Oh Boy this Heat!

Well, I haven't been hiding under a rock but between the rain and now the heat I just haven't gotten much done.  It seemed like monsoon season was in full swing here in good old Washington state the last few weeks and during that time I was able to crank out a QAYG tinker tote.  The tote is courtesy of the Quilt As You Go class through Craftsy.  It was tedious and so much fun.  It turned out great but the only thing I dislike about it is the binding.  It was awkward and instead of machine finishing the binding next time, I'll go old school and hand finish it.   Any who, here's the pictures of the bag, you can also follow the project and any others that I do here.

So on to this heat issue.  Most homes on the western side of WA don't come with AC, more specifically older homes and almost all apartments are void of this perk.  It traditionally only gets hot here for a few weeks or so and then it's back down to bearable levels but this Texas girl still thinks that AC is a necessity. All the stores that sell portable AC units are sold out now and we don't want to put one in the window of our rental.  Nick and I stocked up on floor fans and have been sweating out the heat with our dogs.  Well they don't sweat so much as lay on the floor, panting heavily because the only place they can really go with AC is PetCo or PetSmart.

I really wanted to sew this weekend, Betty (my 1958 Singer 404) just came back from being serviced and I wanted to really get some projects going on her.  I'm waiting for a FMQ foot I ordered just for Betty, none of Veronica's (my Brother S400) feet fit Betty.  Ok, ok, yes I do in fact name my sewing machines, for goodness sake I named my car Snowball and call her Snow for short, but back to my sewing dilemma.  So I wanted to sew this weekend but with it being 80+ in the house I just can't focus enough to work any type of project.  All the chores have gone neglected, I tried to clean some today but it just gets too hot to move.  Even as I type this my eye lids are heavy, indicating it's nap time even though it's only 4pm.  I love Washington summers though, even through the heat and lack of AC, the summers are amazing.  It's a wonderful break from the dreary rain and a nice opportunity to get outside and do things before the weather gets nasty again.    I hope your summers are in full swing too and you are keeping cool where ever you are!

Thanks for stopping by :)

Bias Binding... A Tutorial

Did you ever see a pattern for something that had rounded or scalloped edges and wanted to try it but because it called for a bias binding, shied away??  Yea, me too.  I've never had the courage to try a bias binding or attempted anything calling for bias binding.  I guess it was a fear of the unknown vs. an unwillingness to try.  I took a binding class once and we spend about 30 seconds covering bias binding, I still shook in my boots anytime I heard something needed bias binding.  Until today.

I enrolled in this awesome class through the Craftsy website called Quilt-As-You-Go Patchwork Bags taught by Tara Rebman, and the first lesson is a (QAYG) potholder with none other than curved edges!!  Well, I told myself I needed to put my big girl panties on and give bias binding a shot.  None of the classes I'm enrolled in cover bias binding so I set my wonderful search engine to the task of finding me instructions on how to make bias binding.  What I found was this video put out by Connecting Threads on how to make bias binding, but they don't take you much farther than cutting the strips, after that you just have to figure it out.  I'm linking the video for you but I'll write the instructions and post pictures as well so you know what I'm talking about.  Today I have successfully created and finished two potholders with BIAS BINDING!  I'm so proud of myself.  It's ok to be fearful of bias bindings, I don't know any quilter who just loves sewing on the bias.  For newer quilters sewing on the bias is one of the biggest challenges if not the worst thing to give a new quilter as his/her first project.  I use some pretty colorful language when I have to make half-square triangles from a bias edge and then see my square come out something other than square.  So, here's my instructions on bias binding.  I hope you have the courage to try it, it works and I know you'll be successful.

Bias Binding Video

First, measure each edge of the piece you want to bind.  Mine was 10 inches on each side.  Once you have your measurements, add them all together and then add an additional 10 inches.  Once you have that, multiply by 2, then take the square root of the sum.  So here's what my math looked like...


10+10+10+10+10=50x2=100 and the Square root of 100 is 10... that was too easy.

So whatever your end number is that's the amount of fabric you need in inches square.  So for my 10x10 potholder I needed to cut a 10x10 square from my binding fabric.

Once you have your square cut, fold one corner down so that you have a 45 degree angle, the video shows this really well because on a 10x10 square, you just fold one corner to the opposite corner.  Once you fold your corner down, put one of your rulers on the folded edge, you're going to trim the folded edge off, just a sliver of fabric not a huge chunk. You have now exposed the bias... yaay!  So gently separate your two triangles and you'll place them so the bias edges are facing away from you when they are right side up, sitting next to each other.  You'll want to flip one over top of the other and sew the edge together and what you'll end up with is a trapezoid.  Pretty cool huh?

