extra fabric. Yes. Exactly. All right, and were gonna just take that and adjust it here. Okay. And pin that up out of our way. All right, the last steps gonna be to put this big triangle on. This should be the easiest part of this whole thing. Theoretically. So, its going to go this way. Right. And i think here, if we just kind of look that its sticking out evenly past the paper, okay. We should be fine. You wouldnt fold it in half or anything. I dont think you really need then you have to fold your paper in half. You know, thats why i cut it big. Thats why we cut it big. Exactly. Im just gonna put one here to hold it, but im actually gonna put our pin on this side. Yep. So we know where they are when were sewing. And im gonna take this pin out. Otherwise, the sewing machine kind of wants to hang up on it. Mmhmm. Lots of flipping. Lots of flipping. Were flipping out. So, now were gonna sew this line, and thats the last step. Great. How many blocks i dont know if you know we have to make . Yeah. One, two, three, four, five. Im at six units the square unit. Okay. Must have been by eight units. Okay. That must be when i ran out of fabric. Exactly. Youre like, okay, its border time. Yep. And you can go ahead and sew on up. Sew straight off there if you want. Now were gonna do a little pressing, and then im gonna let you trim this up. Okay. So, well take out the pins. Ill be the presser here. Is our iron heated up enough . It should be. Okay. I talked to it a little bit ago, so. Sweet nothings. So, what im gonna do is just press this and kind of crisp it up. Mmhmm. And i dont think we needed to particularly do any trimming here. We could. If you had a lot of extra hanging out, a big problem here you could trim, but this looks fine. Okay. So, weve got this, so youre gonna want to turn it over this way. Mmhmm. Now i would use the rotary cutter and the ruler, and youre gonna cut on the outside line to trim that unit up. Mmhmm. So, there are really only four pieces to this unit. But as you can see, getting the pieces positioned to create that diamond, thats the tricky part. Thats where youre gonna want to do a little bit of trim matching. Absolutely. And, yeah, do all those units at once, and you just keep firing them through, and then youll get it into an assembly line. Okay. Great. So, ours is looking pretty good. It is. So, we would make lots of red ones. I guess i must have had 6 by 8 48 squares, so i must have made 48 of this and 48 of the black ones. Yep. Its really ingenious. Heres a black unit. This is where the diamonds are gonna start forming. You can see a fourth of the diamonds. For our next step and i would leave the paper on for this step. Okay. And were gonna sew a black one to a red one. And i would do some pinning at the point of that. This is the important spot where that diamond starts. Yes. Because if that gets off. Yeah. To the point where the Diamond Corner of the diamond is here. Uhhuh. And again, because of the paper, it kind of has a mind of its own. Mmhmm. Yeah, you got to really stack up those. And i might like these. I might stick one more pin in up here. Mmhmm. Let me get all the layers. Pick that. How many layers is, like i mean, i get a little nervous when im putting in tons of layers through my sewing machine. I mean, you never really get more than this, would you . Most machines will deal. You know, you can mend blue jeans. Yeah, but dont you need a special foot and stuff . Not usually. Oh, okay. A bigger needle. Okay, right. But not necessarily a different foot. I had one sewing machine, i could mend nylon halters for horses. Really . But it didnt sew cotton fabric very well. [ both laugh ] maybe all the halters. You know, i finally decided it was good for something. Wow. Im gonna stick one more pin in here. And again, that paper makes it not as flexible as fabric. So wereonna sew that together. While marys sewing that, im gonna pull out one of these units that weve made, and heres our red triangle sewn onto our black triangle. And were gonna make units like this. Mmhmm. And when we press, because were gonna end up with eight diamonds coming together, its gonna get kind of bulky. So what we did was we pressed the seam allowance open, at this point. Right. And that helps reduce some of the bulk. Right. And as i join the rows of units together, i continue to do that pressing open, and that helps reduce a lot of the bulk. Quick question for you, liz. The paper is, like, going a little bit like like, the papers kind of bunching up. Yeah. Is that okay . Tear it. Okay. [ laughs ] [ laughing ] i find that helps. Yeah, i know. Rip it with a pin. Sure, sure. Its the paper not having the same give the fabric has. Okay. And so, if the paper isnt wanting to give, sometimes i snip it or tear it or even, like, if you take a pin and score it. Yeah, i tried to do that. I couldnt quite get it. But, yeah, thats great. I just wanted to make sure i wasnt doing something too funky. Youre in great shape there. Great. But, yeah, thats the problem with paper piecing. Yeah. Fabric could give. Paper doesnt. Right. Okay. Got that one done. Seeing if she passed. Oh, i hope so. Now, as a rule, i dont like to press seam allowances open. Okay. And why do you do it here . The bulk. The bulk. Because its kind of a good finger scorcher. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and so, it helps me if i fingercrease it just a little bit. Okay. To kind of encourage them to be that way and then sort of stomp on it with the iron. Mmhmm. Yeah, im less likely than if im trying to force it open with the iron and my fingers. Yeah. So, were gonna press that open. Great. So. The concept will be to just start drawing things. You press them open, so you could make these in blocks. I have to stop and think cause the red and the black go together. Mmhmm. And thats here. You want to put i got to get it this way. Yep. And when ive been looking at this, i just concentrated on that star black, red, black, red, black, red. And i probably wouldnt put this group together because of the same black. I agree. Yeah. So, lets look on the design wall where weve mixed them up a little bit more. Great. And over here, we paid attention to the fact that weve got different blacks and different reds. And here weve got two reds that are opposite each other, so im like, i can live with it. Yeah, absolutely. And when i did this, instead of joining four together, four squares together to make a block, i laid them out like this because it had more flexibility, because, again, when you start over here look, we got another one. Yeah. You start getting another block joining. And if you join these into a group of four youre stuck. Youre stuck with whats gonna come here. Exactly. So i joined the rows then of these square units. You give yourself more to play with. This is a loose one. We have them all clipped together. Theyre all loose. Mmhmm. But i played with these and joined them, made rows, and then joined the rows together. Because the seams are pressed open, it was easy to join the rows because you didnt have to worry about which way they were sewn. Exactly. Well, liz we had the same thought. Its just gorgeous, the hunters star quilt, liz, for your son. Absolutely beautiful. The red and black is very modern, goes great in a contemporary home. Really nice. And i felt like because the design is so strong, i didnt need really special quilting. So, this is just an allover quilting design. Mostly to hold it down. I emphasized the design by putting that narrower black border on and then a wider red border. Felt like it could end there, so i matched my binding to the border. Great. It was fun to make. Fun to do the show today. So fun to do the show, liz. Thank you so much for coming on. Mary grab a stencil. Tips and other useful information coming up next. Our first tip today is from rose haymer or hammer from cameron, missouri. Shes a longarmer. Mary mmhmm. She and her mom are both longarmers, and theyre always dropping pincushions. So rose went to the kitchensupply store, and this is a little deal that goes between your sinks. Oh, great. And you put your little scrubby things in there. And so, she puts it across the metal work on her longarm machine and the pins go in. So, its very handy. She made that little the little pincushions in there. And this is a really nice note from rose. She said that shes hearing impaired and doesnt watch much tv, but when our show comes on, she makes sure to watch, and if she cant see our faces this is the nicest part if she cant see our faces to lipread, she says our demonstrations are so clear that she can see what is going on, so she can just turn the sound off. But thats really a compliment, cause thats our goal. It is. Thats a great goal. And it doesnt matter if we talk too fast, mom, because shes looking for the demonstrations. Thats okay. These skinny strips this is a great tip. Carol crosson from tokeland, washington, says that when she has all these little skinny strips left over from cutting or if shes turning up her blocks, she uses them to tie down plants that need staking in her garden. Oh. Theyre much more gentle and biodegradable, to boot. Thats a great idea. Very nice, carol. This is very nice. This is from sandy lynn from myrtle beach, south carolina. And she says she was guilty of throwing all her sewing machine presser feet in a box. Guilty. Yeah. And she was worried that maybe, you know i know theyre tough, she says, but i was afraid they might get damaged. So she went to the craft store or lost. Or lost. Yeah. And so, look at this. Look at her labeling. I want you to see this. Whoa. So, she made labels, and so she can put every foot in here. She didnt send us her feet. [ laughs ] well, yeah. And so, she can put them back, and she can always find them, so thats really a neat idea. Thats really great. We all have so many great tips to share. Were quilters. We share tips with each other. And, of course, we would love to have you share your tips with us. You can send it to us via the mail. Send it to. Mark with love of quilting and maybe put attention tips on there. You could also use the internet. You can send tips to us on fonsandporter. Com. Click the tips section of the website and send your tip that way. And if we use their tip, mom, on the show, what do they get . They get a oneyear free subscription to love of quilmagazine, which is a great gift. Its a pretty good deal. Well see you next time on the show. Additional quilting ideas from marianne and liz are available in fons porters love of quilting magazine. A oneyear subscription contains 60 or more projects, easytofollow stepbystep instructions, and our tips, techniques, and shortcuts. In addition to the magazine, youll get a dvd containing all 13 shows from the 2200 series and two additional booklets with extra projects, tips, and techniques. The cost is 29. 