Wish Upon a Quilt Blog

Ever wonder what to do with all those itsy bitsy pieces of fabric you have left? If you are like most of us, you hate to throw away any fabric. Elena McDowell, a Wish Upon A Quilt customer and selvedge quilter, has an answer with these cute selvedge quilts. They are irresistible!  To check out the most dedicated of selvedge quilters, The Selvage Quilt blog is here. Don’t have selvedges, but love these quilts? No problem, Moda has the answer with their scrap bags of coordinated fabrics. We will have more in the store later this month and we will be creating our own Wish Upon A Quilt scrap bags in the near future.  Have you found other creative ways to use that last little piece of fabric? Please share!

Quilters will often come into the store asking for help to calculate yardage for a quilt back. We love to help but that is often a loaded question. It depends on how you intend to construct or piece your back. There are multiple ways to do this and none are more right or wrong than the other.

It is important to note in all cases that you should measure the center length and center width of your quilt top to determine the actual length and width.

Sometimes you want to piece the back with lengthwise seams. In this case you would buy the yardage the length of your quilt. You may have to double or triple the yardage if the quilt is wider than 40 inches or 80 inches.

Other times it is more efficient to piece the back crosswise. In this case you would buy the yardage the width of your quilt and double or triple the measurement if the length is longer than 40 or 80 inches.

I’ve become a big fan of piecing my backs from scraps. I get two quilts in one this way. So I would determine yardage based on the quilt pattern. I always design the border to accommodate the fact it’s going to be lopped off after quilting.

You can get similiar dual purpose out of your backs using cheater fabrics and crosswise and lengthwise seams. Some great “cheater” fabrics at Wish right now are Winter Log Cabin (in the sale room!), and In Love With Nature’s Pinwheels by Susan Branch. I used the Winter Log cabin on the back of Cheery Cherry Pie, the Sew Sweet Shop Scrap club sample quilt hanging in the front of the store.

Another, less known way, of piecing a back is John Flynn’s biased seam method. It’s a very smart technique. If you are going to put your quilt on a frame this is the best way to distribute the back seam. It’s also the most effiecent use of yardage. John has posted his method on his website. If memory serves me correctly he has a great demonstration on how to fold and cut that long bias edge with your 6 inch by 24 inch ruler on his instruction video that he packs with his frame. The basic formula is:

Length of fabric to buy = length of quilt top + length of quilt top( width of quilt top – width of fabric)/ 2 x width of fabric – width of quilt top

For those who get confused by equations:

Record the width and length of your quilt top (add any desired overhanging for the back to these measurements before you begin any other calculations). Record the width of the fabric you are considering (usually 40-44 inches. I’d recommend using 40 if you are unsure).

Multiply 2 times the width of the fabric you are considering (if you are using the safe bet of 40 then this will always be 80 inches). Subtract the recorded width of the quilt top. Save this first number.

Take the recorded width of the quilt and subtract the width of the fabric being considered (40). Multiply by the recorded length of the quilt. Add the recorded length of the quilt. Now divide by the first saved number.

Voila! You have the recomended length of fabric in inches. Divide by 36 if you want yards.

Or you can just come into Wish and we’ll put two heads on the calculations and help you out.

 Do you have another method of calculating yardage for a quilt back?

Do you ever wonder who comes up with all of the great fabric designs that are in quilt shops today? I did and I thought it would be fun to start a series that highlights some of the different fabric designers. First up is Sandra Banava who designs for Robert Kaufman.

At market last Fall in Houston, I was looking for a design that really “wowed” me. I found Sandra’s latest collection Citronella and fell in love with the fabric colors and designs. I contacted Sandra with my idea of featuring designers on my blog and she was thrilled to be our debut designer. Here are some of the great projects that Sandra has created using Citronella.

 

Sandra Banava was introduced to the beauty of fabric at an early age. Her mother was a fabric lover, who kept her collection lovingly wrapped up in a couple of huge bundles filled with cuts of fabric that she had received as gifts or hand-picked for her sewing projects. From time to time, Sandra’s mother would say, “Let’s get the fabric bundles out and look at fabric.” To Sandra, this was always as exciting as opening a treasure box.