Once you've sewn your trapezoid together you'll then line your ruler up so that you will cut 2 inches off the bias edge.  Continue until you've cut all the 2in strips that you need.  Once you have all your strips cut out, take 2 of them and put them right sides together at a 90 degree angle and sew a 1/4 inch in from the cut angle.  When placing the right sides together, make sure the points come off either side by a 1/4 inch.  This will ensure your strips end up even.  Once you've sewn all your strips together press the seams open, take care not to tug or wiggle your iron on the fabric, it's on the bias edge now so it super stretchy and will warp easily.  After you've pressed your seams open, fold your binding in half to make a 1 inch folded binding.  Again, take care not to tug on the fabric, you'll be able to feel the give in the fabric when you're folding it over.  After that, take it to your project and start sewing on the binding with raw edges facing away from the project.  When you get to those rounded corners, just take it slow and manipulate the binding around the edge.  It may look like you're getting puckers in the seam but I promise you aren't.  Once you finish machining the binding, fold it over to the other side and stitch down; either by hand or machine.

There you have it, two biased potholders :)

May your bobbin never empty and may your tension always be perfect
Rachel

It's all about the Hexis!!

Craftsy 2012 BOM

Craftsy 2012 BOM


 

Well hello there! If you are just joining me, welcome. If you have been here before, it's nice to see you again. One of my latest obsessions is English paper piecing. It's done all by hand and if you have everything ready to go, it's quite simple and can be done anywhere. I first tried English paper piecing (EPP) during the Craftsy 2012 BOM taught by Amy Gibson. I had a friend who started EPP a few years back and always thought she was nuts for trying to make a quilt out of these small hexagons. I guess EPP really isn't for the faint at heart but for those of us who want to step away from the sewing machine and get some good old fashioned hand sewing into the mix.  The first two pictures are my the EPP blocks from Craftsy BOM 2012, this is where I fell in love with EPP.

Right now I'm working on a project pouch from the book Tiny Obsessions by Vicki Bellino.  I purchased this book from www.connectingthreads.com.

I have in my stash, 1 1/4 hexis and a bunch of batiks that I used on a log cabin quilt.  I went through my fabric stash and just pulled out all the batiks I had on hand and started cutting them into 3 inch squares.  I find that 3 inch squares give me the most fabric to fold over with minimum bulk on a 1 1/4 hexi and cutting a square is just easier than trying to cut out circles from your fabric.  I'm all about efficiency and time saving since I don't have a lot of time to work on projects.  I'm not sure how many hexis I will need since I blew up the pattern to more than 250% of what the book tells me to and I'm using larger hexis (don't worry, once I know how many I need I'll put that info in here).  I made it bigger because I was using bigger hexis and I wanted a larger pouch that I could stash all my sewing machine feet in.  I'm not done with it yet, and I haven't actually pieced any of the hexis together, I'm still in the basting stage for all my hexis.  I'm trying to get a good variety of colors in so I can mix and match. 

If you like EPP, I highly recommend purchasing Tiny Obsessions, it's chalk full of fun, little projects that you can do quickly and would be easy to make them larger by using larger hexis.

If you don't have any hexis on hand, you can always look for a free picture online and then print your own on cardstock or something heavier than regular printer paper and then cut them out.  Hexis are measured for their length on one side.  So the ones that I have are 1 1/4 hexis, which means they measure on one of the sides at 1 1/4 inches.  Hexis come in a variety of sizes and you can get almost any shape for EPP.  If you don't want to print and cut you can go to your local quilt store (I recommend a local shop and not a big retail store because big retail stores don't always have what you need, and you're supporting small business).  I bought mine from a local quilt store in Yelm, I love going there because they have so much fabric to look at, I lose track of all time when I'm there, plus they usually have everything I went there to get and much, much more.  If you're new to the hexis you also might want to consider fabric stick glue (it looks just like a glue stick) or some extra pins to hold the fabric in place.  The fabric glue will come off when washed and is just there as a light adhesive to make your job easier.  I used pins to baste the fabric to my hexis for the blocks pictured above, for only a few of the current ones I used the glue stick.  I've found as I get more comfortable basting hexis, I don't need anything extra to hold the fabric in place, just my hands. 

Once you've got all your hexis basted you can start whip stitching them together, it's fairly easy to do and if you cut a long enough thread, you can whip stitch a bunch of hexis together without having to tie off every time you move to another hexi.  As always, whip stich them right sides together so you can hide the tail of the beginning thread under the back.

After your hexis are all stitched together in the pattern they need to be in, you can remove the basting threads and templates from the insides of the hexis.  You do this afterwards so the hexis hold their shape while you are stitching them together.  Paper pieces can be re-used, I use mine until there are too many holes in the paper or the template is starting to fall apart, it is paper after all and it will end up losing some of it's toughness after it's had numerous holed punched into it and ironed a bunch of times.

If you've never given hexis a shot, try a small project to see what you think.  It might become a love you never thought you'd have.

If you'd like to see a hexi tutorial, please let me know and I can get one out. 
Enjoy those hexis
Rachel