Sewing With Nancy

>> A little fabric can go a very long way. In fact, during this miniseries on Sewing with Nancy my guest and I will give you ten great reasons to keep even small pieces of fabric because they are ideal candidates for creating stunning fabric flowers. Welcome back, Amy Barickman who's here to share her fabric flower ideas. Good to have you back, Amy. It's great to be back, Nancy. Needle felting is an ideal way to create floral fabric accessories. Wool felt is a base for the passion poppy with highlights of roving added. It's a striking adornment that's easy to create. Fabric Flowers, that's coming up next on Sewing with Nancy. Sewing with Nancy, &nbspcelebrating30 years of sewing and quilting 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, makers of sewing, knitting quilting and embroidery products for over 25 years. Experience the Clover difference. Amazing Designs and Klass needles. What I really like about the ideas in this two-part series is that they easy to make. Amy, in about an hour, maybe two hours at the most you can make almost every one of the ten accessories that we're going to share. Yes, and they're great for gifts. For the first three in this program we're going to work with needle felting and wool felt. What's your favorite felt to work with? Well, I love the wool felt because it provides such wonderful colors to choose from a nice texture, and it's really inexpensive. You can buy them sometimes by the rectangle or yard. It's not a lot of investment if you don't already have some at home. In the book that accompanies today's program you'll find a pattern for this passion flower. With a permanent marker-- If it's dark felt, you can use a black permanent marker and trace. Then cut it out. Here you can see the cut out. Amy, we're going to do one quick marking before we do the embellishment on it. Correct. We're going to mark about quarter-inch breaks in between each petal that will help guide us with our felting. In the divot of the petal we're going to mark, just arbitrarily, 1/4" This chalk will come off, so not to worry. But then, the real key to making this flower so expressive is roving. Yes, and this is a wool roving. You can see here a little color variation which makes it interesting, as well. This is a little more coarse, but there's also finer rovings. Any type of roving will work. We're going to be pulling off little pieces to work with and felt into that and make highlights on our flower. If you're not familiar with roving it's simply wool that hasn't been spun. Think of old-time spinning wheels. This is it, only in a little higher class way because it's already been dyed in this! It's easy to come by and fun to work with. Yes, definitely. This is the tool that we're going to use. It's a needle felting tool. You can see that it has a wonderful protective plastic case or shield. We're going to be using these barbed needles. That's what's going to embed the fiber into the wool felt. So when it's in use, there are the needles. Obviously, you need to work on a base. Right, and the brush is great because the actual brush is taller than the needles so you're not going to damage your needles when you use this. This is the method we're going to use. I'll pull out the piece that we started to work on here. You can see the highlights in between each petal I'll take a little piece of roving and fold it. I'm actually just going to kind of fold it in half. That'll give kind of a starburst effect. We'll felt in, in between those lines. You can, you know, do a thin layer and then slowly build your density of where your felting. If you've had a bad day, this is great! Yes, it is! Then you can do some pinning. Yes, we're going to go ahead and pin those pleats that we see in the passion poppy. For those, we're going to just follow those lines that we marked, and pleat. They all go in the same direction. Complete this in a circular manner. As Amy's finishing pinning this you can see hand stitching would be in order. On the back, you could put a circle to place the pin. Cut about a 3" by 3/4" strip that you've fringed add a little pompom, and you can figure this out. It doesn't take rocket science. But it certainly is a great pattern shape. Amy, as we look at the finished passion poppy on our mannequin you can see the feathering of the roving the contrast of colors and the accent in the middle makes an attractive accent. Roses, nothing but roses. That's what this next fabric flower technique is all about. Amy's rounded rosettes are equally as charming as the botanical kind with the advantage of extended longevity. Learn another felting technique and you, too, can create a single or a bouquet of roses. We've advanced from the hand needle felting technique to show you how to work with a machine type of felting idea. Amy, this makes felting fast. It sure does. Because with this rose technique-- Let's look at this beautiful bouquet. You're going to be working on a base of ivory colored felt that's cut slightly larger than the pattern piece. You'll felt both sides. You can see the white in the middle giving it that great look. Felt both sides of the circle. You could do it by hand. You could do it by machine. This is going to be a lot faster. With the machine there are 12 barbed needles, again, and a covering. So, a few more