Sulky, makers of decorative threads, stabilizers, and books. Sulky. Express yourself; fabriquilt. The fabric of inspiration; omnigrid. Providing quilters with specialty rulers and accessories for over twentyfive years; Quilters Club of america, offering patterns and videos to the passionate quilter. Hello, thanks for watching love of quilting. This is the 2100 series and we have a dynamic, exceptional quilt today. Lets take a look. Yes. This is beautiful for many reasons. We love it for all kinds of reasons. Its all flannel, so its a perfect guy quilt because guys love their flannel plaid shirts. They love flannel quilts. Were going to have to watch the cameramen today so that someone doesnt run off with it. They all commented on it. Part of the reason they liked it is the flannel. But to everyones eye its very appealing. All of those chevrons taking flight, going north with all the hexagons nestled together real tight like that. I think its unusual and it grabs your attention in a way that is really unique. Its got great graphic impact. It was made by kim cairns. Also, the quilter is nancy stovall. We always want to credit people because toppers like us really love our longarmers. Absolutely. Beautiful job. Lets take a look at a single block. Absolutely. Here it is. Unless you really were told, you would think it was a true hexagon, but its slightly elongated. It is. This block is perfect for paper piecing for a number of reasons. The special shape lends itself well to doing it in a paper piecing style. So very tidy and neat. They dont look that neat when theyre pieced, but then you trim it down and it looks great. Theres one thing i want to point out about the block thats very important. Part of the reason this design is so successful is because kim chose to keep a few things consistent. She kept the center of that chevron, that inverted triangle as youre looking at it triangle its supposed to be a triangle. I dont know why that came out that way. Its a little pyramid. The little guy always stays the same fabric. It always stays red and its consistent throughout all the chevrons she made. Whats also consistent is the brown that surrounds that center of the chevron. It is also always brown. So those three triangles, which actually start as squares, are consistent. Exactly. Then also, the very edge of the block is always red. Kim did vary the different red flannel prints that she used, but it is always red. Its those inner stripes that change a little bit. Everyone does have the lightest fabric goes after that little pyramid. Then theres randomness and theres unity. These are great design qualities that make a quilt from being ordinary to really outstanding. If you didnt keep a few things consistent like the center of these blocks, your eye would have no place to land. It would be very scrappy and probably be very beautiful and be well loved by anyone who got it, im sure but if youd really like to make a dynamic impact in your quilt, keeping the chaos organized is a really smart its almost a rule in certain ways. The eye needs a place to rest. So heres our pattern on lightweight. We printed it on our printer, lightweight paper. Before we get started piecing, were going to do some things that help us out. Im going to fold along these lines that are our first seams to help me when i position that number one piece. These pieces are numbered as any paper piecing pattern would be, in the order that you would add. This is number 1, 2, 3, 4 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. So were going around that first part, and then its back and forth side to side. One more thing i know we want to get going. As youre looking at your hexagon, you might notice it looks like thats one length of flannel. Thats another. Youve got a lot of different lengths of flannels, but in fact 5 and 6 7 and 8, 9 and 10 and 11 and 12 are all the same length. The same length strip just for easy cutting. We dont want to have you cutting 50 million different lengths of strips. Theyd be so close that wed mix them up. This is all in the pattern, which you can find at fonsandporter. Com, all the supplies youll need for any project we do on tv and all kinds of goodies are at fonsandporter. Com. It will tell you where to get the pattern. Im sorry i interrupted. No no, thats great. Its important to let people know where they can find stuff because its a lot more fun for everybody to watch the show knowing that they can find more information rather than trying to write it down. If i write something down i miss the next five things people say. Ive made these crease lines around my number one piece. That helps me know where to position. Im going to take this. If you will open our nifty glue stick. Sure thing. Done. That was easy. It went pretty fast. Im going to put a little dab of glue there. Can you close that for me now . Yes, i was able to do that. I dont know what id do without you. Youd have to open a glue stick yourself. I would. Im sure more than that. Now ive got this piece positioned and im going to add number two piece. Im going to fold this back on that fold line. Youre going to cut for me now . Yep. Ill position the ruler. You need your little glove, honey. Thanks. You need this over closer to you. Were going to trim that piece off. It was easy to cut it as a square, and now were customizing that piece so that we can add our patchwork really well. Our number two piece is the brown, so now i put them right sides together. Paper piecing, youre always putting right sides together. If you dont do a lot of paper piecing we dont do a ton of it either one of us it depends on the pattern. It depends on the pattern. Sometimes it feels like im learning paper piecing every time i do it because i dont do it that often. Just like in piecing, youre always putting right sides together. I dont know how else i would do this pattern. This is the way to do this pattern. I agree. I like how you talked about building it from the back. Once i put pieces right sides together then im going to sew it from the back. Im going to join the common seam, like our guest judy talked about our common seam between the two pieces. Im just going to reiterate so everybody is really clear while you are sewing. When youre paper piecing you shorten your stitch because youre going to be sewing through fabric and paper and you want to make sure it is Strong Enough so when you tear your paper away you wont tear your stitch or loosen your stitch. When we Start Talking about quilting the flannel thats what you would think. Well get to that later. Im going to open this out. Ive added piece number two. You turn this over. Now were going to trim this. Well, actually i want to do number three next. I want to fold between number 1 and number 3 because these are sidebyside. Trim that off. Im leaving my glove on. Youre my assistant. Theres so much trimming to be done. You have lots of scraps. I need the next little brown piece, 1, 2, 3. Thats really nice flannel. Were going to put a little dab of glue on this one, just because sometimes these pieces we dont something to flip around and wind up sewing one corner to the other. There are a lot of pieces in this block. You dont need to do that to every piece, right . Just down there. Now im going to sew this common seam thats between 1 and 3. I go just a couple stitches outside. I use my button to lower my presser foot. It just seems easier for me to use my hand on the lever to kind of fine tune the place where i want to be. I go a little bit past, cut my thread. If youve got an automatic thread cutter on your machine thats kind of the problem with some paper piecing you have all this thread management to deal with. Once you have a machine with a thread cutter its hard to go back. Now weve gotten 1, 2, 3, so number 4 is next. I want to fold here. Im going to add a couple more. Once we get to the point where its all the same after that, then we wont demonstrate the whole block. Im sure Everyone Wants to know how these blocks go together. Some of them might be frightened. We should have a drum roll. Setting. In. Setting in seams. A sort of Alfred Hitchcock suspense movie. Thats right. Youre good. Im ready. Here you go. Were also going to talk about some tips for working with flannel because flannel doesnt behave exactly the way cotton broadcloth behaves. So were going to give some great tips for that that will also be available at fonsandporter. Com. This is the next one. I panicked for a minute because i was thinking ahead to my first long piece. Thats what i always do when i paper piece. I panic that ive sewn something to the wrong side. You know what would happen if i did . Id take it out and redo it. It would not be that big of a deal. Unless you start slicing things apart. So there we go. Its great. It looks like that little warning symbol. The hazmat sign. Yeah, the hazmat sign. Now were ready for number 5. This is the way i like to do this. Just fold it back. I might have to pull out a little stitch or two. I just want to show these strips. All pretty low contrast within reason. Trim that off. You get to trim. Im behind. You were thinking ahead too. Because youre using your ruler and rotary cutter, youre cutting really accurate 1 4inch seams. The measuring has been done. Its not critical but it does keep things neat. Now you can put this piece on right sides together. I can see under there. Its not a bad idea to audition the piece. Flannel really clings nicely with those right sides together. We said the word audition at the exact same time, mom. We do more and more. Im turning into her and we have a mind meld. Youre so much better than i am. Not true. I love seeing you grow as a quilter. I think the thing it doesnt get much better than this to have your kid, you next of kin, your daughter become a quilter. I think what really ive got to cut that first. What really was the deciding factor was when you started working with designing your own quilts i had to make my quilts my own. Thats when i really caught the quilting bug. Thats when i made the quilts that i liked not the ones you necessarily liked. I think everybody thats a quilter wants to make their own quilt. So you add these pieces. Our next piece would be number 6. We would come over here and fold just like we have get rid of that stuff especially with this flannel. You dont want this extra thick material under there. When paper piecing first started we hadnt learned these little tricks. So carol doak and others who are experts in paper piecing have come up with ways to streamline the method, streamline the cutting, make the result