Sewing With Nancy

The double wedding ring quilt pattern was first published in 1928. The signature interlocking rings make it a favorite wedding gift. Most of us think of this design as traditional. Well, no so with today's guest.

Welcome Victoria Findlay Wolfe who is a modern quilter, an improvisational quilter and I think reinvented the double wedding ring pattern. Welcome, Victoria. Thank you, Nancy. Thanks for having me here.

One of my signature design elements is to use made fabric somewhere within the double wedding ring pattern. The concave squares in this modern-style quilt were randomly pieced and then cut by using my templates. Making your own fabric is a great way to begin this modern quilting journey. "Double Wedding Ring Quilts" That's what's next on Sewing with Nancy.

Sewing with Nancy TV's longest-airing sewing and quilting program 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 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 30 years. Amazing Designs and Klass needles. Victoria's signature trait in quilting is to have made fabric the sections that are pieced together and then re-cut into the shape of a traditional quilt. The made fabric and the double wedding ring on this example shows a concave square that is pieced and then re-cut.

Victoria, this is kind of a freeing sewing, quilting process. Exactly. And you had some inspiration in that. I did.

My grandmother was sort of the crazy quilter in our family. She made polyester double-knit quilts hand-sewing all of her scraps down onto a sheet. It was one of the quilts that I was given as a gift for graduation. That definitely inspires everything that I do today except that I'm not always using polyester.

Share with our viewers your improvisational quilting technique. Okay, so one of the places I'd like to start is to try to get people to not necessarily use strips when they're sewing. Because we know that if we start with a square and we sew some strips around it we know that we're going to get a log cabin, right? Right.

So one of the places I'd like to start it's very traditional block. It's like a crazy quilt start where you have a five-sided shape in the center of your made fabric. We're going to start with that. It looks rather like those little house drawings we drew as a child.

You have your ground, you have two walls and you have a little roof. Before we start sewing, we're going to use a standard 80 sewing machine needle. And on our sewing machines we want to use a stitch length that's at least a two or maybe even just a little bit under. Because we're going to be making, basically we're kind of being a fabric designer.

We're making a piece of fabric that we can then cut apart and then drop into any kind of quilt pattern that we want to use. So a shorter stitch length is important because you're re-cutting it. Exactly. We don't want those stitches to all fall apart in your hands afterwards.

We're going to start with our little five-sided shape. We're going to work clockwise or counter-clockwise. It doesn't really matter which way you go but don't be skipping around or you're going to learn to do Y seams before you really want to do that. And we want to keep this simple and easy.

Sure. The five-sided shape acts as our template. We're going to grab my random scraps that I have handy I'm going to lay them onto my little house shape overlap them and I'm just going to sew. I always sew with a 1/4" seam.

Okay. And then I'm going to press. I can finger press my seams. One of these works very nicely.

I press my seams over all in one direction. I'm going to follow my next side of my five-sided template laying my ruler on there and trimming off my extra fabric so that I have a nice, straight edge to be able to add my next piece of fabric. Okay. I have another straight edge here.

I can lay that on and just stitch it. 1/4" seams. Okay. And just straighten it out and-- Straighten it out and we're going to keep going all the way around our little shape continually adding those little pieces all the way around the outside until we get something that looks like this.

It's a little bit wonky, a little bit all over the place. But I can see that I can get-- If I'm going to go back and cut my half-square triangles or anything out of there that I'm going to get lots of different color in each of the little pieces that I want to cut. Since we're working with a double wedding ring we have a little bigger piece that Victoria has made. You can use a template which we'll show you later in the program or you can use a die cut quilting machine.

You just run the fabric through and when it comes out it's perfectly cut the way we have right here for the concave square that's part of the traditional wedding ring design. In the second program of the series you're going to see how we assemble a double wedding ring. It has arcs, and a melon and squares at each side of this concave square. The sewing is really quite simple.

But this is the focal point of this show. That starts the improvisational way of quilting. So you can see this is how Victoria achieved this interesting look for the floral section iris section of this quilt. Iris by Night features made fabric in the concave squares.

The quilt is a tribute to Victoria's grandparents Leo and Elda whose garden bloomed with yellow irises each spring. Memories and photos of that flower garden served as the inspiration color pallet for this very charming quilt. Well, Victoria, this is improvisational quilting and so, rather than giving all the step by step details of doing this because everyone's quilt is going to be different we're just going to showcase your beautiful work. Thank you.

And this quilt, Iris by Night was inspired by your grandparents. This is a charming photo. Yes, it is. It's a picture that's been sitting on the shelf in our family for ages.

