(Long) Arm Yourself...

I do not think there is a quilting blog out there that did not touch on the subject of long arm vs. domestic sewing machine for quilting. For the sake of argument, I am going to disregard those pesky little details such as chronic lack of space and cash. 

Domestic machines, from very basic treadles, to highly sophisticated and sometimes temperamental computerized ones, are all good for piecing. Some require a little bit more effort and muscle tone than others, but they can all piece a marvelous quilt. And yes, they can all quilt that top, no matter how small the throat. When there is will, there is way. Always.

From the very first time you picked up a pen and paper your brain and your muscles were conditions to do one thing - move the implement, the pencil, over the surface, the paper. We use the same mindset when we wash the dishes. We move the sponge over the surface of the pot, we do not move the pot around the sponge. When we vacuum our carpets, we move the vacuum cleaner around, the carpet does not move around the vacuum cleaner. We are conditioned to move the tools, not the items that are worked on.

One day you decide to tackle that pile of tops and quilt them yourself, and the world as you know it gets turned upside down. When you quilt your top on the domestic machine you are in essence moving the paper and the pencil remains stationary. Everything you learned from the very first days of your life goes out the window. Your brain is fighting you hard because it is not conditioned to do things backwards. Did not think about that did you, when you started banging your head against the wall because you could not do a simple meander stitch. So cut yourself some slack, take a deep breath (glass of wine and a slab of chocolate:) and try again. Our brains are noting but pliable. You will get into the groove and it will become your second nature, in time. Quilters all around the world are doing it, and producing marvelous quilts, even winning Best in Show titles in major quilt shows. So, yes, it can be done.

Time goes by and you are now all confident with you domestic machine, you are meandering and pebbling, and the quilting world is your oyster. And then, on a lark, you decide to go to a big quilt show and after driving five hours in snow and sleet, you find yourself in front of a long arm machine begging to be (ab)used. You grab it, like your life depends on it, and start stitching. Hours later, while you are stuck in traffic on your back home, it hits you. Long arm machine is like a giant pencil moving across your quilt. Wow, what a concept, you do not need to do things backwards anymore. 

Many long armers will tell you to draw the designs on paper over and over again until you are ready to puke. It is muscle memory, and also you are training your brain. If you can draw it, you can quilt it. It is that simple. Do not obsess about not having any talent for drawing. Talent is important, but it is not essential. It is practice that makes perfect. I could not draw a feather to save my life, and I detested them just because I could not quilt them. Now my feathers are as good as anybody's. The fact that I destroyed half the rainforest worth of paper drawing the darn feathers is beyond the point. I did not know how much I loved my long arm until I lost it. It had to go back because it was misbehaving.

So yes, you can quilt anything on your domestic machine, and you can be really, really good at it. But if you have that space, and the disposable income, do yourself a favor and think about a long arm machine. If you decide to go down that road, you may also want to buy a stock in a paper mill, because you are going to need lots of paper for practicing.

Rip It, Rip It Real Good...

Several years ago, while I was still an uptight newbie when it comes to quilting, I went to one of those wonderful stores that sells heavily discounted fabrics. At $1, $2, or $3 a yard, how can you go wrong? I picked lots of fabric, and piled it mile high on the cutting table, and was completely lost in my thoughts, already planning what quilts I would make from the new fabric when I heard this awful sound that brought me back to reality like a bucket of cold water. Riiiiippppp!!!!

I was flabbergasted, to say the least. What did she just do? I looked at the lady cutting, well ripping my fabric, like she has just murdered my first born. I was so shocked, and mad, that words were just not coming out. My mind was racing 100 mi/h about distorted threads, and stretched fabric, and, oh my, it is a catastrophe of biblical proportions. And that's where I got my first, and best lesson in quilting. 

Patiently, as if she knew that I was just about to rip her head off, the lady explained me the ins and outs of fabric ripping as opposed to cutting. 

This is what they say at About.com paraphrased by yours truly:

(http://quilting.about.com/od/fabricembellishment/ss/fabric_grain.htm)

The term fabric grain refers to the way threads are arranged in a piece of fabric. Long threads, called warp threads, are stretched on the loom and secured. They become the fabric's lengthwise grain, the threads that are continuous along the length of your yardage as it comes off the bolt. Weft threads are woven back and forth, perpendicular to the warp threads and along their entire length. These weft threads make up the fabric's crosswise grain. The lengthwise grain and crosswise grain are both regarded as straight grain, sometimes called straight-of-grain.

True bias is defined as the direction at a 45-degree angle to the straight grains, but in quilting we refer to any cut that doesn't run along a straight grain as a bias cut.