better. So lets pull in that stack that shows the progression. So youre trimming duties are over for the moment, but not completely. Im ready to jump back in. Do we want to go through just to kind of review because it never hurts to make a review. Heres piece 1 and 2. Then we have that little pyramid. Then we put the gray. This is the last piece i added and this would be the next one. This is called the tepee stage. The chevron begins to sort of show. This was the next piece and then the next one. This would get trimmed off before the next piece went on. Its just building, building until we get to here. Now we want to take these away because the block is finished. This i think is probably the magic moment with a paper piece block because you finish it and youre not really that excited about it. It doesnt look so great. Its going to in, like, 30 seconds. If youve ever made a string quilt thats usually foundation pieced or paper pieced then you have this monster of scraps and it doesnt look like anything. But when you trim it, its like the voila reveal moment. Its really easy to trim a block like this because in our case you have a colored pattern. Mary, youre going to trim 1 4 inch away. What you want to do is 1 4 inch from that colored line. I think im about there. Youre just going to trim fabric off in that case. Sometimes youre trimming through paper and sometimes paper and fabric. Im going to give you plenty of room. This is a good time to mention we were talking about one of the tips for flannel that well get to is talking about your needle how you should begin a flannel project with a new needle because flannel is thicker and your needle will need to be nice and sharp. I was saying for this project you might want to make sure you have needles on hand to change out. Youll see when we start joining these blocks together there are times when youll be sewing through two layers of flannel and two layers of paper. Two layers of paper. That paper is really every block we could count how many pieces of theres 12 pieces of fabric, so theres going to be a seam every time you add. So youre sewing through paper all the time. Ive heard some piecers change their needle out every four or five hours of sewing. Im not that good. I think i change my needle more than you do. I get paranoid. I change it for a new project. What were going to do were going to join two. Im going to keep the paper on take it to the machine, and actually start sewing, not at that corner because we want to leave the seams open. So im going to start a little ways away sew into the corner pivot on the corner go back over here, stop on the corner and sew out. How far do you start in . Half an inch . Less than half an inch. So presser foot down, fine tune the positioning get my hands out of the way so our camera can see. Im going to sew into that corner, stop. Raise my presser foot down, keep my needle down, turn it around, presser foot down. So im making a really secure corner. I can go a little faster. Youre right, lots of layers. Its neat that line is there to help you to know exactly where youre supposed to sew. I turned around at that corner and come out a little bit. You could backstitch too, right . You could but its easier to drive. Its like backing up a car. So now ive joined these two but my seams are open. If you are making this quilt like kims, i think we counted theres like ten or so blocks in a line alternated with 11 because you chop off the half blocks. You make full blocks and chop them off later. Because weve left these seams open, what im going to do is i want to join this seam and this seam and it would go on in a quilt. Im going to put these together, and im going to do the same thing i did before. Youre not pinning. Im not pinning. With all this paper under here, its not whooshing around. Thats a technical term. Im going to sew to the corner, raise my presser foot. I can see how once you get a whole big patch going its kind of hard to handle. You could do it in sections. I think i would. Ultimately youre going to have im not going to say yes. Id have to examine that. Im going to ask our floor producer. Shes nodding her head saying you probably could work in sections. One more stitch raise the presser foot, come around, lower the presser for a couple more stitches. Youre going to be amazed everybody, at this. So now ive joined that. Now i can bend this over and join this. Im going to join this one; i think weve got time. Setin seams really arent scary. You just have to do a few. Im kind of digging this. Stitch, stitch, stitch into the corner. Presser foot up. Making the quilt, you have a lot to run around under the free arm. Thats why im saying working in smaller sections and then joining those might be a good idea. Read the instructions. Read the instructions and follow the pattern and maybe youll find you like another way. As soon as i reach the magic moment we just have enough time to go over those flannel tips. I could do this all on the front of my machine. Look how easy that was. Now the next one do i have time to do the next one. Why dont you talk about flannel tips while i sew this last one. This next one im going to do the same thing. Ill try to talk too while i finish this last seam. Theres lots of tips for working with flannel effectively. One of the first things you should know this is a great debate among quilters is whether or not you prewash fabric in general. Some quilters are in the camp that they prewash everything before they begin cutting and piecing. Some never do and they all have their reasons for that. I do not. You do not and i do not either. Youve been primarily my teacher and you usually do what your teachers taught you. But when it comes to flannel, there are more quilters who might be in the camp of yes, you should prewash. That doesnt mean that everybody does. When youre working with high quality fabric whether its cotton or flannel, you probably dont have to. If its really great quality flannel you may not need to. But flannel does tend to shrink quite a bit if its a lesser quality, and it does tend to fray when you are working with it. So some quilters do like to prewash. Thats one tip. Ive got this done. We have a cheat sheet because we wanted to be sure to remember everything. If you do prewash you might need extra fabric because flannel is stretchy. Its going to shrink more. Its more loosely woven really is what it is. Also, you might notice that the flannels in this project by kim cairns kim kerns. I think its cairns. Kim cairns. Its all kind of low contrast. Theres not really any strong stripes. Flannel is stretchy and when you cut that flannel and theres a real dark line against a real light fabric its going to be really wavy. Another good tip for working with flannel is to pick patterns and projects that use quicker cutting and piecing techniques. Paper piecing is great. Using lots of templates and lots of marking, that can be tricky because youre handling that flannel a lot and it will stretch out more. Especially a diamond or something. If you were marking around a template, your pencil would drag on it. Another thing you might want to do is use a lowloft batting once your quilt is made because flannel is thick already. Getting back to my little booboo earlier is that if youre machine quilting flannel thats when you might want a little larger stitch because that stitch will embed into the flannel and might just disappear into the nap. Into the nap of it. So really utility quilting with pearl cotton is a great way to go. For the rest of these tips, theyll be online. Before we go, lets take one more look at kims quilt, chasing chevrons. Those setting pieces on the side that brown just really frames the whole thing nicely. I think she did a wonderful job with this quilt. It might be for a man in your life and it might just be for you. Its a truly great quilt. Grab a pencil. Tips and other useful information coming up next. My first tip is from elaine davis from fairmount, illinois. She sent this so we could show it. This is to keep her sewing machine needles organized in pocket pages. These pages fit in a folder or three ring binder a report cover like this. The information she has punched in the back about know your needles. Then shes got little pieces of synthetic felt so that so you can see the needle package. Its great. I want her to come organize my closet shes probably a professional organizer, at least of needles. Very, very cool. This is a tip from tami whitehead. She lives in keokuk, iowa. She makes her own fussy cut templates using clear template material and colored card stock or an index card, if its large enough. She makes the cut size of the piece from the clear template material and cuts a frame from the card stock and glues them together. Shes got sturdy templates so she can see the design minus the seam allowance right through the template. Thats a great idea. This idea is great. This is from lisa von sneidern i may have it wrong; im sorry, lisa from tucson, arizona. This is bakers parchment paper you buy at the grocery store. Its very popular for baking these days. She puts this between her iron and ironing board when shes working with fusibles so she doesnt get the goo on her ironing board cover. Speaking of cleaning, pipe cleaners we dont clean too many pipes these days. Somebody does. Thats more old fashioned. But you can certainly use them to clean your sewing machine. Anne servello of renton, washington, uses pipe cleaners to clean the nooks and crannies in her sewing machine. The fuzzy part latches onto the lint and dust really nicely, and you throw it away when youre done. I actually like getting the lint out of my sewing machine. These are inexpensive alcohol prep pads. Sharon tamas of dayton, ohio, keeps them in her sewing box and some in a drawer by her sewing machine. When you jab yourself with your needle which happens from time to time, you can touch the spot with that and also clean your needle if it gets sticky from anything. This tip comes from trina esplin from shelley, idaho. She says she lays packaged quilt batting on the floor and uses a blow dryer to remove wrinkles. She says the folds in the batting disappear like magic. Thats a great idea. You can also toss it in the dryer with a damp cloth and roll it around in there and it will take wrinkles out. Ive got one more bit of advice. Theres no prop for this one. Its just advice. Debi zukowski from springfield, massachusetts, says dont bite off more than you can chew. One of the first quilts she started was a king size bed quilt. She didnt finish it for ten years. Send your tips to p. O. Box 171 winterset, ia 50273 or go to the tip section of fonsandporter. Com. If we use one of your tips on a future program youll get a oneyear free subscription to love of quilting magazine. Thanks for watching love of quilting. Well see you next time. Byebye. Additional quilting ideas from marianne and liz are available in fons porters love of quilting magazine. A oneyear subscription contains 60 or more projects easy to follow stepbystep instructions and our tips techniques, and shortcuts. In addition to the magazine youll get two dvds containing all 13 shows from the 2100 series and two additional booklets with extra projects, tips and techniques. The cost is 29. 