97. 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Omnigrid providing quilters with specialty rulers and accessories for over 25 years. Quilters club of america offering patterns and videos to the passionate quilter. Like that. Were not too worried about them. Just have fun. Painting should make you happy. It should be a good time when youre painting. There. See . Just sort of swirl it in, let it go, play with it reach over here and get a small amount of alizarin crimson, right on the same brush. Very small amount though. And thatll give us sort of a reddish lavender cos theres blue on there. And well let that bounce in and here and there. Wherever. Just a little. Just a little. Then we can go back, get a little white. Here and there. Just a little white on the brush. And well just spin a little of that in there. Im just varying colors. I want a sky, as i say, that has has a lot of Little Things happening in it. And each and every one of these will be different. Yours will be different than this one. The next one that we do here will be different. So, dont try to just copy now. Let yours let yours be an individual. There. Just blend that a little bit. And you can vary back and forth. Went back into a little blue there. There. The blue is much stronger than any other color up here, so you have to sort of keep that in mind. Blue will get itll get away form you sometimes if youre not careful. And phthalo blue is such a strong, beautiful color. It might be just about my favorite color. There we go. There. So its quite a warm blue. Some blues are very very cold feeling. You have to put on a coat just to work with them. Phthalo blue is a warm blue. It probably has a little green in it. Something like that. Thats really all we need for that little sky. While i got the old brush. Im going to put a little little prussian blue. And im going to go right over this dark color. About like that. Just let it blend upward. See how easy that is to cover when you have the black on there. This black works wonderful for areas that you know, in your painting, are going to have a lot of dark in them. It works wonderful. Now were going to clean the brush. If youve painted with me before, you know thats the most fun part of the whole technique. And thats really the fun, its just beating the old brush here. Tell you what, today lets have a Little Mountain that lives way back oh, its far away. Take a little black, a little alizarin crimson, a little blue in it. Something like that. Pull it out flat, cut across, get our little roll of paint. And maybe in our world a Little Mountain lives right there. I dont want much paint. Scrape off all the excess. In fact, if it bothers you to scrape, add a little white to it. So that way it wont be so dark. I dont mind scraping the canvas hard. There. Alright. But just just a small amount of paint as you can put on there. Just enough to stain the canvas. Now, back to our 2 brush and we want to grab this and pull it. Just pull it. And then blend it outward. I want to make this very light. The lighter the mountain is, the further away itll look in your painting. If its close to you itll be very distinct and dark. I want this one to live way back somewhere far away. So its very light. There we are. Something about like that. And we just blend the entire thing a little to to bring it together. Okay. Okay. Thats all. A little white. Just a little tiny maybe ill put the least little touch of the bright red in it. Just enough to warm it up a little. We have a little pink in the sky so well well have a little of that in here. Cut off our little roll of paint. Okay. Now, i dont want a lot of detail back here so im just put the tiniest little bit of color on here. A little bit of white. Dont want much though. Once again, i want this to look far away. So. I dont want a lot of detail in it. Just enough to give the indication that theres a big mountain living back here. I dont even know what well do in the foreground exactly yet but well come up with something. Dont worry about it. Thats whats so great about this style of painting. You can literally start off and only have a time of year in mind. Thats really all you need. And time of day, probably, just to determine where your lights coming from. But other than that, you really dont have to make any major decisions when you first start. And i like that because about half way through ill probably change my mind anyway. A little blue prussian blue, a little white. Maybe a little more white, lighten it up oh, thats just perfect. Little roll of paint. Almost no color here. Just a hint. Just a hint. Just enough to give a little a little indication. Cos im probably going to take the little blender brush and blend this whole mountain to soften it. Im not trying to put much detail in it. Little blender brush, and very lightly find the basic angles. This little blender brush, the hair in it is so soft you can paint right over this firm paint, as long as its very gentle, without destroying it. There. See . Soften it. Blend it. There we are. Alright. We just pushed that Little Mountain back about five or six miles, right on back there. Now then. Lets go into well just use that blue that we had right here. Just tap that brush right into it. Same old bluish color. Go up in here. Now then, im going to just take some of these angles and begin coming downward with them. Make all kinds of little shapes. Grab another brush. I just i want to do something. Take the least little bit the least little bit of indian yellow. Least little bit. Least little bit, and just blend it up. Just had an idea. I think. If thats there. Watch here, watch here. Itll create all kinds of Little Things happening down in here when we come across. cos this yellow, along with this blue, is going to give us a basic little green color. Sneaky, huh . Maybe theres a little doer that comes down from here. Goes up like that, we dont know. And then lift upward. Make it look like theres little trees living back there, far away. Far, far away. Just little devils. Im going to put a little black with that color. But just a small amount. Maybe. Maybe theres another little doer yep, youre right and it comes right up in through here. Lift it up. There. Just let your imagination take you wherever you want to be here. All these little hills and stuff that live back in here, you can have them. You can have them. Wherever you want them. There we are. There. See . Just vary a lot of these colors and lift. That lifting though, once again, will make it look like little trees that live far away. Far, far away. Alright. Another brush. Clean, dry. Now i want to create mist, so im going to tap the base of all this. But just the base. You can even add a little titanium white to your brush if you really want to create mist. But just a tiny bit. Tiny bit. And make all kinds of little little soft areas in here. There we go. Wherever you think they should live, thats exactly where they should live. I like to make paintings sometimes that are very soft and very gentle. They dont show up to well on t. V. So most of them we do on t. V. Are a little brighter. But theyre still a lot of fun to do. When youre at home try some of these. Lets go into well, theres some of that lavender color we had we made the mountain out of. I think that was some black, some alizarin crimson were going to put some sap green in it. A little blue. Something about like that. Let me get a little white, be right back. Ooh yeah, nice color. Maybe a little black in there too, just yeah, perfect. Okay, tap the brush. Get a little paint on it. Maybe in our world. Maybe, yeah. Yeah youre right. I want to make the indication here of some little foothills. Some little footyhills that live right along. Right along. Where do they live . Make a make a big decision. You decide where they live. But just all kinds of little like little trees that live far up on a hill. Now notice that each layer is getting a little more distinct, a little more detail in it. There we go. Clean, dry brush. And im going to tap the base of this, firmly, using the top corner of the brush. Firmly though. Firmly. I want to create that illusion of mist under there. Lift upward. See how soft that becomes . You can do that. Same color. Same color only darker. Little sap green, a little black. A little blue, a little crimson. But darker. Each layer, as it gets closer to you, should get darker. Yep, here we go. All kind of Little Things living right up in here. Theres many, many ways of making foothills, but this is one of the easiest, most effective that ive come up with. Try it. Try it. Before the series is over, well show you several different ways of making these. There we go. Just have to decide where this one goes. I dont