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Quilting is a term that we use to broadly describe the process of creating a quilt project. If I were to get really technical about it quilting is specifically the process of stitching together the layers the quilt top, the batting and the backing. When you're at this point of the quilting journey it's time to make some decisions. Should you tie the layers, stitch or stipple them together? In this episode of "Fearless Quilting Finishes" I'd like to share with you my favorite stress-free ways of quilting. "Fearless Quilting Finishes" that's what's coming up next on Sewing with Nancy. Sewing with Nancy TV's longest-airing sewing and quilting program with Nancy Zieman

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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 special effect threads because creativity is never black and white. Koala Studios fine sewing furniture custom-built in America. Clover making a difference in sewing, quilting, crafting, and needle arts for over 90 years. Fuller Brush Vacuums, dedicated to keeping homes clean. Fuller Brush Vacuums. Amazing Designs and Klass needles. The quilting process, as I mentioned, putting the top, the batting and the backing together starts with planning for the backing fabric. Backing fabric isn't always that interesting. It's usually just one solid piece of fabric. But rarely, on a big quilt, will one width of fabric accommodate the whole size of the bed quilt. I'd like to give you some hints about how we go about piecing the backing fabric. We have some contrasting fabric samples here in a much smaller size but I think you'll get the concept. These are only fat quarters to represent 40"-wide fabric or 42"-wide fabric. Often, bed quilts are wider than 80" which would be two widths of fabric. Rather than just having a seam going down the middle the common recommendation is to cut one of your lengths in half and flank either side of the middle section. So that the seaming is going down the sides. If you need to take widths off either side you can do that. This would accommodate up to, let's say, an 82" or an 80"-wide quilt but many quilts are just a little bit wider than that. They may be 84" to 86". So rather than buying another length of fabric just to accommodate those couple of inches many times what I like to do is to add a column of blocks down the center of the backing. Here's a picture of a column quilt that I made awhile ago. It was a brightly colored quilt. On the back, you can see the image of the extra fabric that was put down the center of it. Here's an example of that, where you would have two if these were both 40" wide-- I realize they're not-- but that would kind of consume my whole table. You could add a block of extra fabric down the center just to make it fun and carry through some of the designs from the front. Then you'd have a wider width. You can be creative when working with the backing fabric so you don't spend a lot of money on buying three lengths of fabric instead of just two for those larger-sized quilts. You'll buy batting that accommodates your type of quilt. We make lots of quilts in the Sewing with Nancy team and sometimes we have extra quilt batting left over. Again, these are smaller pieces to show you what we do to piece the batting. Sometimes they're roughly cut. They're not even. We stack the batting fabrics together and then do a cut. This may seem a little unusual right now but just wait. It will kind of be magically transformed. We're going to put these two together. We're going to seam them together with tape. Then we peel off the extra from one piece. Peel off extra from the second piece. And presto, we have kind of kissed seams. Then to seam them together, we use an interfacing. It's a tape that's designed for quilting. It's a lightweight, fusible tricot. Let me just cut this extra length off. It doesn't add weight, it just seams it together. White on white, I realize, is a little tough to see. I wouldn't normally press on my cutting board but you get the idea. You just seam it together to get a nice wide width. So if you have a baby quilt, let's say perhaps you can use up some of your scraps when you're creating the batting. Now it's time to do some layering. You have your batting chosen. I could whole program on batting. It would be very boring, a lot of white on white to tell you what types of different batting to use. Use your favorites or you may want to reference a book, or so that tells about different types of batting. But we'll take the backing fabric, wrong-side up. It will not be in such high-contrast as we have here. That shows you how the piecing goes together. I use a ping pong table, and I tape down my backing then place the batting and the top quilt. Roll the two together. This is a small piece. Usually, I work with the batting first. It does take a little bit of time to get that batting smoothed down so it's even. Now you pin it together. Pin all these layers together. You're going to have a bigger piece than this. This might be a great time to get a quilting buddy to come over and help you do this. We're going to pin the layers together. I'm going to find my tool. Here we go. Use curved pins or lightweight pins. You can just pin these together, starting in the center. Here we go. We'll get the clip going there. As I've done in the past, usually a wrist or a fist apart for the pinning. Try not to get too much fabric. I'm working kind of backwards here. You don't want it to