97. To order call 8667299601 or visit our website, fonsandporter. Com tvspecial. You can visit our web site for free quilt tips. Sew easy quilting lessons. And slide shows of spectacular quilts. Download free quilt patterns. See supply lists for tv projects. Join our quilting community and more. Log on to fonsandporter. Com. Funding for fons porters love of quilting is provided by for over forty years baby lock has been dedicated to the love of sewing by creating machines for quilting, sewing, embroidery, and serging. Baby lock. For the love of sewing; koala studios delivers sewing furniture custom built in america; american professional quilting systems. Apqs offers a full line of handguided quilting machines made in americas heartland for americas artisans; reliable corporation. Makers of reliable irons. No spitting, no leaking. No kidding; sulky, makers of decorative threads, stabilizers, and books. Sulky. Express yourself; fabriquilt. The fabric of inspiration; omnigrid. Providing quilters with specialty rulers and accessories for over twentyfive years; Quilters Club of america, offering patterns and videos to the passionate quilter. 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. Hi. Welcome back. Certainly glad you could join us today, cause its a fantastic day here, and i hope it is wherever youre at. So ill tell you what, lets start out today and have them run all the colors across the screen that you need to paint along with us. While theyre doing that, let me show you what ive got done up here. I have my standard old doubleprimed prestretched canvas, and today im using an 18 x 24 inch. You use whatever size is convenient for you. And ive covered the entire canvas with a very, very thin, say it again, thin coat of the liquid white. So the canvas is all wet and its slick and its ready to go, so ill tell you what, lets just do a fantastic little painting together. Thought wed do something today thats just fun. We film this show in muncie, indiana, so i thought maybe today wed do a show that has maybe a little farmlike scene in it, but i think will be pretty. So lets start off with an old 2 inch brush, a little bit of, lets start with a Little Indian yellow, lets make a very simple little sky that you can do with no problem very, very simple. Just a fun little sky, a Little Indian yellow, see there . Now that colors continually mixing with the liquid white thats on the canvas. All right, without cleaning the brush, im just going to go into a little bit of yellow ochre, its sort of a gold color. And well go right above that, just a little, just a little. Now, again, well just blend them together. Now then. Now im going to clean the brush. Going to clean the brush, and we clean our brush with odorless paint thinner, shake off the excess, and just beat the devil out of it. We have more fun cleaning the brush, its just unreal. Lets go into, well right into midnight black. Now i cleaned the brush in between these colors because if you put yellow and black together, as you know, it makes green. But im going to take a little black and just gray the sky on top, and if were real careful, we can bring it right down into the yellow, right where they join, without ending up with a bright green sky. See, just let them sort of blend together gently. Like that. There. Thats all there is to it. Now then. We can take that same old brush, and maybe theres a little cloud that lives right there. See . See . There he is, a little old stringy cloud. He just sort of hangs out right there. Maybe hes got a little friend right there. Tell you what, maybe theres another one over here, i dont know, i dont know. This piece of canvas truly is your world, and you have to make these Big Decisions. Now im going to take a clean brush, i changed brushes, clean, dry brush, three hairs and some air, and very gently, just blend that out. And today, thats about all im going to do for a little sky. I want this just to be very, very simple. Just a very simple little sky. There. That way, we can spend most of our painting time worrying about other things. Lets use a little 1 inch brush, im going to grab the knife. I want to make some brown. Well make quite a pile of brown, well use it throughout the painting. Take alizarin crimson and sap green in about equal parts. Now you can take it to either side, you can take it to the green side, or to the reddish side depending on your mood or the effects you want to create. Doesnt matter, its up to you. You decide. Today, im just going to have it a nice brown. O. K. , wipe the old knife off here. We just wipe the knife on old paper towel. Well just a little old 1 inch brush and go right into a little of that brown. Just going to use it for a little background color. Think ill put a little black with it, darken it. There. Oh, thats nice. And maybe back in here lets just use little xs, and maybe theres going to be some little trees that live far away, so im not looking for a lot here except basic, very basic little shapes. See, just sort of scrub them in, we dont care. This is your world, and you can do any old thing here. There something about like that. Just let it go. Im going to add a little more black down at the base cause i want it to be a little darker, indicate theres some shadows down there. Got to have a, got to have a place down here for all my little animal friends to hide in, to relax. There. O. K. Wherever you think they should be. Now then. Now today, im going to get a little, this is a little half size round brush. Its a small round brush. Put a little bit of liquid white on it, a little bit of yellow, be right back. Im going to get a touch of blue and a little touch of black, make a nice green here. So weve got green, a little yellow ochre here and there im going to probably hit the Little Indian yellow, maybe even a little bright red now and then, and red and green make brown, so i use red as a duller. If i want to dull the green, then thats what i use. Lets go up here. Now then, lets go in here and just tap in the indication of some beautiful Little Things that are happening far, far away. See there . And vary the colors a little bit. We dont want a lot of detail. These are supposed to look like little trees that live far away. Add a little bright red to that, oh, i like that color, like that color makes me excited. Its so beautiful. There. Probably, probably painted 25, 30,000 paintings in my life, and i still get excited when i see this works, so easy so much fun, and it brings so much happiness to so many people. That truly, truly is the joy of painting. There. O. K. Let me get a little bit more of that reddish color. This would be a nice scene to do in autumn colors, where you really get crazy, use a lot of the reds and the crimsons and oh, just, when jack frost when he starts touching the trees, just makes some of the most gorgeous colors in the world. I lived in alaska for many, many years, and you never talk about alaska in the fall, but alaska has some of the most gorgeous fall colors of any place ive ever been. I really do think god was having a good day when he made alaska, its so beautiful. I havent been there in a couple of years now, about time to go back. There. Say hello to all my friends there. All right. But see now, weve got all those little tree things back there, and its really easy. Take a liner brush, just a very small amount of that little brown color that we used. There, see . Just a little, a little bit. O. K. , lets go up in here. Now, here and there, and there and here, im just going to put the indication of a few little trunks and stems and all those things that live in trees. There. See them . Dont want a lot, just a few. Dont overdo. O. K. All right. Well just wash the old liner brush. Shoot. Find a brush here thats not too dirty. We dont care. Go into the brown and the black, a little bit of sap green here and there just to give it a little greenish hue, o. K. , lets go up in here. Lets make some Big Decisions in our world. Maybe there lives some land right here. Were going to do a little scene, ill tell you what, im going to save this whole side over here and put a big tree. You know, if youve painted with me before, i love these big trees. There. So well play with those today a little bit too. Its again the browns and the blacks. Im just looking for a dark color, so on top of that then well put some nice highlights. Make a Little Grassy area. This is a good place to practice and just get the feel of the brush. You could actually, you could put this on with a mop, it doesnt matter, but by doing this, it gives you practice with the brush, so i suggest you take every opportunity to get the feel of the brush. So much of painting is a feel. And it comes with practice. Boy if i dont quit im going to have the whole canvas covered up. But thats o. K. , thats o. K. Look there though, by putting all these different layers in here, just by tapping, already you can see distance in the painting. Looks like trees that live way, way back there somewhere. We dont know where they live, dont know that we even care. Im going to dip the brush into the least little touch of the liquid white. We dip it into the liquid white only to thin the paint. Be right back, get a little green a little sap green, oh thats pretty. Sap greens such a nice color. O. K. , tap it and give it a little push. See, you can see that little ridge of paint right there. Theres one just like that on the end of the bristles, and thats what were looking for. Lets go up here. Now then, if were going to have a nice little field, we just begin coming right in here, and think about the lay of the land, or how the land flows. And we can begin putting in all kinds of beautiful Little Grassy areas and just go through all your different yellows and your greens, its up to you, up to you. Im just going to sort of dance it back and forth between all the different yellows, sometime the