know, maybe it goes all the way over here. Dont know if we even care at this point. We only make one decision at a time here. Alright. Back to our brush that we were using to create mist and just mist the base of it. Just really get in there and mist it. Something about like that. There. Isnt that neat. But already you can see planes, just one after the other all the way up through this mountain. Theres already a lot of depth in this and youve done very, very little. Shoot, that was fun. Im going to do it one more time. Same colors. Same colors, but less and less white, each time. Less white. So, once again, it gets darker and darker as it gets towards you comes towards you. There we are. Maybe this one thats almost the pure color. Not quite. A little white in it, but not a lot. And im using just the corner of the brush here. Make some very basic little shapes. Im not looking for detail. Its too far away. Much, much too far away. You dont see every leaf in a tree this far away. There. About like that. There. While i got that color on the brush, maybe theres water back there, well pull a little of that down. Just pull it straight down. Like that. Reflections are one of my absolute favorite things to do in this technique. Im going to put a little white on the brush too. Thatll make them sparkle. Just a little though dont overdo. Dont overdo. It gets working and it feels good and the next thing you know youve overdone it. Now go across very lightly, just enough to sort of move everything. About like that. Maybe theres a little light spot out in here. Its up to you. Just a little shimmer across the water. You can do all these things that easy. That easy. There. Okay, and sometimes. There. The least little touch of pink in that. Just to reflect some of that color out of the sky. Not much though. Least little touch. Least little touch. There. But keep these strokes straight so your water looks like its level. Otherwise itll just sort of go away and leave you. Take that same old dirty brush, go into a little sap green, some of the yellows, yellow ochre, indian yellow, all of them. I want to make a little green color. In my mind, this area right here is beginning to get close enough to us that we can make out color. Not making out a lot of detail yet, but were getting some basic colors. Shape, form. Once again, were not getting a lot of detail yet. Too much detail can be disturbing to the eye. cos even if youre not aware of it, your mind knows that things that are far away you cant see a lot of detail in. Sometimes youre not aware of that consciously, but subconsciously you are. I dont know if that makes any sense but i know youve looked at paintings and youd say somethings wrong with that painting. I dont i dont know what it is, but something bothers my eye about that painting. And it can be something as simple as that. There we go. Im just taking the fan brush with a little green on it, and just sort of pushing upward. Just a little. Let me put a little liquid white on there to thin it. Thin paint will stick to a thick paint. And i also want it to be a little lighter in color so it shows up a little better. So the liquid white accomplishes that very easy. There. About like that. A little more of the liquid white on the knife. Put a little put the least little touch of bright red in it. Just the least little touch. And well just take here and cut in a water line. Just cut it in. This is just sort of a light area to break up between the darks. About like that. There. Alright. We dont even know where that goes over there; at this point we dont even care. Dont even care. There. A little few little ripples on the water here and there. All those nice things. Ill find the fan brush. Liquid white. Okay. Fan brush, liquid white, titanium white. I put the liquid white in there, once again, only to thin the titanium white. Be right back get a little blue. Very small amount of the phthalo blue. Ready to have some fun . Lets do it. Its your bravery test. Pretend youre water and youre floating along here one day. Youre just having a good time, youre not bothering anybody. Its a wonderful day. Youre just floating along, enjoying the scenery, and all of the sudden somebody pulled pulled the stopper right out of your world and. And it goes over. And there it goes. Just let it come right over. But if you go straight and then down. It doesnt matter where you go here, well cover any of that up that we dont like. Itll give the impression of water thats falling over. Maybe thats the reason they call it a waterfall. Lets take a little bit of brown paint. Straight van dyke brown. I just want to put some dark in here. Well put a lot of nice rocks in this, but i just want some dark right along in here, to get us started. Really get in there and mash it in. I want to have some fun today. Let me clean off a spot to work. Lets take black, a little bit of prussian blue, a little brown, maybe even a little crimson in it. And im going to take paint thinner and im going to thin this color til its quite thin. Quite thin. Just use paint thinner. Plain old paint thinner. Preferably odorless or youll be working alone. And just mix it til its nice and thin. Now then, i want to take white and a little bit of black to make a gray oh, theres a little blue there too so. I guess were going to have a little blue in that too. But mostly black and white to make a nice gray color like about like that, maybe a little darker. Perfect. Let me get a little. Thinner. I want this to be thin also. Now, you remember our golden rule a thin paint will stick to a thick paint. So ill im doing here is making us some thin paint so itll stick to all that thick that we have up there already. Okay. Wipe off the old knife. Lets get us a a little oval brush. Oval brushes are easy to distinguish; theyre the only brush we have that has a black handle. And i did that intentionally so you wouldnt wouldnt get them confused. Load both sides full of color. See . Both sides. Now, take one side, only one, and go through that light color. Dark. Light. Now watch. Up here in our world lives a big old rock, big old rock. Right there see him . And hes got a friend there. Alright. Now lets just have some fun. Here comes one. Comes right over. Here he comes. This is the nicest, easiest way i have ever found of making some gorgeous rocks. Now then, lets have some fun. Lets take black, prussian blue, a little sap green. Let me get some phthalo green. I like phthalo green in there. In our world you ready . There lives. Decide where. Right there, one big evergreen tree. And when we said big, today we mean big. Evergreen tree. Push him upward. Just push him upward. There he comes. Big tree. Big tree. Here he comes. There. I didnt realize how big that tree was. But thats okay. In our world we can have a tree any size we want it. Id known it was going to be that big id have probably used a 2 brush to have made it. Its easier. Now that same brush. Go into a little yellow, a little yellow ochre, just mix them together. And we can go back, put in a few little highlights. Dont want a lot. Keep these trees basically, basically dark. Basically dark, Something Like that. Take a two inch. Well go into that same color. The black, the blue, a little sap green, or phthalo green. Yep, right there. Lives a bush. We can just drop him in there. Like that. Just fill that all in. Over here on the other side eh, be brave using the corner of the brush, well just drop in another one. Wherever you think they should be, just drop them in. Just sort of fill all this up. Just fill it up. There they come. There they come. All were doing is putting in some dark so our light will show. And this liquid black really makes that easy. Really makes it much easier. Here comes one. Yep, right over the waterfall. Now then. We go well go through some of that yellow, a little sap green on the brush. We can just use the 2 brush, one direction. And go right above here you could do this with a one inch, im doing it with a two inch today. Doesnt matter. Put a little liquid white on my brush. Needs to be a little touch thinner so itll stick. Very quickly, very quickly you get a feel for this. As soon as you touch the canvas you know. You know. See there . Darker, darker, darker down here. Now then. Maybe in here, youre right, there lives another happy little tree. Notice im making this one with the corner of the brush. The other one i made by pushing upward. Just so theres some variations in your world. We want all kinds of little Different Things happening. There they go. Indian yellow, yellow ochre, every once in a while a little touch of that bright red give it a little fire. A little bit of fire. Makes your painting look nice. There. There we go. A little bit right in here. Like that. Wherever you think these things should be. Just think of all the little bushes. Then we go back to our oval brush thats got the dark paint thats thin, light on one side. And here and there put in the indication of another little rock or two, wherever you think they should be. And in our world maybe they live all through here. Wherever. Dark on the bottom, light on top. This allows you to do them, basically in one stroke. Maybe it comes all the way out like that. Over here oh, theres one. Theres one. Get a little more dark in there. Comes out you put a bunch of these in and then well just go back there with our old 2 brush. The old 2 brush and we just go in and fill in all the little holes now with all these little. All these Little Things that live in here. See them . Okay, other side, put a few over here. There. One little bush at a time, there we are. Okay. A little touch of the yellow ochre added here and there just to change the flavor. There we are. Ooh, nice one there. Little sparkler. Little sparkler. Alright. Now, we can go back to