needles. No needle-- Excuse me-- no thread, no bobbin. There are needles, absolutely! Like the hand tool you can just put roving or other fabric here. We're using more roving, and just stitch away. You don't have to worry about direction there isn't any feed dog area. Just let it stitch. It takes time, but it is just almost magical, Amy and you don't have to cut threads! I know, I love that. It's phenomenal. I just started, but your piece has a little bit more of the felting accomplished. Correct, we have one side felted. Now you can see, we're going to go ahead and felt on the reverse side. I'm going to go ahead and grab some roving and cover it. Again, it's so forgiving. That's what I love about felting. You can always adjust as you go. One thing that I'm careful about when I'm felting with a fiber onto a surface is to be careful that I don't pull the fabric while the barbs are going in and out because then you might have a chance to break a needle. But you really can work very, very quickly. You just work your space then add a little more fiber. Eventually, we'll have this piece completely covered on both sides with the pink fiber. I have the pattern piece. Here, we have one already cut out. I started to stitch into the rosette form. You can then add a backing and a pin on the underside. I'll take that little string away. Or, you can use florist tape and florist wire and make a bouquet. This is really lovely. It's one of my favorite projects. So, with a little bit of felting and a lot of creativity of choosing colors you can have a beautiful rose that will last a long time. Take your felting venture one step further, creating individual petals and dimensional petals. Our pretty petal accessory combines texture, fiber, and as I said, dimension, for shaping a dramatic accessory. Amy, these flowers are fun. They're large. They have a lot of options where you can wear them. I love them on a purse or even for home decor on a pillow. We're going to be working with paler blues. You can use any color you'd like. Having two colors of felt and various of roving. Correct, what we've done here is some blending. We're going to start out with tracing our pattern piece onto our felt. Then we're going to pull a small piece of fiber. We have both the cream and the pink. I'll start with the cream. We'll go ahead and felt in some of the cream first. Then I'll add in and do the same with the pink so you can see that process and how we get the blended flower. The next step would be to cut out your blue piece. Here you can see where we're now going to attach it through felting onto the cream base. Again, you'll just secure those two together through felting. Then the last step is actually cutting out the blue. Usually, we leave like an 1/8" margin around the petal. We have that nice detail. Really, do felt a lot. The felting does give it texture and has that migrating of the fabric so they become one rather than two separate felt pieces. The more you do it, the better it looks. Right, and you can see from behind, sometimes that you'll see the fiber coming through. You'll know you're finished at that point and it's secure. So then, you have felted several pieces. The pieces are flat. Perhaps you saw earlier that the flower had some shape. The shaping is done with steam. This is wool. Wool and steam, you don't often want to steam it too much because your projects will shrink. But in this instance, you want to do a little bit so it's filled with steam. It's a little warm, too! Then shape it and stretch out the middle portion. That is going to cause the shaping. Then let this dry. You can kind of see the shaping. If you let it dry, it will stay that way. For these pretty petal flowers, we have eight petals. Four large-- You can have five large, if you would like. Form the middle however you'd like to combine them. I guess there are five of the large petals. Hand stitch them together in the center. Then add the smaller petals, just make the petals. Amy has added to her pretty petals some beading in the middle section. You could also add buttons, fringe or whatever your case may be. In this instance, you worked with two layers of felt multiple layers of fiber and blending and adding the accents of the colors for a great looking flower that's fun to make. Mix and match cotton prints to create your own variety of bias blooms. No degree in horticulture needed just an eye for color and a little sewing savvy. You'll find that when we're making all these flowers or you're making them it's going to be an hour or two hours at the most to create a bias bloom. It's a lot of fun. Yes, this bloom has three components. We've got the leaf, the yo-yo and then the center bloom. Probably the fun of this particular flower is the fabric choice. Here you can see some of the coordinates that we used. We like the actual stripe as the bias edge making sure that the leaf contrasts with the fabric that we use for the yo-yo. Here's another little example of some polka dot combinations. You're going to need a stiff craft interfacing. Sometimes it has fusible on one side, that's what you have. Correct, this has fusible on one side. We added another layer on the other side so we could fuse and sandwich the craft interfacing with the fabric. Here's the pattern piece. You're just going to cut out the