little, oh look there, we hit a little bright red, nice tree little tree, i mean nice Little Grassy area its not a tree. Could be. Give it a little fertilizer, love it, water it regular, might be a tree there. Tell you what, tell you what, lets have, were going to have a little scene maybe we want to have a little see, im just going to scrape out a basic shape, im going to have a little barn back here. Its just a nice place to have a little barn. Scrape out a basic shape with the knife, just so you have an idea where youre going, but more important, removes that loose excess paint. Ill go right into that brown color i made, brown is made from sap green and alizarin crimson see . Think about the basic shape of your old barn, got to have a place for the cow to go at night. He may get scared out here, might be an old hoot owl out here that makes noises and scares him. Shoot, when i was a kid i used to camp out and late at night the old owl would make a little old noise. I was ready to call my mother and go home. But as i got older i had the opportunity to learn what those creatures were, why those noises were made. Ill tell you what, before the series is over, im going to show you, im going to show you a big old owl. Im going to show you a Great Horned Owl that i had the pleasure of meeting. I think we have some video with him on there. Im just going to get him up here for you. Take a little bright red, a little of that brown we made, a little bit of white into it. Dont overmix it. See that color . Its not overmixed. Now when we cut our little roll of paint off, all those little designs are still in the paint. Now we can go up here, and just begin putting some color in. Im going to make that a little bit brighter, a little more white into it so it shows up for you. Thats better. And im just going to let the knife sort of bounce. I dont want this just to be solid. I like Old Buildings in my paintings, but its up to you. If you want them to look newer, be a little more careful with them. I like it to look like about half of its blowed away and its about to fall down. The old farmer that lived out here, he didnt take too good a care of it. Maybe he had some bad days. There. See there . Now over here, almost nothing. Almost nothing. Tell you what, well get a little more of that brown. If this farmers like me, he needs more room. Lets give him a shed out here. There. A little shed, put some sides on it. Back to our little roof color, see how easy it is . Wished it was that easy to actually build this shed. I used to be a carpenter years ago, my father was a carpenter and he taught me that trade, and ill tell you what, it isnt that easy to make a shed on a barn. Now then, we can come right in here and do a barnectomy. Sort of figure out where we think everything should live, work on our perspective, see there . Now we need a door. If were going to have a old cow living in there we need a door. There it is. Now bossy can get in and go out. We can take and make just the indication of a few old boards that live right along here. There. Just by touching, come across, a little bit of light color on the knife, lets sort of outline that door a little bit so it stands out and we see it better. But thats a pretty good looking old raggedy barn out there. Now. Were not too worried about the bottom cause well come back with our old 2 inch brush that we made the grassy areas with, and just sort of fill it in. There. Like that. And when youre painting, make up little stories. Think about the old cow that lives in here or the chickens or the pig or whatever lives in this old barn. I stay in so much trouble at home, id probably have to live in there. There. Now then. Tell you what. We need a little path. Well take a little of that brown and white. Lets just put a little path in here. There. A little path so theres a way to get in and out. Just a little path, comes right up. A little highlight on it, not much, not much. I want to keep it pretty dark. And maybe in our world shoot, if we got a cow here, we need to contain her somehow. There. Put a little fence right up here. Maybe the fence goes right about there. Maybe it comes right up here, i dont know. O. K. , if our lights coming from this direction and the old barn indicates it is well highlight a little bit on that side of the fence. See there . Just a little high light. Now you can take just the heel or the back of the knife, and just cut right through there either direction, and make the indication of some wire on there. Itll scratch through and just let a little canvas show. Well put three strands of wire on our fence. We got a big cow in here and we dont want her getting out. Sometimes its neat, take a little bit of, i think its a little bright red put just a little top on those little devils. Cause as long as when you cut fence posts, i mean, cut the tree down to make a fence post, you paint the ends of it to keep it from deteriorating. There. So we did that. Lets just keep going here. Put some more of that brown and black color underneath here. As i say, see if you were in a big hurry, you could just paint it on, doesnt make any difference. I usually like to tap it on though because it, once again, gives you a lot of practice using the brush. But however, it doesnt matter. Doesnt matter. There. A little more black, a little more brown. O. K. We said, we were going to have a big tree over here and we left a big hole, so well have a big tree. Well take the old 2 inch brush, there it is, just use the corner of the brush and tap in some basic shapes. This old tree, maybe theres a group of trees, lets have a group. A whole big family of trees live back here. Add a little bit of bright red to that color. Yes, i like that. And here and there, leave a couple of holes in your trees so some sky can show through. Let a little light get through. A birds got to have a way to fly through there. There. Wherever. And down toward the base, im going more into the black. I want it to get darker darker down here, indicates shadows. A lot of shadows. There. Something about like that. O. K. Lets have, lets have a few little old tree trunks in there. Let me find a little fan brush here. Im going to dip the fan brush into a little bit of paint thinner just to wet it up a little, and im going to load it full of this brown, a little black on it, then im going to come right over here and pull one side through a little bit of that lighter color. So theres a little difference in the color. One side is a little lighter than the other. I know its hard to see, but it is a little lighter. We said our light was coming from the left, so we want that lighter side on the left, and theres not a, theres not a whole big difference in there, but a little. I just want to put the indication of some Little Things that live way back in there. Were not too worried about them at this point. Take our liner brush, a little paint thinner, a little of that brown color, and here and there, im just going to put the indication of a few little arms that are on some of these little trees back in here. There. See . Were not looking for a lot of detail. These are too far back. Maybe if we have time, maybe well just put a big old tree in here. I like big old trees. Now. We can just use, well just use a nice old 2 inch brush here, gray a little sap green, oh, thats nice. Dont want a lot of color. Just a little. A little red too, i want to dull it. There. Good. Up in here, just use the corner of the brush. Put the indication here and there and there and here of some leaves that live out here. Think about patterns and shapes though, dont just throw them in at random. I know it gets to be fun and its just tempting just to drop them everywhere. Retain a lot of your dark areas though. It makes them look deeper. There we go. Isnt that a neat way though to make a big old pile of trees . So easy. So easy. There. Put a little one right there, Something Like that. All right. This truly is a, thats a lazy mans way of painting. Thats why i like it. I always look for ways to make painting easier, but yet effective. There. Because if you have some success with this, then you really like it and you go and you paint everything, and maybe, a lot of people that i talk to whove had success with this and they end up in college or something really studying some fine traditional art because this worked for them. So thats whats so nice. Back to my brush here that we were using to make some Little Grassy areas, well put in a little maybe theres a little hill right there. Yes. Yes there is see him . Any old place you want him. Right along here, all right. I really like that. Im going to add the least little touch of paint thinner to my brush. Cause a thin paint will stick to a thick paint, so thatll make it come off the brush easier, cause the paint that i have up here, very thick, very strong, very dry. Its not like traditional paints. There. Just vary the colors a little bit, just work in layers. Let all these Little Things happen. Wherever you want them, maybe a little bit right there. I like that. Just to push that path a little further down in there. O. K. Over in here, theres maybe a little bit, wherever. A little bit more. There. All right. We said, well get crazy here. Lets load a fan brush full of black and that brown that we made from crimson and sap green. Are you ready . This is your bravery test, right now. Fan brush is full of color. Big decision. Maybe it starts right here, maybe this old tree had some rough days and hes got some crooks and some, oh yes, i like trees. Trees are a lot of fun. Gorgeous. A lot of fun. Put him a big old foots out here so he has something to stand on. We want him to be strong, maybe well give him a big arm here, like that. Got to make those little noises or it just doesnt work right. Now then. Lets see, we had a little brown and white mixed up here already. Just touch it and sort of let the knife just bounce, barely touch it, barely. Let this sort of touch. See . A little bit up in here, barely touch. There. Something about like that. Thats all that were looking for. Darker, darker, darker. On the other side, we can take a little bit of the prussian blue, a little bit of white. I want to make a dark blue. I want to make the indication of a little reflected light right there, see, cause i think that these trees would stop the light, so were going to get a little light through there. So ive highlighted this one intentionally on the other side, cause i think those trees would stop the light. There. There. A little bit of the lighter color just to make that edge stand out. There. You