our fan brush, has a little liquid white on it, a little bit of the phthalo blue. Lets splash a little water back in here. Got to make those little noises. Let our waterfall just sort of wander around, little splashes here and there. Let it go, just let it go. Something about like that. And that easy, that easy. Shoot see . Leave some little open spots, looks like little pools in there. There we are. Okay. And i think with that, shoot, well call that a finished painting. Hope you enjoyed this one. From all of us here, id like to wish you happy painting and god bless, my friend. Have you ever admired a large fabric print and wondered what to do with it . The solution, make the blocks sew big. If youre wondering how big is sew big please welcome quilt designer Debbie Bowles to sewing with nancy. Nancy, im so happy to be back for part two of this series sew big quilt blocks. Today, were going to be working with slightly angled segments around a featured fabric, to set those off. These 18 quilt blocks will feature a large Center Square a small accent square, and angled side blocks. When multiple blocks are put together into a quilt therell be lots of Design Movement and the color will flow from block to block. Sew big quilt blocks thats whats coming up next on sewing with nancy. Sewing with nancy tvs longestairing sewing and quilting program with nancy zieman is made possible by baby lock, a complete line of sewing, quilting and embroidery machines and sergers. Baby lock, for the love of sewing. Madeira, specializing in embroidery, quilting and specialeffect threads because creativity is never black and white. Koala studios fine sewing furniture custombuilt in america. Clover, makers of sewing, knitting quilting and embroidery products for over 25 years. Experience the clover difference. Amazing designs and klasse needles. I always like to look at debbies quilts and see where these big blocks fall. Debbie has a lot of motion to this block and very few pieces. Right, exactly. But its a subtle, different kind of motion. Its a large square, a 121 2 cut. This is a 61 2 small accent square with the two angled pieces. The movement of this, instead of going around the block the movement is on the angled line which makes a big difference in how some of the other quilts are going to look. If you missed our First Program on this series you might want to watch it online or on dvd or wait until it comes back on your Favorite Television station. But as you can see, for this particular design we have these, again, very large prints. Large prints, which have become so popular in so many real and fake fabric colors for flowers. But always, there are large fabric flowers out there to choose from. Now, these two sizes are small. A wall piece, or you could put bigger borders on them and turn them into a lap quilt. Sure, but if you wanted to make a bed sized quilt heres one of debbies designs. The thing that i like to talk about with that one is in the two that you saw previously the lights were very light and they were almost solid looking lights. In this one, ive used a small print. Its going to read as a light but it is actually a small print. Also, the block layout on this quilt is more of a marching. Notice how the line flows diagonally up the quilt. This is a perfect quilt design for fussy cutting in this koi quilt. Beautiful fabric there, debbie. It is beautiful. Those fish are just kind of breathtaking. I think the thing that is fun about this is because the piecing is so easy for most people they can really focus on getting the right colors, getting the right fabric. With the koi fish i also want to draw everybodys attention to the fact that there isnt a fish in every square which lends itself, then, to your eye to want to go back to where the fish is. This is another nice quilt design for directional prints with the christmas tree, or the tree. Right, and what youre going to want to do well talk about it in depth a little bit later but you can use a directional print you just have to think about it before you put the pieces together. Soon well be showing you how to assemble this but you can see there are a lot of options for this sew big quilt block. For this particular quilt design find your favorite big print. Debbie, you found some fascinating ones. I did. Nows a good time to talk about this. Not all big prints need to be fussy cut. Sometimes the repeat just works out great. This is one of those. Theres not much background so this is what well be using for the Center Square. This is what well be using for the smaller accent square. This is the light and this is the dark that were going to be using. Its important, most quilts need that contrast of light, medium, and dark. Yes. To make it pop. Otherwise, it kind of blends together. If you watched the First Program of this series we used a lot of variety of fabrics for the center block. This time, we just used one print. One print, and then we do the contrast with the small accent square. This is 121 2. This is 61 2. These strips will become our angled side blocks and those are 7 wide. So, cut the strips. You had a great hint earlier in this twopart series and that is, many times, i have a variety of rulers. We all do. Try to use the same brand. Im not promoting one or the other they just have the same markings. Yes, especially when youre doing such large blocks. Theres not many seams, so theres no place to make up your little cutting errors. Your fudge factor is gone. Even though theyre all fairly accurate you get the most accuracy if you are doing all of your cutting with the same brand of rulers. Now, for the angled side seams the really, really important thing is that the fabrics are layered right sides up. Thats not typically how we layer for cutting so its an important thing to remember when youre doing it. So i have right sides up. The brown is right side up. Right, were going to cut these into 13 long segments. They are 7 wide to begin. Were going to line this up right on our 13. Get it nice and square because they will become the sides of our blocks. Whoa, that was a bad cut you can cut one more time. Each of these strips will yield three 13 rectangles. Square that up. I would just square that off. It happens. Cut another 13. I actually cut with both hands. Nancy, do you also . Yes. I read it in a book when i was teaching myself to quilt it said if youve never used a rotary cutter before learn to cut with both hands. So you can cut on both sides of the ruler. Without having to move yourself around. Well go through each strip. Well cut each strip into 13 segments. Now were going to cut the angled piece. Okay, that would be the cue to me. Here are some of the pieces. Yeah, heres how we began. This is the 7 by 13 rectangle. Were going to cut the angle by marking this layered piece 21 2 in from each side. I have my marking pencil right here and my ruler. So, i would lay the ruler on the edge go in 21 2 and make a small mark, right there. I would do the same thing on the bottom 21 2 in, right there. Im going to position my ruler right on those two marks just like that. Now, i do want to press down hard enough now so that i cut through both layers. There you are. Now, heres the reason why debbie recommended that we cut the layers with right sides up. This is the key. Because were going to actually make two blocks out of these two sections. Because they were layered right sides up the fabrics, the angles, will be ready to be stitched. Now weve got right sides up. Were going to stitch them together by flipping over, the right sides together. The stitching is with 1 4 seams allowances but we have to have these little dog ears because when you seam them together because of the angle at that 1 4 you can have that little dog ear extended. Here you can see that i am stitching this 1 4 seam. As i finish one, i butt the next piece up to the strip and then keep sewing. Cut the thread chains between. This shows how its been stitched. That little extra dog ear is there. Right, its at a very shallow angle so its a very, tiny dog ear. That will allow it to be straight across. You need to do some pressing, of course. Were going to press it. Again, were accustomed to pressing towards the dark. So after you set your seam you are going to do that same thing. Again, youre going to press with an up and down motion so that you dont distort it. The other beauty of this side angled block is that its too long. Were going to turn it down. Because if its not stitched perfectly where thats going to show up is its not going to be even on the two ends. I specifically designed it so that youd be able to square this up. All of your side blocks will get trimmed to 121 2 wide. Youre going to cut a little bit off. Just about 1 2 these have been trimmed, so ill just show you. Theyve been trimmed just a little bit. Now, to assemble that well show how it all goes together. Ill let you place it. Heres the large square. In this particular block were going to put the light side in. Then theres the accent square. The light side is in again. Theres the 18 quilt block. Its very easy to piece together. Actually, youre going to turn this one this direction. Oh, thats why youre the designer when its time to piece them the quickest way to piece them is simply to sew a side piece to the Center Square and stitch it together. Come out, sew a side piece to the small square stitch it together, press it. Then again, we have one little place where wed like for sure for the block to line up. Right in this area the seams are pressed in opposite directions opposing directions. You kind of snug them together and put a pin there. Exactly. Then, do the stitching of that seam. That way, it will match up. Ill show you the finished block. Its a big block. It is a big block. It went together quickly. Now well