Sewing With Nancy

Free-motion quilting now that's a technique that many quilters wouldn't consider a beginner technique. No so, according to today's guest on Sewing With Nancy. Welcome Molly Hanson who taught herself to do the free-motion quilting very early in her career. It's good to have you here Molly. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. I'm really excited to show how you can quilt on free-motion quilting and install confidence in new quilters. I think we're going to have a lot of fun. I've got seven different designs. It can be just as easy as writing your own name. If you can write your own name I'm convinced you can free-motion quilt. So I'm excited to show you that. I know you will. "Free-Motion Quilting for Beginners." 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. As with any sewing or quilting project the first step is to set up the machine. Molly, this is really pretty easy, straight stitching. Yep. That's what you have your machine set. Yeah, any machine will work, any size machine. It doesn't really matter how big the throat space is. And as long as you've got it on a straight stitch and then you want to put your feed dogs down. That's here on this machine. Every machine will be a little bit different. Check your owners manual to lower or sometimes-- Cover your feed dogs. So a simple process there. And then the foot is important. The foot needs to ride just a little bit above the fabric. It'll either be plastic or metal for a darning or free-motion quilting foot that you'll have with your machine. It'll be one-toe or closed-toe, depending on what you prefer. And then thread. Right. I use cotton thread typically but you can use cotton or cotton/polyester depending on what you like. But it should be a strong thread. This is a little different than maybe some people are accustomed using the same thread in the bobbin. I do, I recommend using the same as in the bobbin. That way if there are any little tension hiccups you're not going to see one color come through. And by setting them both at the same-- Or by using both the same threads I feel like it just makes everything go a lot smoother less problems. This is beginners, this is for experienced people. We all want to have ease, right? Right. And it's a new project, so start with a new needle a quilting needle, topstitching needle. I like a topstitching needle or a quilting needle. Yeah, the thread just glides through better than a universal. Now there are some accessories that you could use, but they're not mandatory. Not required, but sometimes they can make life easier. So it's always nice to know about them. Like this silicone sliding mat that you can just put and line up so that your needle doesn't pierce through it. It'll help everything just glide along a lot faster or a lot smoother and easier. Kind of like ice skating. Yes, exactly. Especially if you've got a bigger quilt with some drag. It can really help you out. Then another thing that people like to use. I don't typically wear them. Where I live it's hot, so my hands get hot. But a lot of people really like these because of the grip on the fingers. It helps them move the quilt around a lot easier. This is a common tool to make free-motion quilting easier. Now you'll see throughout this series that we're going to be stitching the various free-motion designs on samples. And Molly, you don't throw away these samples. No, no, I don't like waste, so I like to find fun things to do with them. And you'll see that as we go through this program. They're 12" samples, top fabric, bottom fabric. Yep. And then the batting. Right, right. We're using a fusible batting for this. You can use any kind of batting a cotton/polyester batting, a regular cotton batting. For this quilt here of course, you'd want to use something soft like a cotton but for these we're using a fusible. It gives the project a little extra body because it's a fusible fleece. It's a little heavier, and it works really well for three-dimensional projects especially. But it only has fusible on one side so you fuse it to the top layer. Then for these small samples you don't really need anything else. That's adequate, yeah. But you could pin it in the corners if you'd like. Then if you didn't have fusible fleece you just would use curved basting pins. You could, or you could use the spray. Yes, there's adhesive quilting spray. That's right. I like to use this sparingly, personally. But yes, you can put all the layers together. So now we have the set up the set up at the machine the set up for your sample to practice. And then eventually, to make projects. The next thing we're going to do is our first design which is stippling. The most common free-motion quilting technique is stippling. It's versatility, light texture and ability to blend and not compete with the piecing make it a favorite among quilters. Here's the beginners guide to stippling. Now you just saw Molly's creation of just a simple placemat and pot holder. Pot holders in my house don't look this nice, Molly. Well, that one hasn't seen any real use yet. You can see that overall design and it's just pleasant. But I have to admit many quilters steer away from this because they think it's too difficult. Right, right. And stippling isn't very difficult. You just have to get the feel of it. It's all about muscle memory, just like everything else. Muscle memory, now that's a great term to keep in mind. You start muscle memory by doings some sketching. I really-- Yeah, I recommend sketching. I feel like you can really work out the kinks when you sketch. And if you put your pen to the paper and you never leave it you'll really get the same technique and feel as you would when you're actually quilting. It'll give you a really good solid practice. I like to work out my designs and sketch them first. Then I always feel much more comfortable when it's time to move to the needle. And the key is, you just said you're pen doesn't leave the paper. The pen does not leave the paper. That helps you so much. I like to make round 'U's little puzzle-shaped type designs. And fit them in wherever you can and just wiggle and wobble and you just really get a feel for it once you get going. That's the way you'll manage or handle the fabric underneath the presser foot. That foot is raised just a little bit above the fabric so it will glide just like the pen. Yeah, the pen is the needle and your hands are the paper. You move the paper instead. But the concept is generally the same. Sure. So when you begin, sit up straight-- Posture is important. You want to have a nice 90 degree line here with you elbow. If you're sitting too short or sitting too tall and you do have this you're going to get sore after awhile. So it's really important to make sure you're set up properly for maximum success. Then after setting up your sewing machine which we did in our last segment you're going to drop the bobbin thread. Right, right. That's the