know when you buy your first tube of paint get your artists license issued to you, an artists license says on this piece of canvas, you can create any and every illusion that you want. Thats what we do. Im going to take a little paint thinner, and go up in here, and make the indication of some limbs and sticks and stuff that live right out in here. There. Wherever you want them. There. Now if you have trouble making this paint flow, just add more paint thinner to it. Maybe a lot of these old limbs that, maybe they just pooped out. Theyre old and tired. Maybe this old tree died. That happens sometime. That happens. There we go. Dont make all the limbs just come out the side. Have some come across. All right. Now then. Lets take a fan brush put some brown on it. Lets just make a path come right on out, right on out, here it comes, here it comes, right on out through the painting, so we have a way to get to that old barn. And you can take and just fill in a few Little Grassy areas bring it all together, put you a stick and a twig here and there with the knife. Shoot, weve got a finished painting. There. Hope you try this one, cause i think youll enjoy it and youll find it to be a lot of fun. And from all of us here, id like to wish you happy painting, and god bless, my friend. Ss theountry to the other side of town or even to work we all need gear to organize our stuff. This Program Kicks off our mini series on travel gear made easy. Id like you to welcome back mary mulari who has designed quick and easy yet very classy travel gear projects. Great to have you back, mary. Thanks, nancy. These are fun and easy projects that ill be happy to share. Our first project is the rollup travel blanket. Loop the strap over the extension handle of a carryon suitcase and store reading material or maps in the flap pockets. When its time for a nap unroll it to an adultsized blanket. Travel gear made easy thats whats coming up next on sewing with nancy. Sewing with nancy, celebrating 30 years of sewing and quilting 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. Marys rollup blanket has a lot of unique features and storage areas. Thats it, nancy. Here in the pocket we can store our boarding passes or maps in these pockets on the front. Theres one on the back, as well. But unroll it, and then the feature comes through. Thats right. Well undo the hook and loop tape and show you how the blanket is nice and large. It can be any size. But here, also on the back of this flap is another pocket. That opens and closes, and could hold some more of your treasures. Now, the blanket itself is 11 3 of a yard of fleece so its 48 x 60. It has a unique finish. The edging, first of all is cut with a rotary edge cutter with a pinking or a wave blade. I like to round out the corners. Youd use a tool or a guide to round it out. Then after that, you just turn the edge back 1 2. Here, the edge has been sewn. Its 1 4 in from the edge. I think its 1 2. The fold is 1 2 and the seam is at 1 4. The edge is a fold, and were going to cut the fold off. When you told me about this i thought, well, what a clever idea. Because often, that fold gets worn. But now we just trim it off. It has a unique look and it gives a little trim effect. Right, and theres a little bit of depth and interest there as well. It is. You can make this blanket any size but 11 3 yard is workable. That flap has all of the special details worked into it. We have the pieces here that ill get ready. We start with a front and a back, 9 x 12. We cut a front and a back. We also cut a lining. Our next sample shows that were using that same curve tool to cut the corners. Heres our lining. I like a light colored lining. Heres our back for this pocket flap. You may want to point out to our viewers that weve added fusible interfacing to the wrong side of the outer and the inner pocket. Right, thats to give this a little bit of extra stability. After weve got these pieces cut were going to take out a zipper. You can use any size youd like. That zipper is going to be placed 3 below the straight top edge of the front pocket. Just topstitch it into place with two rows of topstitching on each flap. You like to use the left needle position. I do, yes. I think that way, i can use my standard presser foot. You can see how easy that was to stitch with moving the needle position. You cant get into that zipper. Thats right, we have to do something about that. So on the back, were going to cut away the fabric thats between the stitching lines. Now we have a zipper opening in the fabric. Presto thats a fast zipper. I think this is a great way to take the fear out of zipper sewing. Now, the underflap, you have another zipper but in a different position. Yes, this one is 11 2 below the top curved edge of the backside. In our next sample, we have that same zipper sewn in but theres an additional piece of hook and loop tape thats sewn in the space above the zipper. Before we start assembling this were going to make a handle. In the book that accompanies todays program youll get these great instructions. Its 3 x 14, i think. Thats right. Were going to sew that fold in place. Then were going to position the ends which well fold in about an inch. Were going to stitch that to only the top layer of our pocket extension. Now the sandwiching begins. Right, we put all of the layers together. We have the lining our pink lining and the handle sewn into the front. That lining just goes between those layers. Then you can add your favorite binding technique. Just bind that edge. Yes, 21 2 wide. This flap is centered on the top of the blanket. The top edge is folded under. Then, to have a matching mate to this hook and loop tape you stitched from one end. Thats right its 11 from the we have to refold this here it is. Thats what closes the flap on the blanket. So, a little stitching, a little topstitching, and its done. Combine small pieces of fabric with ponytail elastic to create userfriendly zipper pulls. Its easy as 123. This quick project also adds a special decorative touch to other travel accessories and garments. You can see we got the rollup blanket back together. We want to point out the accessory to the blanket. These zipper pulls are elasticized thanks to the ponytail holders. They help to identify bags. We used scraps to make them. Here are some scraps to start out with. Maybe leftover from the blanket project. I circled part of my large design for the shape, as a guide. I cut it leaving an extra amount of fabric beyond the line. I also have a backing. This fleece works as the filler or the batting for the quilt. Right. You sew along the circle leaving an opening as you can see about a generous inch. Right, and then i also pink, or use a rotary edge there to get rid of some of the seam allowance. The hardest thing is turning this right side out. Right but after doing that you have the opening and then your favorite hair accessory. Thats right nancy. I would tuck the ends of that inside. Then i would stitch over the top, topstitching and secure that ponytail elastic. You can see that you can personalize these. If you really wanted to, you can make them super fast. This is a faux suede fabric. It doesnt ravel. Thats right, the green between is our filler. We just layered the pieces right sides together stuck in the ponytail holder and then trimmed it. Youd have to trim it a little carefully here. What a great way. Lets show our final how you just loop it through the opening of the zipper the lower opening and you have a great accessory to find the zipper. When its folded up this tote wont take much room in your suitcase. Cleverly tucked inside the base is a roomy tote which can be used for laundry, shopping or as a beach bag. This program may be called travel gear made easy but it could have an easy name travel gear so clever. You can put this Little Package in your suitcase in the bottom of your tote and make it expand into another tote. Thats right well open it up to show how its actually sized. It has some handles, which are an option. It also has a double drawstring. Theres a pocket on the front which you could add if you like. The base is what were going to show first. Its also going to be used in the next technique. Mary, the size . The size is 6 x 11, and we cut two pieces of fabric. One of them has some interfacing just for a little extra stability for the fabric. The little ends are made first from a rectangle. 6 x 61 2. Its folded in half, so its 3 x 61 2. You stitch the ends. These are short seams. Then its very easy to cut this in half. Tadah were going to turn these right side out forming a triangle. These become the points of our base. Here we have them pressed. On one piece of fabric, one layer, youve placed the ends. Thats right, and the seams are facing upward. Then we grab our second layer of the tote base and were going to sew these together. You sandwich the layers. Sew around the edges and leave an opening so you can turn this right side out. Its fast when you have four stepbystep samples. Right. Here you go. We add some hook and loop tape to the ends. Be sure and sew that one opening closed. Thats the base, nice and secure. The fabric tote itself is a Pretty Simple size. Right, its 17 x 18 and two pieces of fabric are cut. Keep in mind that the book that accompanies todays program has all the details if you didnt get them all written down 17 x 18. The 17inch edge is on top. Were going to sew the edges just like wed normally sew a bag but were going to leave a small opening toward what would be the top of the bag. The opening, as you can see, is only about 1 2 or 3 4. Its two inches from the top. Thats for the casing for our drawstring. On both sides, youll leave that little opening. To get that nice base so that it meets the base that we just made were going to fold these corners. Ill let you do that, mary. Were going to bring a point to form a triangle just like that. Point on point stack the seam. Then well measure across. Here we have this prepinned. We measure a line, five inches across. We want that length. Then were going to sew across to form box corners, really, on our tote. Do that on both sides but dont trim off this excess fabric. Thats right. Because it gives a little extra weight. We have your next step then, with more stitching. Now, here it is turned right side out. But then that little hook and loop tape is needed so that were going to now match. This is where the fun starts where youre going to match the box corner of the tote to the base. Were going to reach on the inside and pin it. This is fourhanded pinning. You can probably do it