bloom start with. We call this a bias bloom because we're going to add some bias trim around the outside. Yes, just a simple raw edge strip of about half-inch bias. Then you're going to stitch this around all the outer edges. Here's a close-up of zigzagging. This is kind of an artful zigzag. You kind of mold and stitch, mold and stitch. It doesn't have to be perfect. No, it's character and variety. No judges here on these sewing projects! So, before we change that, or shape that into a bud let's talk about a yo-yo. Yo-yos are a traditional quilting project. Yo-yos have been around for what seems like forever when it comes to sewing. A lot of decades. You can cut an 8" circle and make a traditional yo-yo. Or if you'd like to use a product to create a yo-yo, you certainly may. It has a disk and a plate. The inside disk fits in you can see these nodules are aligned. There's a nodule out here, simply get them aligned. But first, you've got to put the fabric in. It's a wonderful shortcut. It makes a near perfect yo-yo. Then, just load it together. Really, if you're using this it's not needed to cut a circle. Let me get these in the right spot. That would help. You can always use the traditional method, too. Sure, and then just bend this over. I'll thread a needle. There are little "smile" disks, cut-out shapes. You stitch in and out. It's kind of hard to do this backwards, Amy, I must admit. I should've had this started. Let me start it once more, there we go. Stitch in and out, in and out, all the way around that. After you've stitched in and out all the way around you snap out this inner area and then pull. Voila, it's magic! Pull the threads. I think you can get the grasp of this. Then it's time to do some assembly. "Some assembly required" here. Here's one that the zigzagging kind of trained it to shape. Right, and then what we'll do is we'll twist it into that bloom shape. We'll tack that down with a little hand sewing. Then I can show you. That will be mounted on the yo-yo that we created. The last step is adding the leaf. These two have been stitched. You'd stitch the leaf on the side or underneath. There you have a bias bloom. Fabric yo-yos were the inspiration for Amy's budding yo-yo accessory. Smidgens of silk, cotton or even wool, turn into dimensional circles that are then stacked and embellished. It's a classic look from a homespun origin. Usually, we think of yo-yos as something from the '30s or '40s but this certainly doesn't look from that decade. It has a very modern look. What we're showing here are the stacked yo-yos combined with the leaves. I love the beaded detail. This version is the cotton version. Today we're going to work with some silks. These colors were just a perfect match. They're lovely. When choosing your colors you want to make sure you have a vivid contrast. I brought these along to show you the variation. You could a really bright palette, or warmer tones. Either use a wool or a wool felt for the leaves. I mentioned a smidgen of fabric. You don't need a lot of fabric. We've cut general oblong or oval shapes because we're going to make the yo-yos in three different sizes, from the itty-bitty which I think is 1/2", 1", or 1-1/2", or there about. You can use the templates that create the yo-yos. A few minutes ago I used a very large yo-yo maker and did one or two stitches. It's a little hard to do when you're not looking at it. This one has been completely stitched. Every stitch goes in the die-cut opening. It's such a great tool. Then you'd pop out the disk. You haven't stitched through, because of the die cut. To make it stuffed, take a scrap of fleece. A little batting will work. Or stuff it with a little fiber fill. A little bit goes a long way. It would be a little bit better if I did it the right way! Excuse me. Just pull the threads. There you can see the yo-yo has been shaped. It probably is a little over-done. I could maybe cut that a little smaller but when you stitch everything together, it works out well. Here is one size, two and three. Small, medium and large. Amy, you want to stack those? Sure, I'll show you how we do that. Simply stack those together. There will be hand stitching. Scrunch them all together. Scrunch them all together. Then, add the beading last. Also, the leaf is a fun accent. We're using some wool felt. Small pieces, again. I love that it doesn't take much. You can add some inner details to them by stitching on a water soluble stabilizer or a heat-away stabilizer. This happens to be a heat-away stabilizer. Here you can see a close-up of zigzagging along the edges using the stabilizer as a base. Then, after all the stitching has been completed it melts away. Here's how the ironing melts away the stabilizer. It's not going to get onto the bottom of your iron. It works out very well. Then you can just add these, hand stitch them on. The details that we have on our finished accessory the yo-yo bloom has layers, dimension, beads and then some stitching to give it a very classic look. Today's Nancy Corner guest has extended an invitation to you and to me. We've been cordially invited to make hospitalized children smile. Please welcome Cindy Kerr, founder of Conkerr Cancer. Cindy joins us today via Skype. Welcome to Sewing with Nancy, Cindy. Thank you Nancy, for having me. It's a pleasure to have you