show you how you can rotate and position the blocks. We have our design wall behind us to show you the versatility of this block. Debbie, we have four samples right here. We do, we just made four blocks. Weve got three different arrangements were going to try. Lets start with putting it in kind of a marching what i call a real organized way to do it. Your two sides, thats exactly right. Mine can go like this. Heres one way they could go. This is going to jigsaw up and across the quilt. Lets turn them, nancy and lets put these two small squares toward the center. Okay. Rotate them your big block to the outside edge. Lets rotate it one more time. You know what . Im the one thats wrong. Heres where its at. There we go. Now, put this with the small square toward the outside corner okay. Now you can see that the frames are going to make a different look for us. What a difference in just a little rotation. Most people see this, they see that. Now lets do the pinwheel shape. Were going to do that by finding the skinny black edge on each block and putting that black edge into the center, exactly. Okay, on there. This is where a digital camera comes in very, very helpful. As youre designing your own layout at home snap, snap, snap, turn the blocks. Theres no trouble remembering which one you liked best after youve put them together. The last little tip involves changing up some of the accent squares. You can make some blocks with different fabrics. What a change. For the first quilt in this program debbie used a big print. You cut strips, and cut them into 121 2 blocks. But this one, this big print has to be fussy cut and theres a good reason why. Right, on this one lets just look a little carefully here. Weve got a couple of larger flowers of some kind. Then we have a different, smaller flower in this one and a different smaller flower in this one. That has to do with how the fabric worked out because not all large floral fabric is really the same. Sometimes, you need to really look at the fabric before you cut into it. In this particular one, it happens that if we were to cut a 121 2 strip, more or less we would get some different looks going across the strip. That isnt always the case. You get almost a negative space and part of it looks like this one. It isnt always the case but it pays to take some time with your fabric before you cut into it. Theres lots of different template cutters out there that can help you do that. Or a simple frame like this can help you eyeball it. So you would have a little waste but you would maybe center a rose like this, and center. One of these other flowers like that. There would be other reasons to use this print but that gives it this very unique look. Thats fabric by the yard that you may find. But then, you saw this quilt earlier this wall hanging of the koi fish. This is a unique fabric. It is a unique fabric. I do want to draw everybodys attention to the fact that there are three different colored fish and theres a block that i call the blank block. Partially because of how the fabric was done and partially because it gives some interest to the quilt. This is the fabric on the bolt. You can see that if i had wanted to have all three fish in one 121 2 square i wouldnt have got much of the fish. Right. Just their faces. So instead, what i elected to do was cut one fish in each square. Because the fabric is so gorgeous, nancy with those waves. Yes, and you didnt necessarily follow the straight of grain. Thats okay. For this wall hanging decorative quilt. Youd have to audition which were doing here with this frame and then youd cut it with a block. Mark it before cutting. Right, exactly. Were now going to take a look at some novelty prints. Childrens novelty prints are very commonly found. Cute little puppies in this print. You also notice, the block is much smaller. This is the 9 block, that is part of the pattern. It is an exact copy of the 18 block it just happens to be halfsize. It turns out to be a great size for kids novelty prints. Thats why were looking at it, these puppy dogs. Because theres only a light, a dark a center, and an accent square, it doesnt take very long, usually to choose your fabric but you can still make a mistake, nancy. This one, you classify as one of your notsoperfect combinations. Exactly, i do love a polka dot. But i chose for this one a polka dot that is too busy for the dog print. If you choose a smaller polka dot if i had chosen a smaller polka dot it would have set the block off a lot better than this big and busy polka dot. So, were just putting up a second colorway of this. It really reads so much better. You can see the print. You can see the motion. So, even experts sometimes make. A bad decision. Heres the same print but this time, in a different combination of fabrics. Wow, that makes a huge impact. I went back to very, very light, a solidish looking light. Now the dog print really shines. A great example. You saw that theres a 9 block and an 18 block with this design. Heres a full size bed quilt that you can see that combines those two quilt blocks. Right, each of these horizontal rows has two 18 blocks and two 9 blocks going across the quilt for just some added fun and interest in the quilt. Heres the big block. Do you have that little 9 square . Lets show them where the 9 squares are. Okay, right here. So heres the 18 block. Lets get the 18 square. This is 12. Oh, excuse me, here we go. We have some more frames down here. You saw from full size quilt that we had on the wall theres the big block. Then touching it are the two small ones. One, two. The other thing this quilt is showing is that the dark has been positioned closest to Center Square. Even though this hot pink wouldnt necessarily be a dark, its darker than the green. This quilt was made by my friend heide who does such great color choices. Yeah, its fun, lively and big prints, plus the accent color really go well together. Right, and not all of her Center Squares were cut identically. So, the flowers are moving around thats what youre seeing in the quilt. Well, debbie, what great quilt designs youve given us and shared with us using prints, using unique layouts. Its made quilting a new option for me. Its a fun block to put together for all of your fans. Thank you for joining us. Youre welcome. Thanksgiving inspires generosity once a year. But what happens to the spirit of giving on the other 364 days . Todays nancys corner guest penned a novel that imagines what good could come from practicing the holiday spirit year round. Welcome back Jennifer Chiaverini the author of books in the elm creek quilt series. Her new book is the giving quilt. Jennifer, this is book number 20. Thats right. Wow, thats an amazing journey of how sarah was introduced to quilting for sylvia way back in book number one. And now, things have changed. Well, they have. Now sarah is an accomplished quilter herself. She and her friends run a celebrated quilters retreat in central pennsylvania in elm creek manor a beautiful historic home. I remember reading the first book, then the second. Then its kind of like oh, i want to see what happens next. I certainly hope my readers feel that way. I always wonder, too, what journeys are these characters are going to take next. Its always exciting to write the next book to find out. We talked earlier in the opening that 364 days of the year we dont always think about thanksgiving or quilts giving, as you penned it in this book. Tell us a little bit, not too much about the plot. Just a teaser, not to give anything away. Well, in this story,one of the artful quilters, gretchen has tried to inspire her friends to give back to their communities in a more unified, tangible way. So she suggests that they create a special week of quilt camp called quilts giving, which would take place in the winter right after thanksgiving. Quilters can come from around the world for a lovely week at elm creek quilt camp sewing, spending time with friends learning new tricks and new techniques. In exchange for that free week at quilt camp all of the quilts that they make go to a worthy cause. In this case, the worthy cause is project linus which is a real live organization that provides quilts, afghans and blankets for children in need. Weve had representatives from project linus on sewing with nancy many times so this ties right in, full circle. Its such a wonderful organization. If the elm creek quilters were real people they would definitely be involved with project linus so it was a natural fit for the story. As with most of your elm creek novels you have a quilt that goes with the book. Thats right. At quilt camp, at quilts giving they always have one quilt that they call the giving quilt. This is a different pattern every year but its always intended to be a simple, easy pattern thats still very striking, very pretty. Its something that a quilt camper could reasonably put together in a week. Its meant as Something Special whenever you want to make a quilt expressly for giving whether its a wonderful cause like project linus or anytime a giftgiving occasion comes up when you need to have a quilt project to turn out relatively quickly. I always encourage, when i give seminars that everyone makes something every year that theyll give away to someone theyll never know. Thats a lovely idea. This great block is called the resolution square. Thats right, its called the resolution square. Its very simple. You can see its a dark and light block, a rectangle and some larger squares. By putting the blocks on point as ive done in this quilt it gives it a whole different look. It makes it seem much more complicated than it really is. Its a smart looking block. But back to the elm creek quilters. Are you going to give us any little juicy bit of change thats happened, what