So when I was looking for inspiration for this quilt in particular I went to the photograph to pick the colors that were actually in the photograph to use. That's where the subtle grays and the lights and the yellows and the greens just sort of tells the story of the quilt. The iris is depicted in the double wedding ring. Right, using the made fabric I wanted to sort of make that be the iris.

So even though it's very subtle looking closely it's there, definitely. One of the other things I try to do with any kind of a quilt pattern that I'm doing now I'm doing double wedding rings. And one thing I like to do is find one or two things that I can change to the pattern and all of the sudden it becomes something completely different. Sure.

So what we know of a standard double wedding ring pattern the bones of that are still here in the design, but I've gone in and I've changed two little elements within the quilt. This is your standard arc, as you see over on this side. I've made one little splice to make the leaf. And on the inside, in this tiny, little melon that fits to the middle of the melon shape I put the little bud of the flower into the inside.

So just throw two little elements have just completely changed the look of the double wedding ring. Later on in the series we're going to show how to piece together the elements. In the second program, actually. But this is an applique.

It is. It's a nice, fun little trick when you want to know how to finish off the entire quilt. So here I wanted to make the four-block style of a traditional quilt using the double wedding ring elements. But all I did, and you can show with this was to sew the lace 1/4" in on my seam allowance to get rid of my raw edge.

So that when we flip that lace over to the outside now all I have to do is straight stitch that right down onto my background fabric. Four medallions of the double wedding ring and then the background fabric is really quite interesting. It's various shades of gray. Gray, exactly.

It's a great scrap-buster. You know, looking for light and dark values of the grays, almost to a black to give some depth in the background but not overly complicated. One of my other guests has always said to put something into the quilt that is just a surprise that when you look closely you see it. Well, this center block has bees in it.

Yes. So I think that was a surprise to me. I just kind of glanced over it and then, ah, I found it. It was really an interesting area.

We have inspiration from irises, a modified arc so just some piecing changes. In the book that accompanies the program you'll see that little piecing change. Yes. The gray tones read so well as-- They're close together, but yet they read well.

Right, and it makes a great overall scrape quilt feel to it by using up as many different sorts of patterns in that family that I can put together. Then the quilting itself, the stippling that has been done in the middle adds some depth to this quilt. Iris by Night, inspired by grandparents, enjoyed by all. Exactly.

Thank you. Did you ever piece a quilt top that wasn't perfect and then store it away in a closet? Well, that's what happened with the first version of Victoria's quilt, A Summer Day. Later she was inspired to cut it up add to it and give it new life.

Here are some pointers on how to turn a mistake into a thing of beauty. Victoria, this is a striking quilt. It has so many elements in it but we're going to start with the mistake. Right.

And that is the focal point not a double wedding ring but a lone star. Exactly, it was a vintage pattern that I had that I was not really happy with after I finished piecing it. Things didn't quite line up. And you can see, it's just plain.

Where's it going to go? It wasn't working for me. So it was one of my orphan blocks. Then you visited your home in Minnesota and saw your grandmother's quilt.

I did. My cousins pulled out this quilt that had been made by my grandmother. The minute that I saw it it made me think of this block and it kind of gave me the idea of where I needed to go next with that orphan block. So the improvisational step came next and you cut it apart.

Cut it up! We all have those orphan blocks. There's ways that we can save them and turn them into something fabulous. That second life was-- The thing that I needed to really take it to another level.

Definitely. But then this is the third life. This is now the third life of this block, exactly. What started as just the lone star was inspired by the grandmother's quilt.

and I went back and I thought well, if I just cut up what wasn't behaving... As soon as I cut it, sometimes if something is a bit wobbly when you cut it things lay flat. So cut it apart and see what else you can do to add to it. By splicing in some little pieces here and filling in making the element that relates to my grandmother's work and adding in all my made fabric around the outside of the quilt.

And then your signature. of course, this is a double wedding ring. This is not traditional, this it orange. You're favorite color.

My favorite color. This was definitely becoming something that was a very me quilt, needing my orange cutting that out, and trying to figure out how I could incorporate that to this element. This was reading very strongly into the design of what I'd already done. So the orange is actually now balancing it out a little bit.

Then with the made fabric surrounding, framing the lone star and then ultimately framing the quilt. It certainly ties it all together. It brings it all together as a final thought. But then the signature part of this quilt we have to show.

Right, is taking it back again. I'm a modern quilter but I'm very deep and steeped in tradition so wanting to relate it to my grandmother's work. Taking the element that made me move forward on this quilt and bringing that into the quilt that I made. Polyester to cotton.