Sandra feels that creating is a way of responding to her surroundings. Whether she sees traces of the past in a city’s aging buildings, layers of patina and rusty surfaces or the wonder of nature such as the beautiful growth movement of plants or the iridescent wing of an insect, she seeks to create a fresh look at the familiar with her art.Sandra finds designing for quilters exciting. She likes to visualize how quilters can “compose,” “paint” or “choreograph” their quilts using each colorful pattern as “notes,” “paints” and “movements” to tell their stories. To see more of Sandra’s great work, visit her blog at www.sandrabanava.com. What do you think?

Cloth gift wrap

This holiday season I tried to use Furoshiki gift wrapping instead of the conventional paper. Furoshiki is a Japanese tradition of gift wrapping with  cloth.  Part of this new resolution comes from trying to be more eco friendly. Cloth holds up better than paper and can be reused more; either as gift wrap again, as a scarf, napkin, table cloth (all depends on size), or cut up into a project.   I have so much fabric calling to me just asking to be used for something and this practice assuages that call. Not to mention it makes beautiful gifts!  Another reason is that if I buy the fabric for wrapping a gift it gets calculated as part of the gift cost – not my blow money. But if some of the scraps from trimming the cloth wrapping end up in my stash – that’s a bonus . And if the gift reciever is in my family – the cloth could end up in my stash-for storage purposes.  So be sure to choose cloth that suits the gift recepient and your stash.

This would look great on a gift or pillow.

There are several books published on the practice of furoshiki but you don’t need a book to get started. Here are a few free online resources for learning some of the basics of the practice.

Furoshiki.com is a resource for buying imported furoshiki cloths. They have several pages describing traditional sizes, knot tying, and wrapping techniques. The basic wrappings shown would cover just about any gift you might run across. I find it more economical to use quilt fabric instead or their cloths. Then you get the added bonus of being able to reuse the cloth in later quilt projects (because you know the quality of the fabric), assuming the gift wrap ends up back in your hands.

The Government of Japan’s Ministry of Environment has a page on how to Furoshiki as well.

In my excitement over this new practice, I demonstrated a couple of wraps to the Wish Upon a Quilt Staff. They immediately caught onto the idea  and commented on what a great present idea for quilting friends, or BF’s.

This practice could also be extended to make impromptu pillow covers for a couch or chair. The possibilities are limitless.

So the next time you see fabric you go gaga over that doesn’t quite fit the budget or a current project – ask yourself if it might not make a good gift wrapping?

 Ok, I confess I begged Cathy to buy this line of fabric that was designed by Tina Givens.  I’m new to the area and was curious when a few local quilters where talking about a local fabric designer. So I looked her up online and found her blog. I fell in love with Fairy Tip Toes.

Close up on pink panel – cute shoes

It reminds me of scrap booking paper. (It doesn’t hurt that my three year old girlie girl daughter has me brianwashed to love pink.)

I could envision so many projects for this fabric for my daughter – a fabric covered frame with a picture of her and her cousins in it, a large piece stretched like canvas to hang on her wall for artwork, a quilt, pillows, an apron, a skirt, a purse, appliqued accents for shirts and jumpers …. the possibilities are endless. When images where available online at Free Spirit I started playing with the swatches in EQ.

Sing Birdie

I had a hard time coming up with _The Design_ for this fabric. The swatches did not give an accurate enough sense of scale. I didn’t even realize until I went back into Wish to cut some of the larger scaled motifs that it was a panel! So back to the drawing board I go.

But I have to tell you the pink colorway would make a fantastic baby quilt for a little girl. It is a very large panel – a full yard long. Come in and check it out – especially any scrap booking quilters -I dare you to resits it’s charm.

Sing Birdie - Close up on watering can in green panel.

Fabric Choices-high contrast works best

Have you ever made a mystery quilt? If not, they are fun! I made my first Mystery Quilt several years ago when a local shop was running a mystery quilt project. It was perfect for me as a new quilter. I did not really know what I wanted to make and I was a little bit uncomfortable in the quilt shop with so many fabric choices! The mystery quilt required just three fabrics so I did not have to make many overwhelming decisions. Perfect! The shop also posted what the quilt looked like, so I could make sure that my pieces were accurate as I went along. In the end, I had a gorgeous quilt that would have looked too intimidating to me to try if I had seen what it would look like in the beginning. Now that I have a quilt shop, I wanted to pass on this experience to others, so if you have not picked up your FREE pattern at the shop, please join us by picking up your pattern next time you are in the shop. I would like to thank Nancy, our Mystery Quilter for making the sample that is in the shop and providing these great pictures of her “in progress” Mystery Quilt. Let us know what you think!