to look for or what character to watch . Well, there are five new characters in this story who come and attend quilt camp. And as sylvia encourages them to do on the first day they each contemplate their reasons for giving. Why is it so important especially if youre facing difficult times yourself to use your time to give back to your community to give to other people . While theyre all contemplating that idea and working on their projects, they become good friends. There is one character that will be familiar to readers. She was introduced in an earlier book circle of quilters. She was the one character out of the five finalists for a job at elm creek manor who didnt get the job. Everyone else of those five found a place at elm creek manor. So the plot thickens. It does, and you get to see what karen has been up to. Well, youve im sure tantalized everyone to open up the giving quilt and see and then possibly make a quilt for their own. Thank you, jennifer, for being our guest. It was my pleasure. Also, thank you for being here with us for this twopart series on sew big quilt blocks with our special guest, Debbie Bowles. Im sure that you will be equally excited to start a big block quilt as i will be. At nancyzieman. Com, you can find information about all the nancys corner guests, with jennifer and everyone weve had for the last three years at nancys corner. Plus, you can rewatch this program or connect to me socially on the social media market. Nancyzieman. Com has everything sewing with nancy. Thank you for joining us on this series. A special thanks to jennifer, as well as Debbie Bowles. Thank you. Bye for now. Debbie bowles has created a pattern that serves as the reference for the big quilt blocks featured in this program. Its 7. 99, plus shipping and handling. To order this pattern, call 18003368373 or visit our website at sewingwithnancy. Com 2701. Order item miq705 bq big quilts pattern. Credit card orders only. To pay by check or money order call the number on the screen for details. Visit nancys website at nancyzieman. Com to see additional episodes, nancys blog, and more. Sewing with nancy, tvs longest airing sewing and quilting program with nancy zieman has been brought to you by baby lock madeira threads koala studios clover amazing designs, and klasse needles. Closed captioning funding provided by oliso. Sewing with nancy is a coproduction of Nancy Zieman Productions and Wisconsin Public television. Ererer stocks fell on worries that china might. Announcer the new pbs for ipad app. Youll never know what youll find. [dog barks] announcer available now in the app store. Martha a quilt or quilted project is a work of art. To accomplish the look you want for your completed quilt, you will need to spend some time in planning the whole project, from fabrics to construction. Ribbons and buttons are favorites on some quilts. I absolutely love the details of sewing, not just for quilting. Im so thrilled that you are joining me in my sewing room today. Lets create some sewing art. Female announcer funding for marthas sewing room is made possible by and sew beautiful magazine. [whimsical classical music] martha i absolutely love this beautiful, beautiful table runner. The technique is spiral patchwork. And one of the most wonderful things about this table runner is how quick, fast, and easy it is. Youre going to love this idea. Okay, the spiral patchwork can be used with all different kinds of fabrics, but one of my favorites is to use a stripe. Now, i like bias, so were gonna have this spiral patchwork with a very special technique. It is going to end up being a bias table runner. Im so pleased to have as my guest today linda mcgehee. Linda is a designer, teacher, and author of numerous books and patterns. Today linda represents the warm company and will be sharing ideas about batting. Linda, welcome to the show. Thanks, martha. Its so great to be here. You know, i brought along some fabrics that were striped, because you never know what striped fabric is going to look good on your table, so this just gives you a couple of ideas of fabrics that you might have in your collection. Im actually working on a stripe that is a undisciplined stripe, so if im not quite even it will be okay. My first step is to fold the fabric over to a diagonal line like this. Martha now, how long was that piece of fabric . The fabric was actually the stripe was on the width, so it was 45 inches wide, and its approximately 15 inches long. Martha okay. Okay, actually, that might have been backwards, but its a 15x45. Martha 15x45. So were going to slide the fabric underneath the machine. And youll notice on the foot that there is a line going across thats 1 4 of an inch from the needle hole. So im gonna line the fabric at that point, lower the presser foot, and just make one stitch to sink the needle, lift the presser foot, and turn the fabric so im aligning the outside edges. And youre gonna end up with a twisted mess, and thats okay. Now were ready to start sewing, and were gonna keep those edges even along the side here and stitch the full length. Now, youre gonna come to a point where this appears to be a little bit twisted. Thats okay. Well pull the fabric around a little bit more and then continue sewing. And what happens is, you end up with a tube thats relatively flat. So we have a tube. Our stitching looks like its on the diagonal. Now were going to press a crease along the short edge, and we will cut that open so that you have accomplished your bias piece. Martha well, that just looks like magic to me. It is magic. And theres a seam here that you really cant see, but thats what allows us to have the diagonal line, or the spiral look. Now were ready to take a look at battings, and there are a variety for you to use. Theres thinner battings. Theres some that are insulated battings, and there are also some that are a little bit thicker. So you need to choose the batting thats gonna be appropriate for the project. Martha which one is your favorite for a table runner, linda . I like the thicker one, because i may put a hot pot on it or something, and thatll protect your table just a little bit more. Now were going to take our bias piece, or our table runner, and our base fabric thats gonna become the backing. And were gonna lay those with the right sides together on our batting. You will stitch around this edge and leave an opening to turn, and once youve turned and trimmed the excess, you will end up with a gorgeous table runner. Martha linda, that is beautiful. It looks like you spent hours piecing the strips together. Soand wouldnt it be beautiful with a monogram on it . Monogram, embroidery, other quilting. And this was the quickest way that you could stitch. However, we could have done a lot of quilting and put binding around the edge if we wanted to go you can take this further. The time element is how you decide what youre gonna do with the project. Martha about how long would it take you to do the beautiful table runner like that . The basic one, probably an hour and half to two hours. Martha wow. Isnt that quick . Martha christmas gifts, here we go. And wedding gifts. All sorts of martha and one for every holiday. Absolutely. And its another way that you can use up some of the leftovers in your collection. Martha in the collection, the stash. Yeah. Martha the resource. Absolutely, absolutely. Martha we wouldnt the ladies wouldnt know anything at all about a resource center, would you . Were letting out a few secrets we probably shouldnt. Martha well, linda, it is beautiful and easy. And thank you so much. And now linda has brought some wonderful things to share with you for sewing inspirations. Linda, show us what you have here that i just love. This is a wall hanging for your kitchen using some of the fruits and vegetables fabric. And this area that you see along in here is actually spiral patchwork, just like we were doing a few minutes before. Its been combined with a strip in between. Theres weaving up at the top with some of your leftover fabric, so weve used a fusible to hold those together and added some little fussy cut fruits to finish the wall hanging. Martha and with the leftovers. When the leftovers really get down to the leftovers, then you can make pot holders or mug rugs or any Little Things that can go along in the kitchen. Notice that the batting in the wall hangings a little bit thicker than the batting over in the pot holder. So youre gonna use a variety there. Martha now, linda, you know i love your bags. These are just im just kind of a bag lady. I like everything in a bag, so i carry a bag on my shoulder. This is a wonderful bag. And its been quilted with a batting inside, so youre using two of your favorite fabrics to create. Martha and machine embroidery, another bag thats been quilted. Thats actually freemotion. Martha oh, freemotion. Well, arent you the smart one. So that was done by one of my stitching friends with a variegated thread. Martha but it could be machine embroidery. It could be machine embroidery, absolutely, yes. Martha and now lets show them. The picnic bag. Martha oh, my goodness. You know, at our picnic, we take our own ants. So in the side, we have a pocket that you can put your dishes, your silverware. Also, for our picnics, we do use our serger napkins. Martha talk about easy. Just serge right around fabric. Absolutely. Go ahead and use some of your leftover tidbits again of fabric that you have. Put your picnic stuff in the bag, take it to your spot, unzip the zippers, and like magic, you have the tablecloth. And this is what the outside looks like when the zippers are unzipped, so once the zippers are zipped up, they become the shape of the bag. Martha okay, now, one more thingthis is just so wonderful, okay. We have the picnic bag. Yes. Martha