When we cut fabric for quilting, unless we are making triangles or curved blocks it is important that we do not cut the fabric on bias because it stretches quite a bit, and the blocks will not fit together properly no matter how precise your cutting or sewing is. When fabric is folded in half, and rolled on the bolt it shifts with each roll, and by the time we go to buy it, it is always, always cut on bias. Unless you rip it. The only way to get a strait of grain cut is to rip the fabric because it always rips,along the grain. Of course, you have to line up the salvages and clean up the rip afterwards because it does distort the fabric for the the first 1/2" or so. Unless you rip and then wash, it can take some persuading with a steamy iron to line up the fabric properly. This is really not practical for store owners for many reasons besides the question who is going to absorb the price of that 1/2", the customer or the retailer? 

Unless I buy a fat quarter I almost always rip my fabric to get that true grain going. I rip fabric for my binding too, unless it is already nice and neat. Does it waste fabric? Probably, maybe, it depends on how thrifty you are. For me it is worth it, because it saves me the grief when I start to piece my blocks. They all fit perfectly, unless I screw up something else :)

So rip away sisters, and don' be afraid. That horrible sound will set you free and become music to your ears. Happy quilting!

Don't "Thread" on Me...

Thread, the bain of my existence. I have so much of it. I have polyester thread, cotton thread. I have thread for piecing, and machine quilting and hand quilting. I have cones upon cones of serger thread. And please, don't even get me started on embroidery floss and pearl cotton. I have all the colors of the rainbow and than some. So, you would think that if I wanted to applique something I could just go in one of my many drawers of thread and pick one. Well, you would be wrong. I never, ever have the exact thread that I need. Naturally, I go and buy some more thread with every new project. If I continue like this, I will be buried by threads by the time this year is over.

If you read my last post, you saw that I am working on a color wise fairly simple project. I had only two threads that I could use in my stash, red embroidery floss that came from my mother-in-law and green pearl cotton. That's it. No yellow, or orange or blue. None. Sunday, right before the Super Bowl starts I will be zipping over to the store to buy some thread. People are buying beer, and chips, and dip, and I am buying thread. But, to my defense, it is a quilting emergency. Football game is long, and I need my thread to keep on appliqueing through out the game so I can keep my sanity. Happy quilting, and I am going to bed now, so I can be relaxed and refreshed for my thread shopping.

Work in progress

You asked for the pictures of a project and I delivered.
Here are a few pics of a sample and a pattern I am working on right now. It is wool applique wall hanging and/or a large table mat. All the wool came from my dye pot and I will make two samples, a really bright one (the one in the pictures) and one in fall colors. The background will be charcoal flannel and natural linen.

 

"But I’ve been deaf since I was 3, so I didn’t listen"

I generally do not watch football. I am a hockey and curling girl. Super Bowl was always a good excuse for me to lock myself underground (aka the basement sewing room) and tune out the football mania. I'd put my headphones on, and sew away.

This Super Bowl is different. This Super Bowl became almost a cause for me. First of all it is in the neighborhood. Well, technically, it is in New Jersey, but really it is in New York. It is right across the river. Sorry my New Jersey friends, but we all live in the shadow of the Big Apple. I hear some of you are ticked off by all the celebrations in the city, like that one in the Times Square, but that's what happens when your town happens to be in the suburbia of the tristate metropolis. We all have to live with it.

Second of all, the Seahawks are in the Super Bowl this year. For my uninitiated friends, they are a team from Seattle, and since we are from the west coast, more precisely the Pacific North West, it is a must to support the local team. Yes, I am a Canadian from Vancouver Island,  but that is what good neighbors do. We support each other. Seattle is just a short ferry ride away. I just wish Seattle had an NHL hockey team so the Vancouver Cunucks can have a play date every now and then.

All this aside, the real reason I will be glued to the TV this Sunday is a true role model Derrick Coleman, Seattle Seahawks hearing impaired fullback and hell of a good player. In now famous commercial for Duracell batteries Coleman says: “They told me it couldn’t be done, that I was a lost cause. I was picked on and picked last. Coaches didn’t know how to talk to me. They gave up on me. Told me I should just quit. They didn’t call my name. Told me it was over. But I’ve been deaf since I was 3, so I didn’t listen.”

For all of us who have been touched by hearing loss which, by the way runs in my family, or any other disability we know what he is talking about. So, my happy and (un)impaired friends, do not say the words "I cannot do it" lightly. Yes, yes you can! I know you can. All you have to do is work hard. If you fail, try harder. Humans are a fickle bunch. We do not appreciate anything that we did not work hard to get. So work hard, the victory is going to be so much sweeter. Do not get complacent, and lazy, and try to take the path of least resistance. This is why Derrick Coleman is a true role model. He did not give up, he did not take the easy way out. He did not surrender.

My son had a very, very mild hearing loss. The kind that can be detected only by a watchful parent who knows what to look for and a specialist. He does not hear certain frequencies and it might correct itself as he grows, but he is not waiting for that to happen. I don't think he is even aware of it. He plays cello. He is very lucky that we caught it on time.