with two hands right. But i can pin from the outside. Youre matching the box together. Then were going to stitch this. The easiest way to stitch is to turn the bag inside out. At the machine you can see how the bag is almost nested around the needle. As im stitching im stitching just inside the base to attach the base and the tote together. After youve done that, mary we need add some drawstrings because you need to close it. Im fond of shoelaces, nancy if i find interesting ones. I use this bodkin to run a lace through, around once. Then on the second side i do it again with my second shoelace so i have a double drawstring. If we look at the finished sample youll see that we can cinch that bag. If youd like, you can add optional handles but thats totally up to you. What a fast tote with a clever design. The flap can be open or closed and you have a versatile tote. Use the same base as the foldup tote to create a small kit for basic supplies for first aid, travel or mending. Travel smart with a supply side pouch. As i mentioned, youre going to use that same base, mary. Here it is folded up again, with a Button Closure and a ponytail holder. Its open here, so we can see that there are two pockets. We put supplies inside whatever it is that we need to be carrying with us maybe medicine maybe cosmetics. Then hook and loop tape closes it up. The dimensions for the base are the same so youre going to have two pieces of fabric, 6 x 11. But instead of making this a pair of the prairie points for the end, you make two. Two sets. I like to make them out of different colors. Then, stack them just as we did earlier but this time, you have two on both ends. The seams of these are both facing up. For the inside, were going to have the same size the same base. Then for the little pouches, this is two inches wider so its 8 x 11. Right, and thats going to have some depth to it so we can put in supplies. The ends are turned under one inch and pressed. Then we use some hair elastics, again. We cut those six inches long. Were going to gather up the edges of our pocket piece. Just sew the casing. Right, and then weve got that extra piece of fabric now pinned in place on the base. Theres also a pleat formed in the center to take up some of that extra fabric. This is not rocket science. No, and were stacking the two edges together the two fabrics and then sew them, just like we did before. When you turn it right side out, thats what it looks like. You have options, too. You could add embroidery to this. This is a great embroidery. You can see that you can stitch it onto the base or the sides before you do any of the construction. Its a cute little travel angel. The supply side tote has so many options that are useful, too. Save travel time and frustration by storing valuables in the Gathering Place tray made from a placemat. Youll be able to keep track of cell phones, cords keys, coins, jewelry, and more. When this tray is in use you can gather important items in one place. We call this travel gear made easy because you can travel with this tray flat. It takes very little room. After you get to your location and you want to organize your things this is what it looks like. You can see the shininess on the inside. Vinyl lining. You need a purchased placemat. Any size, really will work but the traditional rectangular size is great. Then elastic hair elastic that you can get in pretty colors is what we like to cut into 3 lengths. Youll need four 3 lengths. Thats what youre going to show us, first of all. Right, the first thing is to pin. We mark two inches in from the corner on all four sides of the placemat. Then i pinned over the ends. I leave a space between them and thats where i would stitch. The two pins hold the elastic in place. It is rather bulky. I flip this around you covered the ends. These are 1 2 x 1 pieces of a faux suede fabric just to neaten up the look of the tray. Just topstitch those into place. You might see some other little markings, 2 markings 2 x 3 4, whatever it depends on the size of the button. Then youd sew some buttons. You close it just by overlapping the edge. This is pretty easy to do, nancy. The elastic goes over the top of the tray and it forms the edge. On the inside, weve marked two inches in. Then you cut a piece of vinyl 1 2 wider and 1 2 longer and tape it into place. Heres our taped area. Then you can stitch around this area using a roller foot or a nonstick foot. Then just simply wrap this together tie them together, and you have a tray. Need help remembering to fill your car with gas or to purchase milk . This colorful and visible wrap for the car Steering Wheel will save you from being stranded alongside the road. Ask me how i know this with just a few rows of stitching this handy and practical accessory will solve problems and improve your memory. We saved the quickest and most clever idea for last, mary. Its a simple project thats so helpful. On this side, this wraps around the Steering Wheel and shows you, in either case what you need to remember to pick up before you head home at the end of the day. We start with just two pieces of fabric and some interfacing. The size . 31 2 x 71 2. We basically put these two nancy, i think i need to point out we choose brights for this because we want to be able to see this easily in the car. We used the wrap corner technique that weve shown on other sewing with nancy programs. Leave an opening along one side. Turn it right side out and tadah add the hook and loop tape on one side at 11 2 below the top and the other at the bottom, on the same side of the fabric. You can embroider gas or milk or do what you did on yours. I used a pen and just lettered with permanent marker on each side. So sewing projects can be very quick and helpful. Even when stitchers and quilters dont speak the same language communication can abound. My nancys corners guest found that out firsthand as she teaches hmong women to quilt while they teach her oh, so much more. Please welcome martha sumi. Martha is of sew sumi quilt designs. Welcome to sewing with nancy. Thank you so much, nancy. When i heard your story i knew it was for sewing with nancy. Oh, thank you. It started out with a quilters newsletter. Yes, my quilt guild, mad city quilters had a newsletter. In the newsletter, there was an article saying that there was a group of hmong women in madison and that their group was in need of some sewing supplies and sewing machines. So i thought ive got an extra machine id love to donate it. So i spoke with the coordinator who was collecting the materials. She was very clever and she said well, id love to have your donation but why dont you come out and meet these women and see who youre donating to. The hook was set. Its been such a lovely experience since then. I was showing them one of my quilts and one of them who had some english held it up and said, you teach me to make . I said, yes, i will teach you. You started by teaching the basic log cabin using foundation. These are your samples you work with. These are the samples. Because they dont speak much english and i certainly dont speak hmong i teach them by showing them with a sample how things are actually made. A traditional americanstyle quilt block. Exactly, and what happens through the process of teaching them the western style is that they incorporate their own traditional styles. Here we have a very traditional east or west a star block. But the hmong women make this in a very unusual way by folding fabric, making those corners and points and then appliqueing it by hand. So they make this part the star and then they added the more western style traditional log cabin block. The colorations are typical hmong colorations. Yes, their Color Choices are just wonderful. I have to show you because theres an Honorable Mention from a quilt show. Who made this . A woman named vang made this. Its just charming. Then in the traditional hmong culture they dont use patterns, you were telling me. This is a cross stitch embroidered piece traditional for a new years celebration. No, they dont have written patterns. They do it from memory. She had made these blocks 20 years ago and didnt know what to do with them. After she learned about making the log cabin she made this into a log cabin piece. Its lovely. We owe a lot to the hmong culture. We do, and when i talk to people about who im teaching and what im doing they dont have a good understanding. The hmong are here because during the vietnam war era they were the troops on the ground in laos for and on behalf of the united states. When things collapsed and the u. S. Pulled out most of the hmong were left behind. Now theyre able to immigrate to the united states. There are about a quartermillion hmong in america. Youre learning from them, as well. Oh, so much, its unbelievable. You told me that you work with an interpreter. Yes. Every thursday you work with them together at the womens center. Its in madison, wisconsin. Its a day program. The women who come there are so creative. They take the supplies that im able to offer them and they recreate. This is a very traditional hmong cross stitch block. Shes added things that we have taught and experimented with in terms of applique. Little little stitching. This is very western but at the same time very hmong this particular pattern. The combination of fabrics is fascinating. Its stunning. They use whatever they have. Every thursday you teach but then its reciprocal. I am invited for lunch. We have a delightful lunch. What a wonderful way to teach, martha. Thanks for sharing these beautiful works of art. You can see that creativity has no boundaries cultural or geographic. Thats exactly right. If youd like to learn more about the program that martha teaches, you can go to nancyzieman. Com where youll find all things sewing with nancy whether its rewatching the program. You can watch this program again 52 of our shows are there. If you click on nancys corner youll be able to go to marthas website and then be connected and read another story about the people that she works with and teaches. Thanks for joining us for this First Program of travel gear made easy. Bye for now. Mary mulari has written a fullyillustrated book entitled travel gear made easy that serves as the reference for this twopart series. Its 14. 99, plus shipping and handling. To order the book, call 18003368373. Or visit our website at sewingwithnancy. Com 2612 order item number mp42 travel gear made easy. 