take your lunch and all the goodies out. Absolutely. Martha unzip it, and you have your tablloth for your picnic. You know what this reminds me a little bit of, linda . Is when i was in girl scouts, the situpons. Oh, yeah, yeah, i did those too. Martha okay, but this is sort of a picnic situpon. Yeah, this would be the underneath side, so we would actually see this side on our picnic, but i wanted you to see the zippers and how they looked once it was finished. Martha and its all washable, of course. All washable. Washable batting, washable fabrics. Perfect. Martha how fun this is just one of my favorites. Thank you, linda. And now linda has a sew quick, sew easy project for you. Linda, lets have some fun cooking and sewing. This is so much fun our two favorite things to do, right . Martha yeah, sure. Were gonna make a potato bag, and the purpose of the bag is to cook a potato fast and easy. This will go in our microwave. And the bag helps hold the moisture and gives us a lot fluffier potato. You can do corn. You can do sweet potatoes. You can do red potatoes too. But were going to use a microwave, so lets use 1,100 wattor 1,100 watt is what it was tested. You want to make sure the bag that youre making is smaller than the turntable. And its best to have a turntable. And when were creating the bag, we also want to use a batting. You get the potatoes over there. We want a batting thats 100 cotton. We want to use 100 fabric, and we want to use 100 thread to stitch. Martha 100 cotton everything. Everything needs to be 100 cotton, because we dont want any products going in the microwave that are gonna affect the microwave itself. So what weve done is quilt the lines, and i actually used a striped fabric and stitched from the striped side, but im showing you the other side so you can see my stitching. Fold it over about an inch on both ends and stitch to hold these ends nice and flat, and then were folding the bag so that it overlaps ever so slightly, maybe 1 1 2 inch to 2 inches, and stitch the ends to hold it in place. Turn it right side out, and you have a potato bag. Martha you know youre ready to start cooking. Martha maybe in the south, we could call that tater bags. [laughter] tater bags, yeah, warm tater bags. Martha warm tater bags. You know what . Now, that means 100 cotton everything, even your serging that you did on the edge there. 100 cotton to serge too . Yes. Martha everything. Well, i justand you know what . I really have heard that potatoes are wonderful cooked in these bags, so. Oh, yes. Light, fluffy. Martha i cant wait to try it. Linda, thank you so much. Its been great to be here, martha. Martha and now we have some sew easyyou know i love those two wordsstabilizer techniques to share with you. Im so pleased to have as my guest today kay brooks. Kay is with rnk distributing. She is head of Product Development and education. Kay, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Martha i cant wait to see what youre gonna share today. Well, actually, todays project was inspired by a blooper, so. [laughter] so we all have those in our sewing rooms, certainly. And you can see this beautiful pillow that we have here has color behind the fabric. I actually called it machineembroidered shadow quilting, but thats quite a mouthful, so i love heirloom quilting also, so. But what ive done is taken embroideries that maybe were not stitched out correctly. Have you ever taken an embroidery design out of the hoop before the last color was stitched . Martha oh. Oh haveyou know, Little Things, or youve stitched the wrong colors, or maybe the color plan didnt turn out like you wanted once you took it out of the hoop, so. But dont throw those things away. Im gonna give you a great way to use those in this technique, so i think youll really, really be inspired with it. So you can see our gorgeous pillow here. Im gonna sit this aside just for a moment. We may bring that back up in just a moment. But i want to show you the stepouts here, what ive done to create this gorgeous pillow. And first of all, we have to start with a design, certainly. And here i have stitched the design on two layers of a cutaway mesh. Now, make sure that your mesh is nylon, not polyester, because were gonna be burning it away. However, if you have stitchedon cotton or whatever, thats fine. Just trim it close around the edges like ive done here. Now, if you do choose to use the burning method like ive done, im gonna give you a few little steps here that youre gonna need to take. So weve stitched the design out on two layers of our nylon mesh cutaway, and im gonna set this aside for just a moment and pull this piece over. Make sure you have a heatresistant surface. Like, this is just a glass frame out of an old picture frame that i had, or you could use a piece of tile, anything thats heatresistant. And this is a stencilburning tool. And you can see that i have a nice little curved tip here that im gonna use to actually burn away the excess stabilizer from around the edge of the embroidery design. And lastly, make sure that youre using a rayon thread. You can use polyester if you want to, but if you accidentally burn too close, the rayon does a nicer job of not melting away. So what were gonna do is take our heatcutting tool. Im gonna set this aside and pull this piece back over. And then, once its heated which, of course, were not heated right now, but i just wanted to demonstrate youre just gonna quickly, swiftly burn around the excess stabilizer. And you can see that it has pulled apart here, okay . So very, very nice. Then what youre going to do is take the piece thats been burned away completely, and youre going to insert that between fusible quilt batting and a piece of batiste lawn, linen, any kind of nice light sheer fabric. Youre just gonna put that in between, and then when you press it, the fusible on the fleece is actually gonna trap the embroidery design between the batiste and the fleece. So now we have this gorgeous piece thats ready to be quilted. And you can see the shadow here, which is absolutely fantastic. Now, if you are stitching on a piece of cotton or denim or linen or whatever, thats fine. You can still do the same technique. Just trim it really nice and close. Now, if you have a lot of small vinetype things that come out from the embroidery design, trim those away. You dont need those. You can actually stitch those. Then youre gonna take it to the machine. And im gonna bring the pillow back over here so i can show what ive done. And you can see that ive just used plain straightstitch quilting stitches to accent the embroidery underneath and frame it. And you can see that i used colors that accent the embroidery design thats actually underneath the linen. Its just a great way to use up designs that you ordinarily would have thrown in the trash. Martha well, i think thats completelynow, you did not stitch all the way around it. You just did your little feathering. Just did the feathering, and then you can see we used a metallic thread to go around the edge to do stipple quilting. Martha that is truly beautiful, kay. Oh, my goodness. A great way to turn a blooper into something gorgeous and unique. Martha or just to make it for that purpose. Its really beaut or this can be really what we wanted to do the whole time. Martha its really beautiful. Thank you. Martha thank you so much, kay. And now we have some heirloom quilting to share with you. Im so pleased to have as my guest today nina mcveigh. Nina is an educatortrainer for bernina of america. Nina, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you, martha. Martha and i think were gonna be talking about one of my favorite topics today, ribbons. And you know how i love the silk satin ribbons. It looks like youve done a lot of decorative on this ribbon on this beautiful quilt square. Well, its just another way to add that to your quilt, and by putting that ribbon in here, making a fancy band of ribbon, and using all those wonderful decorative stitches that we all have in our machines and sometimes we just we arent sure what to do with them or where to use them, so this allows us to play a little bit, and then whatever it is weve done while we were playing, we can actually use in our quilt. Martha love to play with those decorative stitches. Yes, yes. So to start with, you are going to choose the fabric that youre going to put the ribbon on. I like to choose something thats got some sturdiness to it. This, of course, is a cotton and linen blend, so its got some weight to it, but im also going to spray starch that fabric so thats got some body. I like to use a stabilizer behind those stitches. This is one of my favorite stabilizers. Its a watersoluble tearaway. Martha thats one of our favorites too. Yeah, so i can tear away the excess, but then i can wash away whats ever left in those stitches. So thats how im going to begin. The first thing i like to do is that outer stitch. Whatever stitch you choose to be your outer stitch almost gives that ribbon the look of a decorative edge. Martha uhhuh. And then from there, im going to put whatever id like down the center. This is just the way i have chosen to do it. It doesnt mean that you have to follow this pattern exactly. Youll notice that i did put a centering line on my ribbon, so im going to do that decorative stitch down the center and then come back and do more decorative stitching. Really, this scalloped edge on this particular stitch really shows off the ribbon itself, because ive put a color, even though its a toneontone, on that ribbon, and then the shiny part of the ribbon shows through there, so it really does create a nice look on the ribbon. So lets go over to the machine. And i have my piece all prepared here. And i am going to choose one of those decorative stitches to put on the