This quilt will be completed in six steps, this is what the completed Step 1 looks like:

I’m very excited about the new Sew Sweet Shoppe Scrap program that Cathy has published. This is a brand new scrap program that was introduced at the fall Quilt Market. I love scrap quilts. Scrap quilts just sort of found me. I couldn’t afford to buy all the fabric I wanted but I was usually happy with just a fat quarter of it, especially if I didn’t have a specific project in mind for it.  So a typical scenario at the quilt shop would be I went to buy fabric for a  specific project and I’d fall in love with a new fabric that didn’t fit that project at all. So I’d grab a fat quarter and sneak it home. It was the fat quarters sitting off to the side that would inspire the next projects. (And encourage me to finish the one that was in progress.) The thing was that when I started planning the next project I’d realize that a fat quarter wouldn’t do.   I needed more. Sound familiar? I became a fan of scrap quilts because they allowed me to use the fabrics I loved with out the agony or worry over how much to get. I don’t have to worry if I’ll have enough for a project because I can just use it as an excuse to go get more lovely fabric.  And there are so many lovely fabrics calling to me – scrap quilts are definitely the solution.

But it’s not just the need to use up fat quarter and half yard cuts that make scrap quilts appealing. I often get to reuse fabrics left over from other projects like my brother’s wedding quilt, a friends baby quilt, a baby quilt for my own children, a purse, or tote project. Those scraps have sweet memories and are still a joy to handle and use.  Scrap quilts can also be a journal of sorts of all the quilts I’ve made and given away.

Scrap quilts often have a deep richness of pattern and design because it’s the piecers use of value and color that is noticed not the fabric designers art. All of those pretty pieces of fabric come together to make a beautiful new whole. Whenever I find myself thinking a piece of fabric is too pretty to cut I just remind myself the joy it will bring me when I find it again in my scrap bin.

I also have a sweet tooth and love bakeries and baking. The sweet shop theme of the program just tickles me pink. (Which happens to be the colorway of the first quilt.)  The first session of the Sew Sweet Shoppe is Thursday, Feb 12 at 6pm. The second session will be Saturday, Feb. 14 at 8:30am. Both sessions will be the same. There will be a $15 charge to reserve a slot, and you will receive a free quilt pattern, a demonstration of the how to construct the quilt presented, a yummy treat and recipe to take home! I will also give tips on how to adjust the pattern to accommodate jelly roll strips, charm squares, and/or layer cakes.

If you would like to exchange scraps please bring precut strips of 3 1/2 inch width or 2 1/2 inch width, 5 inch charm squares, or fat quarters. We will trade like for like. Looking forward to seeing you on the 12th! What will your scrap quilt look like?

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you have enjoyed a relaxing holiday and have a healthy, happy and prosperous new year. We were treated with some special show and tell items that I wanted to pass on. I really liked both of these because they are small projects and were given as gifts for the holidays.

Janette from Raleigh came in a couple of month’s ago to select fabric for this great bag. This one was made with fabrics from the Nest and Bandana Beauties collections. Janette has made several of these bags as gifts and gave herself this one. Janette’s daughter is in the background and loves to help. Thanks for sharing Janette!

Karin from Raleigh made these great table toppers for everyone in her quilting bee. She had a big stack of them and they were all gorgeous! Great way to use your favorite fabric.

Do you have a project that you would like to share? Are you stuck on one that has been around awhile? Bring your projects in, we love to see them and are glad to help you finish them!

The secret is out…Guys love quilting too! I’ve been admiring John’s growth as a quilter ever since I joined Wish Upon A Quilt. He recently posted some gifts he made for Christmas presents on his blog, Quilt Dad. Check them out-they are very well done and maybe sometime when you are in the store, you will meet John in person. He is kind of shy about his work, so I was thrilled to find this today. We would love to see pictures of your holiday gifts…feel free to post them or send them to us!