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, celebrating 30 years of sewing and quilting 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. Martha i never do mind if a project i am working on includes some timeconsuming techniques such as handembroidery and heirloom stitching. Such embellishments are so beautiful, they take my breath away. However, there are times when it is just not convenient to have a timeconsuming project going on. At those times, it is useful to me and also fun to have a few Quick Projects that can be started and finished in only one day, or even less. In my sewing room today, we will share with you some wonderful techniques for both the intricate heirloom projects and those quick ones. Im so glad youre here with me today. Female announcer funding for marthas sewing room is made possible by and sew beautiful magazine. [whimsical classical music] martha this is the cutest and most fun and easy project. A darling little bag, so appropriate for many occasions with a quilted fabric, and this is so much fun. Do you see the zipper in the middle . Half of it is pink and half of it is green. Thats a nice little surprise. Okay, just to see how fun and quick and easy this bag is and, by the way, there is a secret to getting a halfandhalf zipper. Purchase two separating zippers of different colors, unzip it, put a halfandhalf together and you have something very creative in the way of a zipper. The bag simply starts out as a square that has been excuse me. Im sorry. A rectangle that has been serged all the way around. And as you can see, theres a contrasting fabric on the back. Im so glad 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 shell be sharing ideas about batting. Linda, welcome to the show. Thanks, martha. Its great to be here. Now, you have a simple bag up there. This one, weve added a strap and quilted the fabric using batting with two layers of fabric and actually painted it too. And because the fabric was larger than we needed, we took the leftovers and created a smaller bag. So what were doing today is learning a basic technique, and it really doesnt matter the sizing. So it doesnt have to be an exact science. You mentioned the twotone zippers. This is a separating zipper. They have a box in the end. And were going to unzip the zippers and mix the colors. Andvoilayou can have the zipper that goes along with any project that you want. Martha how about your School Colors . Oh, yeah. Well, ah, duh. Martha since youre from louisiana, i guess i know what i wondered how that happened. Martha but you can do that for School Colors. School colors, anything. Martha high school. The perfect graduation gift. Zippers dont match the fabric all the time, but when you mix the colors, they begin to look like they match. Were taking a look at the right side of the zipper. Thats the side that has the pull, and were going to place that up, and the box will be placed about 3 4 inch from the end. And were going to line that up with our serged edge. Make sure i have the right side up. And ive chosen to let the pastel side of the fabric be the right side, as opposed to the more primary color side. Im using a foot thats called an edge joining foot, and you can see that theres a little bar in the foot right here that is lined up with the edge of the zipper. The zipper is on the edge of the serging, about 1 4 inch from the cut edge of the fabric. And when i lower the presser foot, youll notice that the needle is over to the left. Thats important to me. It makes it easier. So the machine is doing the work for me. I am sewing right along. And actually, as i sew, ill let the edge ofim watching the edge of the foot, not the needle, and im coming all the way to the end where i have 3 4 inch from the edge. I will back tack so that i can see the area that im working with. Unzip the zipper and form a little miter or a little pleat in the fabric. Im going to come up to it. Whoops. It got caught on my presser foot, so well use our little pointer to tuck it back under, and thats going to happen to you too. So we will stitch over the pleat. Well, this is being ornery today, but that happens to you too. So well stitch up to the teeth back and then up a second time. Now, youll notice that my zippers are a little bit long. I never know what length im going to need, so i purchased a longer zipper, and i can always use the leftover as a trim on something else. So ill trim a pocket with that piece. Were going to cut that off, and your zipper will look like this. And actually, while the zipper was closed, i did stitch the other side. So the zipper is going on the lining side of your project. Now, to do that funnylooking miter, were going to fold the fabric in half, and you can see that i have a pin placed here, and then a pin is placed an inch and a half up on both sides. And were goingi know you do a lot with pleats. Were going to do an inverted pleat, and we will stitch along that edge, just along the serged edge on both ends, so that we have a pleat on both ends and complete our miter so it makes a fashionlooking miter on the end. Quick, easy, no waste of fabric. Were then going to take binding, and im not much on math, so what im going to do is take my binding which is 3 inches wide, its been folded wrong sides together, and im going to match from one end to the other twice, cut the excess off, and because i have a stripe, i want to be cutting along the striped edge. And if you ever have trouble trying to put this together, if you line it up as if its finished, put right sides together, and then stitch so that you have a tube. We will place the tube on the top, and then stitch to finish our trim. Martha and its done. Yes, its done. Quick, easy. You can make one of these in 45 minutes. 45 minutes to an hour. Martha talk about making all the gifts. Just sitting down and make it all. And thati love the idea of the colors, doing the School Colors. Linda, thank you so much. And now linda has some sewing inspirations to share with you that youre going to love. Linda, zipper jewelry. How fun. Goodness me, looky here. Tell us a little bit about these. There are all zippers. Weve removed the pulls and separated the zippers and glued it on existing bracelets just inexpensive bracelets or thats a headband. Wouldnt your granddaughters just love that . Martha yes. Yes, they would, because they love headbands. Theres snaps to decorate the zippers, combining different types of zippers together, the rhinestone zippers. Martha with diamonds. Yeah, yeah. Martha for a very sophisticated look. Very, very much like it. Reminds me of things i might have seen in london or in paris. Really interesting. But you can make them at far less the price. Martha oh, absolutely. Including the trip to paris or london. Right. Martha flipflops. Oh, my granddaughters would love this. And these are zippers even using the pull just for decoration. Martha just glued onto your regular 2 flipflop. Absolutely. And if you edge stitch right along the edge of the zipper and pull it ruching you use that term all the time. Martha puffed zipper. Puffed zippers. Martha puffed zipper jewelry. And then glue them together for jewelry. Absolutely. And knots. My husband taught a class on knots at one of the big shows, and he made jewelry out of his knots on zipper tape. Martha i just love it. So you can do all sorts of things with zippers. And those sophisticated, beautiful, beautiful necklaces. Oh. With paper zippers and rhinestone zippers. So you can do all sorts of things with zippers that you never even dreamed. Yeah, absolutely. Martha linda, this is one of my favorite purses right here. Lets talk about this. Well, thats the same bag that we did earlier in the show. Martha just fancied up. Fancied up a little bit. Remember those leftover zippers . Well, the leftover zippers are right along this edge. Just double them up. Martha and how about along the bottom . For piping. Martha piping zippers oh, linda. Use the piping foot when youre working with zippers as piping. Martha you just got heirloom zippers with puffing and piping. And then lookthe double colors in the. In the top. And we even decorated the webbing using some of webbing as in the black stuff that was used forthe strap has been decorated with fabric and i used a fusible webbing that melts to hold the layers together to make it quick and easier. Martha and more zipper scraps. You know what . I bet this is not scrap, though. Is that sort of a. The one around the edge was a real zipper. The others are the leftovers. Martha your scraps, oh, im telling you. And one of my students found a button that was just perfect for that, that combined all the colors together. So you get to use your buttons. Martha well, linda, zippered jewelry and piping zippers and puffing zippers; i think we have heirloom zippers. Linda, this is just fun. Were covering the gamut. Martha i love your jacket, and also your necklace. These are zippers. These are zippers. Martha and your necklace is a zipper that you can put a nametag on at the show. And i even have a heart. Martha can you turn around . Okay, now listen. This is wonderful. Well, you know, we have heirloom sewing here. We have a laceshaped heart zipper. Well, linda, this just takes this just opens a whole new avenue for heirloom sewing with diamond zippers. I hope you have fun with it. I have. Martha linda, this has been so much fun. And now linda has a sew quick, sew easy project for you. Linda, what adorable purses. How did you do it . Arent they fun . This particular one is quilted fabric, and soand this one is using two fabrics that are fused together to make the fabric a little bit more stable. What ive actually done is take my paperback fusing medium and press it to the wrong side of one of the fabrics. Then i peel the paper away and place another fabric on top, and using lots and lots of steam, because thats what helps the fusibles to work properly, we press these layers together and they become one so that you end up with a fabric thats a little bit more stable and durable for a handbag. Now that we have a fabric this is basically a fat quarter 22 inches by 1 2 yard. And weve cut that in half and we can use this to create the pattern. It doesnt have to be exactly that size, but pretty close. This is a leftover one that has been quilted, and we can do the same techniques with that. Were going to begin with our allpurpose foot, and were going to line the foot with the edge of the zipper thats on the ends of our fabric and stitch all the way across. The needles to the left position. Then we will roll the fabric over and use our edge joining foot to edge stitch along the edge, which is essentially whats been done on this side. So we have the foot making