edge of my ribbon. I am using an opentoe foot, so i have a lot of visibility here. I want my stitch to be on the outside edge of my ribbon, so i need to position this so that the edge of my ribbon is just inside the left toe of the foot. So when i stitch that decorative stitch, its going to catch the edge of my ribbon, and i do like to use the dual feed for this. It will help keep everything smooth. Martha nina, do you enjoy the opentoe foot. Very much. Martha for a lot of things . A lot of pretty really do love that foot. I do. When youre doing this, it just provides so much visibility, so you can see where youre going, where your machine is stitching. I would caution you, however, if you are doing a decorative stitch thats heavily a heavy satin stitch, then you might want to use a different foot. Martha okay. Okay, now, ive used a little bit different stitch here than i did on the sample, and just as pretty. Martha oh, absolutely. Theyre all beautiful. And how fun doing it too. And the other thing is, what we call these are stitch recipes, and there are a lot of different places that you can go to and websites that you can go to to see what other people have done as far as a combination of stitches, so you can just put a stitch recipe on this ribbon and be all set with another fancy band. And again, now im just going to do this down the center. I should also tell you what i did before i ever stitched anything down. I got all my pieces prepared, and i did use a very, very light misting of spray adhesive to hold this ribbon in place. Martha i like to do that with ribbons too. Thats a little heavier fabric, a ribbon is. Yes, and what i would also tell you is, dont be discouraged if, as you are doing this, it seems like that ribbon is puckering up, because what happensits like magic. What happens is, after you put even more stitches on it and press it, it really comes out looking wonderful. Martha and i love the idea. You said you used a little bit of toneontone. You changed shades a little bit on the ribbon, and that gives it just that extra little touch of interest, doesnt it . Mmhmm, it does. Martha nina, thank you so very much for sharing this wonderful quilt and these wonderful techniques and those beautiful stitches with us. Youre welcome. Martha and now i have a piece from my vintage collection to share with you. This dress is absolutely, absolutely, absolutely a showstopper. I cannot wait to show you. The details are overwhelming, they are so beautiful. First of all, we have the mitered diamond in the middle with this beautiful, beautiful little swiss embroidered piece inserted. Then look at the tucks that are in this little piece that is inserted. Another piece of beautiful mitered lace and gathered edging, and then strips down the side of the bodice. And then look at the little ruffle on the side. There is a detail here i would like for you to see. This is edging attached to edging. Usually, you have lace attached to edging, but it makes it so pretty. You have those extra little scallops. And this mother has also done the same treatment. Well, we have the beautiful tucks, but look on the little cuff. Edging attached to edging attached to edging, which is so unusual to find, and then a little bit of baby edging on the bottom. The skirt is beautiful. It has release tucks. And this is a very special detailteeny, teeny little strips of tucks, i mean half an inch wide, all the way down the front of the dress. And then we get down to the bottom. Once more, we see the beautiful diamond, the mitered diamond, with that pretty, pretty little swiss embroidery inserted. And once again, beautiful release tucks, and then now, this time, its very interesting. Instead of having edging and edging, we have insertion and edging. So who knows . She was just being very creative. The back is absolutely magnificent too. Some of the same details. Look how this matches in the middle. For our sewing from the heart today, i have an absolutely wonderful letter from Frances Metcalf from the Springfield Lincoln land American Sewing Guild chapter. Dear martha, the Springfield Lincoln land, illinois, chapter of the American Sewing Guild sews brightly colored pillowcases for camp coco, children battling cancer; camp carealot, underprivileged children; and the Ronald Mcdonald house. There are a wide variety of bright prints with solid bands of trim on the hem that campers get to pick, and at the end of the camp, they get to take one home. The project was begun about five years ago for just one camp. They liked them so well, the word spread, and we have additional requests each year. We have an allday cutting and kitting, followed the next month by an allday stitching. Members contribute fabric from their stashes, and our supply of fabric seems to multiply like the loaves and the fishes to fill the requests. Our American Sewing Guild has so much fun with this project. Frances metcalf. Thank you, American Sewing Guilds all over the country, for all you do. Id like to invite you to come back to see me next week. Announcer to receive a newsletter written personally by martha with sewing tips and a great recipe, visit our website. For more information on show projects or to purchase the marthas sewing room series, log on to or call the 13program series is available for 39. 95 plus shipping and handling. Funding for marthas sewing room is made possible by the warm company dedicated to providing Innovative Products for the quilting, crafting, and sewing industry. Koala studios highquality sewing furniture custombuilt in america. Floriani the name that means beautiful embroidery. Presencia manufacturing highquality cotton, rayon embroidery, and sewing and quilting threads. And sew beautiful magazine devoted to providing inspiration to stitchers everywhere. Captioning by captionmax www. Captionmax. Com dean hi, welcome back to hometime. Its getting a little chilly up here in the north woods of wisconsin but thats not going to keep us from wrapping up a couple of projects up here at the log cabin. Were going to be updating a couple of bathrooms with thermostatic valves and slide bar and showers. So well show you whats involved with that. If youre looking for some neat decorative trim, weve got some pretty finished Crown Molding we want you to take a look at. And well talk about using wireless and 4g components to really simplify security and control systems whether its your Main Residence or a vacation setting like this. Well its a lot to do so were going to to have to keep moving. Hopefully you can stick around. Man 1 what we need is some elbow grease. Man 2 yeah, you can. Oh, are you kidding me . Man 3 gmc, proud to lend a helping hand to hometime. Dean now a log cabin like this is a gorgeous setting up in the north woods but like anything else from time to time it needs a few updates. Thats why we went into some detail last time on creating a new drain field for the septic system its a little bit uphill so theres a new pump for that a control panel to run it a filter to keep solids from clogging the system a microbial inoculator to treat the effluent insulated pipes to go under the driveway and polystyrene bundles to protect the pipes out in the new drain field all of which will keep things nice and clean and no visible impact once things start growing back a little. Weve also got some new chimney pipe for the wood burning stove inside the cabin. Thats got insulation between the inner flue and the outer casing which will keep creosote from collecting in there and reduce the chance of a chimney fire. Okay, so now were going to spend a little time talking about some of the improvements were going to make to the plumbing system here. Back when this was built in 1990, they just put in very standard valves for the showers and im sure youve run into this experience on a saturday morning when you say okay everybody im going to take a shower, dont anybody turn on any water because if somebody flushes the toilet you end up getting scalded. Well the way to prevent that is using pressure balancing and thermostatic valves. Thats what were going to be doing in each of the bathrooms. Now heres the way this works. The cold water comes in one side, the hot in the other, when somebody flushes a toilet you lose pressure on the cold side. Now what these valves do is they will equalize that pressure so you have the same amount of water running in both sides to maintain the temperature that youve got. You dont have to worry about getting scalded. When the cold ramps up again, so does the hot, youre back to your regular flow again. And the thermostatic part is you can set your temperature for the exact temperature you want every time you take a shower. You leave it set, you just come in and you turn on the volume so you never have to get in there and like kind of tweak it to get the exact temperature. You know its going to be exactly the same every time. Buki any time youre doing any type of remodeling theres nine out of ten times theres going to be some demo involved which we have here. We have a bunch of tongue and groove boards on our backside of our shower that we need to take off. Why ive got to do this because we need to get access to our plumbing. I went up as high as i need to go on the back side, just where the showerhead comes out and down on the bottom here ive taken all these boards off so we can get access to our copper. One thing we do like to do when youre taking boards off, youre gonna reuse them especially with tongue and groove, if theyre not all the same length, just number them so you know where they go back together. It just looks a lot nicer. Now that we have access to all our copper with all our boards removed, the next thing we have to do is we have to shut the water off to the cabin and cut the hot and cold water