I mean, I can relate to polyester quilts. I think a lot of us can. Durable. Durable.

That's for sure. And that element is very striking. I can see where your talent was rooted, very much so. Now there's a little finishing detail at the very edge.

The binding, which I'll bring forward to show you. You know, you didn't use the expected orange on that edge, or a print but you incorporated a new color. Bringing in some other little elements that I was liking inside of the quilt was this funky orange kind of color there. So you're not often going to find a neon pink binding but it seemed to fit the quilt.

It works, it works very well. So the mistake that was here was a lone star which are tricky to piece if you've ever pieced one before. Then you just cut them apart. You know what I asked Victoria, if she took them apart.

I took a rotary cutter. You just cut it. Just sliced that up. And then added little one-inch strips of fabric and it took on a whole new life.

Incorporated, improvisational, double wedding ring, lone star, applique, made fabric. What a fun quilt it is. Risk-taking is great for your creativity. That's what Victoria's quilt Double Edge Love is all about.

She took the risk of cutting apart an already pieced quilt top that wasn't going anywhere. What visually appeared was some sections that reminded her of her roots in the farmland of Minnesota. And the other parts resemble streets of New York City, now her home. Here's a quilt that visually connects Victoria's past with her present.

Now this quilt has special importance in your life, Victoria because it was a Best In Show winner. Yes, at Quiltcon the first modern quilting convention, in 2013. I remember-- I was at the convention. It was on display.

And I just stood and admired this quilt because I thought, wow, a traditional pattern but done in a totally off the wall way. But the construction was perfect. Thank you. Let's just start at this double wedding ring section.

Explain to our viewers that it was a quilt top before this quilt top. Yeah, a lot of people get baffled by the concept of that. All of the made fabric that's inside of the shapes the small melons and the concave squares was actually a complete quilt top that I'd previously made. Taking the fat quarters and slashing them with the black lines.

I was looking for a few colors that were really my inspiration points so my pinks and my blacks and my lavenders. So I took the black to splice up all those fat quarters and made it into a quilt top. I really wasn't happy with where it was going. Sure.

So I get out my die sets and my templates and I start cutting everything apart to see what I'm going to get after that happens. You know, we showed a die cut machine but of course with double wedding ring there are many templates and many different sizes that make up this area. We'll be showing this in our second program some of the shapes. But you re-cut using these shapes.

This is a section that I find quite fascinating when you get into these types of double wedding rings where you have an arc and a concave square that are the same color. I would never do that! And I think it's such a -- Or I haven't done it, I may do it now. You may do it now.

Yes. But that was the thing that I found really interesting when I cut apart those shapes was the negative space that I had left on my design wall. So if I'm only cutting my small melons and this concave square all of the sudden everything else was a negative space. So I thought, well, what if I played that up more and let parts of the double wedding ring disappear.

You know, this combination of being from Minnesota and living in New York City was really what I was trying to work out in this quilt that combination of how those two modern, traditional, farm, city how that all blends together. So it's all about coming together and merging and pulling apart or whatever that conversation is. It is just an interesting study. You can add slashes to you quilt.

Here's a pieced section of made fabric that you did. And we have some examples. Exactly, I start again with my five-sided shape and I just worked with some larger pieces to go all the way around there. Then I just go on in there.

Get your rotary cutters out, right? Take a deep breath. Take a big breath and cut it! Then 1" or 1-1/2", whatever size you'd like.

Yeah, on this one probably a 1-1/2" leaves that nice 1" strip in the middle. And you sew it to the sides. Exactly. And then, tah-dah!

There you have one splice in. But, oh, you need another. You have to have another one. I'm all about cutting it up.

Because if at first you don't succeed, cut it again. Most people gasp right there. I can't do it! Go ahead, cut it up.

And then you would-- Splice in another strip. And that's what then the die cut or the template is placed over this. As we go back to our quilt and we look at the design this is where, you know, a different design of course but that's the impression that you get. The information that's left within the shape of looking at just the specific shapes of the double wedding ring.

So improvisational it's something that we can't teach exactly but we can give you guidelines. What better teacher to do it than Victoria. Great design. Thank you.

What began as a trip to heal the emotional wounds after serving in Vietnam turned into a program which helps communities in Southeast Asia and a way to empower women. Please welcome Fletcher and Joan Hines. Joan, you've been a guest on Sewing With Nancy many times but we're not going to talk about doll clothes. Okay.