our sewing easier for us. Were going to sew the zippers together endtoend. So now we have a tube with the zippers Holding Everything together. We will offset the top, and then fold it up, crease open back up, and sew a straight line. So now we have two pockets in our bag, and folding up it creates the third pocket. Martha well, that is just fun. And were taking our webbing. This is purchased webbing. Fold it in half. My new best friend, the edge stitching foot, was used to edge stitch along the edge. Slide all of that bulk inside. You can see that we have a little bit of zigzagging to hold it nice and flat. And, again, use the edgestitching foot to stitch along the edge. So now we have three pockets as opposed to what you probably thought was going to be two. We did add a little hook over on the edge so that we can carry our keys or a little flashlight to make our completed bag. And in this particular instance, weve used a magnetic snap on the pocket on the inside to finish off the bag. Martha linda, i love that little bag, that its very lightweight. I call that a little travel bag. Great for traveling. Great for shows. Martha well, and you can make it fancy for any evening. Fancy it up as much as you want to, or tone it down. Martha you dont have to carry everything you own. Just slip a few essentials in there, and youve got a little shoulder bag. And if you will decide upon your time element to make it well determine how much embellishing you put in the bag. Great embroidery, great piecing. Martha absolutely. Oh, linda, thank you so very much for all these wonderful and fun projects. Great. Martha and now we have some construction tips to share with you. I am so pleased to have as my guest today kari mecca. Kari is the owner and designer of kari me away. She is the author of four books, a frequent contributor to sew beautiful magazine, and a teacher at the Martha Pullen school of art fashion. Kari, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me martha. Today im going to share with you how to take a basic shorts pattern and make it into a skort. Now, you can do this with any shorts pattern, and its really cute, its fun, and im happy to be here to share it with you. Here is my finished sample and ive used this cute print, and essentially a skort is an apron front on a pair of shorts. Now, this is a finished pair of shorts with the apron on the front and has a tie at the side to hold it on, but its not connected across the top. So lets get started. What you would do when youre going to construct your shorts including the hem, the waistband, but were just going to leave one side seam open. From there, were going to measure the finished hem to the waistband, and then from the waistband, side seam to side seam. And were going to cut a block of fabric to that same size. Now, dont stretch out your elastic. Just do the finished measurement. So ive cut my block of fabric and i have my lining which is a contrast. Im going to round two corners and then were just going to sew around it, and then well trim it close and turn it right side out. Now, from there, were going to get started with the trims and this is where you can have some fun with it. I had a basic striped grosgrain ribbon, and were going to just mark a line around the edge 1 2 inch. Just choose a measurement. It doesnt have to be exactly the same. The point is, you know, you have a line to follow. So were going to go straight down now. I have corner. So to get around my corner, im just going to simply pinch the ribbon and pleat it over. Now, this line here on the edge is my little cheat line. So as i pleat, im just going to use that as a guideline. And then once the ribbon will lay flat, then i can just let it lay flat again. Now, these dont have to be exact. Dont worry about it. Just have some fun with it. Now, from there, well sew along the straight edges, and then were going to add more trim. Martha [laughing] always more. Big surprise, yes. More trim; more is always better. Were going to add some spaghetti bias. I put yellow on the yellow stripe. So we have again a line to follow. You dont really have to think about it. Justi glue based it down and i sewed right down the center of the spaghetti. So here you can see the line im following. Use any kind of basting glue. It holds everything in place. You dont have to worry about pins. Its fantastic. So now this is our finished apron front. Now, what we need to add are the ties. So i actually take and make two little pleats here at the waistband. And see how it gives it just a little bit of a flirty curve . And then were going to just again, well draw a line 1 2 inch from the top, and well put a little bit wider spaghetti and this makes our tie. And were going to extend the end. And now were ready to sew it into our shorts. And we actually just insert this into our side seam of our shorts, and well sew that up, and then once were finished well add a second piece of spaghetti on our other side seam so that we have a tie at the waistband to finish. And thats how you take a pair of shorts and make a skort. Martha absolutely adorable. And very easy to do. It is, really. And, actually, i have a Little Something else to show you. Martha okay, okay. Its, you knowtheres never enough trim. So on the back, you can make a little pocket, and all i did was just pleat to make it puffy and add a little spaghetti. Again, just cut a block, round your corners, and its basically the same technique, and just sew it in place. Martha kari, thank you so much. Thats adorable. Thank you for having me martha. Martha and now i have to some hand embroidery to share with you. I am so pleased to have as my guest wendy schoen. Wendy is a designer of petite poche patterns. Shes the author of five books. She is a regular contributor to sew beautiful magazine and a teacher at the Martha Pullen school of art fashion. Wendy, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, martha. Today i have something really cute to show you. Now, this is called a shell stitch. What im referring to is the little edge along the edge of the shirt. Its finished with a hand technique made to look like a little finished edge, so that you dont have to put a regular hem in it. So let me go ahead and show you how this is done. Now, some of the things that im going to show you are not traditional, but i have found them to be very helpful in maintaining the appropriate seam allowance. So the first thing i do is i machine staystitch along the seam line of the fabric. Let me move it so you can see better. If you can see that ive done it in pink, normally i would do it in the same color thread to match the fabric so that its not as visible. But for you, i did it in pink so you could see it better. Now, the first thing youll do is take your seamyour raw edge, rather, and fold it up to the seam. Then again, once again, along the staystitched edge. So now what you have is a nice folded edge, approximately 1 4 inch wide, and the little staystiching is right on the fold. Im going to be using a sort of a heavyweight thread, but you can use sewing thread thats doubled or a sewing thread that has been waxed to give it a little more strength. Im going to burry my knot into the folded edge, and then im going to take two tiny little running stitches through all the layers, very close to the folded edge at the bottom. Now, this is going to do two things. Its going to hold my hem in place and also mark the distance from one tuck to the other. Now, bring the needle around to the back side and sew through in the same place and pull together the stitch. So thats creating a little pucker or a gather. Now, sometimes i like to actually make a little slipknot here just to told it in place, and ill show you how it helps a little bit later. All right, so that holds the knot or the wrap nice and tight. So now im going to take two more little running stitches and make sure that theyre the same length and the same distance apart. Remember that you want to keep this as consistent as possible. I know its handwork, but you do want it to look nice so try to keep it even. All right, so this time im going to show you what i mean by the little slipknot. Bring it through the loop. This will help me align the tuck or the little stitch so that it doesnt create an offcenter scallop. Two more little stitches. Around to the back and through. And then remember to bring it through the loop and just straighten it. Okayoop, i lost it. Lets pick it up again. Its not a problem. Okay, so this is actually the back side of the work. I want to show you what it looks like on the right side. So on the right side, youll see that there is this nice little cup effect, and of course, you can see the pink, but remember youre going to be doing this white on white or whatever tone on tone. So let me show you what it looks like in the same color thread, as opposed to a different color. All right, so this is the work as it progressed along. You can see the little shell on the edge, or the little scalloped edge. Let me show you the right side. So if you look at the right side, you have these little almost like a little cup or a little edge. Two things are happening here. Youve made your little stitches to make the little scallop and the little edge that you stitched on the side, martha helps the cup hold its shape. Martha wendy, that is so sweet. And i thank you so much for being with me today. And now i would like to share a piece from my vintage collection with you. Part of the fun of collecting vintage clothing is kind of figuring out who made it for what purposehas it served two lives . And this dress im sure has. Its a little pinafore as you can see. But i believe that this dress im almost sure that this dress was originally a christening dress. The indian ayrshire, which is the heavier ayrshire and do you see how the shape of it is a traditional victorian christening dress shape . Okay, so i think this mother had inherited one of these or maybe her baby wore it, and the baby got to be 3 or 4 years old, which is about what size this is, and she thought, id like to have a beautiful dress for my little girl, so she cut that christening dress up for the baby dress and made this adorable pinafore. And actually, the little girl could probably have worn this for several years. Pinafores were originally used to cover clothing, so they would be kept clean, and she had a beautiful dress. Thank you so much for joining me in my sewing room today. I hope you come back next time. 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. 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