My daughter takes dance lessons in Chorus Line Dance Studio. Every year they have a gigantic, mind blowing, recital in the Patchogue theatre. I have been going to these exceptional performances for the past four years, and there has never, ever been a dry eye in the audience by the time the recital has finished. A staff member, who is also a daughter of the studio owner, is hearing impaired. Every year she dances on the stage with ALL the students incorporating the sign language with the dance moves. Sign language interpreter is also on the stage for the performance and the benefit of the audience. It is simply spectacular. First time I had the pleasure to see it, when my daughter was only 4 years old, it confirmed what I already knew - we found the dance school that we are going to stick with. Superb quality of instruction on the side, the school is inclusive of everybody, all shapes and sizes and levels of talent have their place in the school, and everybody is a star. Hats down in respect to all the mothers, especially the ones like Mrs. Coleman and the dance studio owner, and my friend Aisha whose son is the rising star of Italian rugby.

Speaking of mothers and crossing all the obstacles in your way, lets not forget Leigh Anne, adoptive mother of Michael Jerome Oher, offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens. To my quilting friends who know nothing about football you did watch Blind Sided starring Sandra Bullock. Well Blind Sided is a true story of a phoenix, Michael Oher, rising from his ashes, all through hard work, support of his family and willingness of people to take a chance on him from the pure goodness of their heart. I still chuckle on the scene from the movie, when dainty Sandra Bullock playing Leigh Anne is protecting her son and is facing a dangerous local gang member and says: "If you so much as set foot downtown, you will be sorry. I'm in a prayer group with the D.A., I'm a member of the NRA and I'm always packing."

Now you are asking yourself, what the heck does this post have to do with quilting and Tasha's Patchwork. Nothing and everything. We all have our struggles and crosses to bear. I am all about tearing down all obstacles and barriers in my way. The bigger the obstacle the harder I try. If I cannot go over the wall, I will go through the wall.  From a war torn Bosnia, penniless and hungry (and I do not mean to sound pathetic here, I was luckier than most), I made my way to where I am now. It is a personal success. People helped along the way, just like Coleman's coach and his team mates, but it was a very steep climb with multiple curveballs thrown in my way. So, again, I am starting from the scratch. I am starting a business that relies on disposable income in the economic climate where many businesses are shutting down. I must be either stupid, or crazy, or insanely driven individual. I have $0 budget. I am a non-resident alien not allowed to work. What I do have is a small amount of talent, huge amount of willpower, and the most important of all, I have support of my family and friends.

So, let me drop this overly serious and dramatic rambling, and say - GO Seahawks! Go Derrick Coleman! We at Tasha's Patchwork will be cheering for you.

Onward into the Fog...

Momentous occasion for Tasha's Patchwork. Went to the printer today to get a master copy for what is hopefully going to be the first in line of many patterns. You may find it insignificant, but if you ever tried to start a business you will understand. Also, I gently persuaded a friend to be my pattern tester. 

Somebody asked me why can't I test my patterns myself. I can, and I do, but I work from my hand-drawn copy and I am too close to it to be objective. Pattern tester, in my opinion, should be an everyday quilter who generally quilts from patterns. My friend fits the bill perfectly - she is a quilter, and she mostly makes quilts from patterns. Pattern tester's input is sometimes more important than my work, because if she cannot follow the instructions, my potential customers will not be able to do it either. Instructions need to be clear, easy to follow and accurate. Two sets of eyes are better than one, so if there is a mistake that I overlooked she will be able to spot it. She will also be able to tell me if there was too much fabric left behind, or not enough. 

Mistakes happen to everybody, but when you make a mistake in you very first product that can be devastating for a start-up business. It would take a long time to get the trust back from the customers. So, my testing angel, I hope you cleared you schedule, since there is lot more work coming your way.

What Was I Thinking...

Now that I have gone through all the motions of creating a blog…I am speechless. I have a complete and utter writer’s block. Those of you who know me will call this a miracle since I always have something to say. When the cat that got my tongue comes back, I will be sure to get your attention and say something out loud. In the meantime, I am going to quilt out loud. When all else fails such as food, music, glass of vine, or chocolate, I crawl in my underground studio (because basement sewing room sounds so passé), and I quilt something, or dye some wool, of cut ugly fabrics into tiny little pieces while repeating “what was I thinking”.


“What was I thinking” is exactly what is on my mind right now. I am starting a business, a quilting business, an on line quilting business and it is going so well that I’d rather be taking out tiny little quilting stiches from a densely quilted king size quilt. I am hoping that a year from now all these growing pains will be forgotten and that I will be well on my way to having either a successful business or “what was I thinking” catastrophe. There is that phrase again. I really need to update my vocabulary.

In days to come, fingers crossed, I will link the blog to my website which is currently under construction. You know what else is under construction? Pretty much everything that needs to be on that web site - about half a dozen quilts, about a dozen or so patterns, and three lines of custom wool fabric. I simply cannot do one thing at a time. It is all or nothing and I am having a blast!