I'm going to first start with Fletcher. Fletcher, welcome. You are a member of the Minnesota Veterans for Progress. Tall us how that has helped you and is helping others.

First of all, thank you for letting us be on your show. Sure. We started as a group of combat veterans from Vietnam. We were serving people in different capacities supporting veterans.

So we decided that there was kind of a little niche there a need to serve people overseas and serve people in our previous combat zones. Most for personal reasons, for healing and also just to serve the Asian people. So we've been working since 2003 mainly to empower women and children. The way we look at it the women and children are the real victims of war.

Yes. You started, first, with wells. Yeah, so we started putting water wells in in rural Cambodia. That's because, you know it's very difficult to get clean water and there's high rates of infant mortality because of water borne illnesses.

It's very important. Cambodia has the worst health outcomes in Asia. We've been trying to work with Asia and Vietnam. Now, you're on Sewing With Nancy because we're going to talk about a sewing center.

That kind of came about as a side note from your experience of digging wells. Tell our viewers about the sewing center that you're building, that your group is working with. What we came to realize is that, you know in order to empower women, you give them a sense of dignity and a sense of being able to participate actively and define their futures that we needed to allow them an opportunity to develop skills and be able to earn money for themselves. Which is a real epiphany for women in that part of the world because most of the time they are dependant on men to give them money.

We started the sewing center to serve young women between the ages of 17 and 25 to give them that sense of dignity. And also because a lot of the rural women in Cambodia are at risk of being trafficked for sexual exploitation. So this helps them be able to earn a living and keeps them out of the sexual exploitation the human trafficking market. Now Joan, you joined your husband on a trip how many, two times?

Twice now. I went back about a year and a half ago and I saw the area for the first time that I'd heard about for many years. A very warm people, a very inviting area and the sewing center idea came about with the non-governmental organization that Minnesota Veterans for Progress was working with. There's a photo of many of the young women wearing yellow tailored shirts and that was their second project.

Yes, it was. We visited an orphanage in -- Cambodia. They had sewing machines, treadle machines and they needed updating, which we were able to do. And the orphanage director had them all put on their yellow shirts.

A tourist had left bolts of yellow fabric and that's what they constructed for themselves. Now, the Minnesota Veterans for Progress is working, Fletcher, on building this sewing center. Tell about the donation areas. You're looking for machines and fabric and so forth and monies to help purchase those.

Yeah, we're in the process of putting the building together. I think the building-- We hope the building will be done by the first part of June. But we still have to outfit it with furniture, sewing machines sewing supplies, fabric, all the things that it would take to make this operational as a vocational training center. So we're looking for people that will help us to buy sewing machines, sewing supplies and fabric and just contribute in general to getting this operation functional.

Interesting fabric sometimes that they use Joan, because rice bags... Yes, yes. I did take some photos the last time we were visiting at the orphanage. Rice comes in 100 pound bags and it's a plastic type of fabric.

It's a woven plastic. And the director had saved all these bags and was able to make dance costumes using this plastic fabric. Here you can see. It comes in all colors so that these dance costumes that are-- They're beautiful.

Yeah, they really are. They may be a little warm to wear. I would think so, especially in Cambodia. Oh, my, yes.

What started out as-- For you Fletcher, going as you know, rightly so, to heal wounds has turned into such a positive way of helping our community around the world. Yeah, and it's just amazing to me what an opportunity sewing presents for women in the developing world because it's just such a liberation for them to be able to develop skills that allows them to be independent and to be creative and to have a life of their own. So it's really very important. The sewing machine is very powerful around the world.

What a great statement to end on. Thank you, Fletcher, thank you, Joan for being with us. I hope to hear an update at a later time.

Both

Thank you for having us. You're welcome. And thank you for joining us on Sewing With Nancy for this program. If you want to know more things about Sewing With Nancy go to nancyzieman.com.

As I close each show thanks for joining me. Bye for now. Victoria Findlay Wolfe has written the "Double Wedding Ring Quilts" book that serves as a reference for this two-part series. The book includes double wedding ring basics plus full-size patterns for ten quilts.

It's $18.99, plus shipping and handling. To order the book, call 1-800-336-8373

or visit our website at

sewingwithnancy.com/2823. Order Item Number CT11100 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 with Nancy Zieman has been brought to you by Baby Lock; Madeira Threads; Koala Studios; Clover; Amazing Designs and Klass Needles.

Closed captioning funding provided by Pellon. Sewing with Nancy is a co-production of Nancy Zieman Productions and Wisconsin Public Television.