dimple. You want this to lay flat. Avoid, if you can, some of the seams because you may be doing some stitching next to the seams themselves. That's coming up. We're using this little tool to help close this together. Just make a fist, and pin. I work on a ping pong table at home, as I mentioned because then you can glide the pins along the table and you're not going to worry about scratching the ping pong table. You just pin the whole piece all the layers, working out from the center. When you have a big quilt you're going to have to smooth it and make sure everything is even. I'm going to show you another way that I like to use. But before I do this I'm just going to share with you what I would do next in using this sample. Have your friend help you. You roll the fabric to the center. Borrowing from the bicycle world-- You'd have a bigger quilt. You can see we have a small one but these bicycle clips fit around the fabric. This is just a small, little quilt so we wouldn't use these. But if you have a big quilt, it would fit that in there. You use these for placing around your ankles so your pants don't get into the bike spokes. Or, you can just pin the layers together. Then on this side, do the reverse. After you've pinned it all, which I haven't done roll it to the middle so that you can start your quilting process in the middle. This is one option, pinning the layers. Another one is fusing the layers. We learned this from a Sewing with Nancy guest in the past. Rochelle Stibb taught us this technique and we've adapted it many times. That is to use fusible web. We have this small quilt laid out and you kind of peel back the backing fabric. Does your sewing room ever get like this? Can't find your-- Here we go. Here's my paperback fusible web. Instead of using pins both on the wrong side of the top layer and the bottom layer. Let me just get this cleaned here. It had some webbing exposed. About every four inches, or so wherever you would place the safety pins you'd place a little web. This goes fast. Whoops, maybe too fast right there! Then, you take off the top layer. That's probably the most difficult thing to. I think you kind of get the idea of this. One more. It's not accommodating me too much today. You peel this back, then place your batting fabric and lightly press. Make sure you have some towels underneath it. Then you'd place the same type of thing here. This is pretty hot so I really don't need to hold it that long. Place a little tack, just tack it down. Then you'll be able to go all the way around your quilt and fuse-baste it together. That way, you don't have to worry about avoiding the pins. When you have your layers together whether you've pinned them or you've fused them together. Obviously, press after you've removed the paper. You're ready then to try some unique quilting options. When layering all your fabrics together and then doing the stitching, you have many options. I'm going to share with you what I call my "fearless ways" the techniques that are the simplest. First of all, stitching in the ditch. We do this with garment sewing and with quilting. It means to sew from the right side of the fabric to stitch in the well of the seam, in the groove of the seam so that the stitches do not show on the right side. It just attaches all the layers together. You can see exactly what the front looks like because of the stitching in the ditch that's holding it together. Straight stitch. I think you can see how that's done. Set your machine for that stitch. Use quilting thread or an all-purpose thread plus a quilting needle and then a lightweight thread in the bobbin that matches your backing fabric. To help you work with stitching in the ditch choose a foot that has a groove right down the center. When stitching, you'll see that groove right there. You can sew right along that edge and kind of guide as you're stitching. It works out very well. But yet, there isn't a lot of room for give here because if you stitch a little bit over the edge or under, you'll see the thread. It's okay if that happens. I don't have any problem with that. But if you'd like to try another option that would be to work with a decorative stitch. Quilting isn't all that exacting. Yes, you want to get everything matching but if it's a little bit off, it's part of the charm. That's the way I look at it. Here we have decorative stitches not really stitching in the ditch but sewing along the seam so that it gives some special effects, as well. When we get to our third program there'll also be way of finishing the binding with that same stitching. So, enough talking. Let me show you how it works. On my screen, you can see the stitch I've chosen. It could be a zigzag stitch, or any type. This is a multiple-step zigzag with a little extra pattern in it. It will straddle that seam. If you have a knee lever, which you can't see but I'm able to lift the presser foot up and down when quilting, it works out extremely well. It helps you so much. When doing the stitching, I'm starting from the center then I'm stitching out with this stitch. I can just guide the foot, following the seam. The stitch straddles on both sides. You don't have to worry so much about guiding as you're sewing. You can see my pining that I pinned away from the seam allowance so I can just kind of keep on sewing without having to stop to unpin the fabric. As I bring this up, you can see that I didn't stitch perfectly but it works to hold all the layers together. Another option is to use a single decorative