with us. Conkerr Cancer is an amazing organization. Before we tell about it now, tell us how it started. Well, in 2002, my son Ryan was diagnosed with osteosarcoma which is a form of bone cancer. I was a quilter/sewer, and still am. I was trying to think what I could to do to make his hospital room seem more like home or brighter so I would make him a pillowcase every time he went into the hospital to have on his bed. The pillowcases you made-- You didn't use "Little Mermaid" for him-- No! But they were fun novelty prints. I have a couple here to show that they're bright and colorful unlike the hospital pillowcases the white ones that they get, right? Right, correct. I mean, I think the first one I did for him had hamburgers and french fries on it. We did soccer, Halloween, that type of thing. But you have taken this mission beyond just initially working with your son. Right, what happened is Ryan was cancer free for about two years then he had a relapse. He went home after his surgery and my daughter and I got our stash, which we all have and made 30 more pillowcases and took them back for the rest of the children in the hospital where he was being treated. That's how it sort of began. Now, you have made thousands and thousands not just you, but your organization and volunteers. Right, we have delivered over 490,000 pillowcases in the last five years. That's what I try to tell everybody. It's not me. It's all the volunteers that have made this happen. It's one thing to deliver the pillowcases but the other interesting thing is that you go into the hospitals with the children and their families and they make pillowcases. Right, Ryan had several relapse and we realized how boring it is in the hospital. So, one of the things that we do is we take our kits for pillowcases and our sewing machines and we go and sew with the children in the hospital. There are siblings going through this also, with their parents. It's a blast. I love the story about the pin cushion. Share that with our viewers. So, we have all the different colored pin cushions and one particular story that stands out is I had a little boy who, I asked him if he wanted to help pin or if he wanted me to do it. He said, "Oh, I want to pin, because I'm always getting stuck so I want to stick something." That seems to be the general trend with all the kids. They like to put the pins into the pin cushion or the pillow. They're in control of that fabric. They don't have a lot of control in what they are going through but this sort of gives them a respite from that and a choice in something. There are other people who are involved with your organization, Conkerr Cancer that don't have a lot of choices but they make and create pillowcases. You told me about the men's maximum security prison. Exactly, we have the Maryland Men's Maximum Security Prison who for three years, has been making pillowcases for us. There are five men who will never get out. The assistant warden had cancer, a relapse was feeling sorry for himself and Googled, came up with us and decided that this is what these guys were going to do for us They have delivered, I believe, over 3,000 pillowcases. They were not delivered to us. We've gone and gotten them! Oh, sure. How exciting. It's kind of like eating potato chips. You can't eat one! Exactly! People donate the pillowcases. You make them with the children and families. You're very diversified. Right, and we pretty much stick with pillowcases because we have our hands full. Myself, alone in the Philadelphia area we deliver about 1200 a month to the hospital. While it would be wonderful to do them for adults we really just concentrate on the children. An amazing number you shared with me is that 44,000 children each year are treated for cancer-related illnesses. Right, and I think most people aren't aware of that. September is Childhood Cancer Month and 44,000 are currently in treatment every year. Cindy, this is an inspiring way to sew. It doesn't take a lot to make a pillowcase but it can make a child smile. Thank you for being with us. Thank you very much! If you would like to make some pillowcases or donate fabric for Conkerr Cancer

you can go to our website

nancyzieman.com There are all things Sewing with Nancy there. Click on Nancy's Corner and you can find out more about Conkerr Cancer by clicking on the link that's right there. This wraps up our first program of our two-part series on "Fabric Flowers." Amy Barickman will be back another time for our second program. Remember,

you can go to

nancyzieman.com to watch this program again online and find out all things Sewing with Nancy. Thanks for joining us. Bye for now. Amy Barickman has written a fully-illustrated book entitled "Indygo Junction's Fabric Flowers" that includes the instructions for all the projects featured in this two-part series. For ordering information, call 1-800-336-8373

or visit our website at

sewingwithnancy.com/2608 Order item number BK2608 "Indygo Junction's Fabric Flowers." Visit Nancy's website at nancyzieman.com to see additional episodes, Nancy's blog, and more. Sewing with Nancy, &nbspcelebrating30 years of sewing and quilting 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 Oliso. Sewing with Nancy &nbspisa co-production of Nancy Zieman Productions and Wisconsin Public Television.