stitch to tack or to tie the layers together. Set your machine for your favorite stitch that gives you just one little design and periodically put that through your design. It's great for small quilts. I'm going to change my stitch to a decorative stitch. I'm going to choose, oh, let's choose this flower design. Then, if you're able to, choose a single stitch so that you can do just one at a time. As I'm stitching, again, starting in the center I'm using my knee lift lever. I would just decide where I'm going to sew these. Let's see, I'm going to go right about here. I'll stitch one complete design. Just let it stitch. It will stop after stitching it. Then cut the threads. Raise the presser foot and advance it to another section and do another stitching to hold the layers together. Again, you'd like to put a single stitch about a fist width away, as we talked about earlier so that it will hold all the layers together. Many years ago, quilts were tied with yarn or heavier thread. This is kind of the same concept. By just having a single little stitch that you can later trim off the extra threads to hold the layers together it's a great way of tying, a "fearless way." Whenever I present seminars and I ask how many people have stippled their quilts or worked with free motion quilting a very shy ten percent of the audience raises their hands. Many people have heard about it, would like to try it but fear has been built into their minds that it's difficult to do. Don't make it difficult. Make it simple. All you have to do is make larger stippling designs in the beginning to become comfortable with it. This shows using variegated thread and puzzle piece ends or lightbulbs, or whatever you'd like to call them. Or, even just following a design and echo stitching a certain distance apart. Again, start with a smaller project. It could be a lap quilt, a wall hanging, make it easy. First we're going to talk about the set up. There are many products on the market for stippling to make it easier, to help slide the fabric. That's what I have placed on the bed of my machine. But for sure, you need a quilting foot that will rise above the fabric. You can see through this one so it makes it easier to work with. You need to lower the feed dogs. On each machine, it will be a little different. I just have an icon on my machine that makes it very simple. It's the icon of a presser foot and a free motion stitch. You can see it right there. I'll just depress it so that the feed dogs have been dropped. Use a variegated thread, if you'd like or you can use a thread that matches your fabric. In this instance, because I'm working with heavier thread I'm working with a topstitch needle. Test the needle with the thread to make sure you have the right combination. The machine is set for a straight stitch. You do not need to control the length because the feed dogs are dropped. You're going to be driving the car. It's kind of like ice skating. That's the way I liken it to. My sample quilt has been fuse-basted together. We used that little technique I showed you earlier today. You're going to guide your hands on either side of the fabric not keeping it near the needle, just on either side. You're going to guide it. You may want to try this at first just guiding it as if you're doing a figure eight or a little stitch. The reason that many people are afraid to test this out is because they've heard that you're never supposed to have stitches cross. There aren't any stippling police so you can certainly do this. You can cross stitches. You can make swirlies. I really don't care. You can have fun with this. That's what sewing and quilting is all about. You sew at a very fast speed and you move the hoop. You see I have something to work with and kind of act as a steering wheel. You just gently move the fabric so that you get even stitches. This is certainly high-contrast thread with this project. You would meld the thread so that it would blend right in with the fabric from behind. Big puzzle piece ends are a way to start this process. If you want to make small puzzle pieces, go right ahead. If you want to cross your stitches, be my guest. Unless you want to win first place in a major quilt competition, you can certainly do that. You can see, in a very short period of time I have covered quite a bit of territory in my quilt. Now, if I had an appliqu here, let's say of a leaf I could just follow that leaf, and then I could echo stitch. Just do a certain degree. I'm going to stop and move my hoop my little steering wheel so that I can just guide along this area. It's kind of like doodling, like you had a pencil in school and while the teacher's talking, you're just making designs. That's kind of like what's happening here. Press that pedal down so that you can get that smooth flow. I'm going to do a little bit more just to encourage you to try this at home. If you have sharp corners, it's not going to matter. No one is going to be upset by that. Again, you can cover lots of area. I'll just show you my very rough stitching. It's a lot easier to do this when you're not talking. But you can see a fearless way of working with stippling. Give it a try. Most of us think of clothing designers as fashion forward thinking individuals. Today, you're going to meet clothing designers who thought of safety before runway style. Please welcome Annie, Natalie and Maggie, who are from a team from the University of Wisconsin-Stout who designed an evacuation harness for wheelchair bound people. Welcome.

All

Thank you. It's a treat to have you here because you're seniors from my alma mater. I received a press release about this class that you were in and the great design that you created. Annie, tell me a little bit about this class. Yeah, I like to think of it more of like a problem solving type of skill. You're thinking outside of the box doing more research on things and getting a better understanding of, I guess like finding something that needs improvement and improving lives on it. In apparel design. Natalie, tell us about the evacuation harness. We treated a device that could really help someone evacuate from a building whether it's around stairs and things like that. We did a lot of research on 9/11 so that really led our design development in that direction. I know you design clothes, as well but this is a unique thing. Maggie, this design when completed there were five on your team? Mm-hmm. Tell me and our viewers, also about the area where this was submitted because you won an award. Yes, we submitted it to the IFAI for our competition. It's nationally recognized. We won Second Place. It's for safety design. Mm-hmm. What were some of the pitfalls, Annie that you had when working with five and sewing and designing, when working with this project? Communication.

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All

I mean, that's the most important part so if you don't have that right then it makes it really difficult whether it's planning when you're going to meet or when you're going to have everyone on the same page. I think we did a really good job especially with advances in technology and getting aware of everything. Natalie, what type of fabrics are in this harness? We used a lot of narrow fabrics, so straps, like you find on backpacks and stuff like that. We tried to mainly create it out of that. Maggie, how many did you make? It must have been interesting working together on this. Yeah, I'm trying to think. We made at least five prototypes, I think. We started from muslin and then we eventually got to like a backpack. So, did you use an industrial sewing machine or just a regular sewing machine? We used a home sewing machine, which was interesting.

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You have to go through all those layers. I was lucky, I didn't have to do the sewing. So who did the sewing? We worked on some of it. We split up our project into parts. So you tested this out on people who are bound to a wheelchair and it works well. What have you learned most from this design process? It was a really good team learning experience. Absolutely. Because we worked so much together. It was a lot of time together a whole semester together, we were in one group. I think that's the biggest thing to take away. Sometimes, sewing projects and quilting projects take a semester length, maybe longer. We don't have such great results in that short of time. So, when you're thinking about-- You're fashion forward, which you are you're going to graduate soon, what would you like to do?

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Tough question. You do a lot of exploring in school then for your last semester, you kind of like choose what direction you want to take it. Right now, I have a pretty diverse portfolio but we'll see where the next semester takes me. Maybe you think working on this project will help you secure a job? Definitely. I think the teamwork that is involved was incredibly helpful. I know, Natalie, it's kind of like what we do. It's a teamwork job on Sewing with Nancy. It's a teamwork job sometimes people work together on quilts or other projects so this is just a new area. Well, thank you for being with us today and doing so well on your award that you received for your evacuation harness. It's well designed, I hope this gets manufactured soon. Thank you so much If you'd like to read more about the design that these gals made you can go to NancyZieman.com where all things Sewing with Nancy are found. Under Nancy's Corner, you can click and find out more information. You can also re-watch 52 of the most current Sewing with Nancy programs and connect to us by social media. I hope you've enjoyed this second program of our three-part series on "Fearless Quilting Finishes." We'll be back next time with our final program working with the binding. Thanks for joining me. Bye for now. Nancy has written a fully-illustrated book entitled "Fearless Quilting Finishes" that includes all the information from this three-part series. It's $14.99, plus shipping and handling. To order the book, call 1-800-336-8373

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sewingwithnancy.com/2703. Order item BK2703 "Fearless Quilting Finishes." Credit card orders only. To pay by check or money order call the number on the screen for details. Visit Nancy's website at NancyZieman.com to see additional episodes, Nancy's blog, and more. Sewing with Nancy TV's longest-airing sewing and quilting program

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