first step. What you want to do is just put your needle down and then put it back up. And then if you do this and pull this string your thread comes right up and you're ready to go. So you have the bobbin thread, the top thread lower the presser foot again, and then-- Yup, I like to take a few stitches in place just to kind of lock that in. I always start with just a few stitches before I move on to start stippling. Do your magic. All right, here we go. Those little puzzle piece 'N's and what I like about your technique is that you don't have to have it so small right away. Oh, no. Yeah, especially when you're practicing. It's nice to sometimes practice on different scales but I think you really want to be able to see what you're doing. I envision a real puzzle piece, a jigsaw puzzle piece. You can go big or small or whatever. Just try to make them link and curve. As you're sewing, you know we can really talk about cleaning the machine. Right. You know, that's a really important step and one I think is so commonly overlooked. People forget that their machine is doing a lot of hard work and really needs to be taken well care of. The lint buildup that you can get with free-motion quilting is just incredible. So if you're not careful and you don't clean it regularly it can put a lot of extra stress on your machine. Oiling is also very important for that reason. And while you're doing your sample you can check the tension because I think we need a little tension check. Why don't you show-- We purposely do this to show our mistakes so you don't make them too. But you have a little bit of a spider web showing. Right, I do. This is exactly what we don't want. This is why we use the same color thread in the bobbin and the top. Because if we didn't and this was a different color you'd really notice it. But if you're a few feet away now you'd barely notice it. Then in your sample you can change the tension and just practice. I'm going to increase mine here because I know it's not quite set the way I had it. This will work better for me. But you can increase or decrease and you should try both and see what's going to not give you that spider web look. As she's working on this I'll just show you the stippling all over technique. You can make them large, you can make them small. It's a great place to start your journey of free-motion quilting. What free-motion design should I quilt first? Where should I start? These are questions that you might ask yourself. Molly's answer is, start by stitching your name. You've certainly written it thousands of times so why not try to stitch it. The basic loop-de-loop design just like cursive, allows you the freedom to incorporate words into free-motion quilting designs. Well, Molly, working with this design on these cute little accessory organizers that you made. This one says keys on the inside but it's kind of keys in reverse right here on the darker side. It's easier to read it on the darker side. You can see the loop-de-loop as well on the practice sample that you've created. You said love is a great word. Love is a great word. And I love loop-de-loop and how versatile it is. It really is like baby cursive like a little 'E' or a little 'L.' The design just really blends beautifully with classic cursive writing and you can incorporate really any word. Although ones to start off with maybe avoid a 'T' or an 'I' at the first. They just can be a little tricky. Words like love really do work well, or Nancy. Or Nancy or Molly. There you go. So you can do some practicing first. Yeah, and I'll show you what it looks like on the sketchbook. Like I said, I always think you should start sketching first. Make sure your pen doesn't leave the paper and just start making random loops and let the pen go where ever you want. Make a loop, and then when you get to a nice area where you've got some open space you just go into your cursive writing. I like to think second grade cursive lessions. You know, nice, basic, round just like your teacher taught you back in the day. Then you can go right back into the loop-de-loop without ever even breaking your design. The way your hand moves is the way both hands are going to move the fabric. Right, exactly. Really, the pen is like the needle and the paper is like the fabric. So it's the opposite. But once you get the design worked out in your brain then you can focus on all the other steps you need to stitch it well. It helps really a lot to get it worked out on paper first just so you know what to do next. Then there's no guessing. So that's what that looks like. Very nice. Now to translate that to the fabric Molly's already drawn up the bobbin thread and holds the threads taut. Right. The same settings as before. I'm going to take a few stitches in place just to lock in those stitches. Then we'll just get going with this design. You just want to curve around and make a loop every now and again. Just be real relaxed about it. This is one to really make sure your shoulders are soft and your not holding too much tension in your arms and shoulders and you're relaxed. It helps make everything look nice and round and pretty. I have to say when I first did free-motion quilting I held my breath. Not a good idea. Then when you come to a nice open space you just start slowly quilting your words. And you know, take your time with it. And try not to focus so hard you forget how to spell which does happen from time to time.

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I think what we need to point out-- Watch Molly as she quilts. It's not a race. She's moving the fabric very slowly maybe sewing at a medium speed. When you're first beginning that's a really good idea not to try to rush yourself too much. You've got plenty of time. Because if you push the fabric too fast the needle could break. It could, or the thread could break. Yeah, so you want to avoid that and just go nice and slow and smooth. That way your stitching feels more regular and it all just gets a rhythm together which is really what you're looking for. Then I can go into another word right here. Almost there, Molly, you've got it. There we go. Excellent. That's what that looks like. Very fun. Thank you. You'll see later as we incorporate some of these other designs that you can put a variety of free-motion designs and combine them as we have here. Pebbles and chains consists of a space filled with as many touching circles as possible. Pebbles can fit just about anywhere. Even a single row of pebbles called "Chain of Pearls" can be beautiful in very small spaces. When Molly was introducing me to free-motion quilting for beginners I said, this is one thing I want to master. I really think this texture is great. And look at the Chain of Pearls, it can be big, it can be small. It has great appeal to me. And wait until you see this sample the sample that she worked on. Look at that texture just changing a piece of fabric. Molly, your pebbles don't have to all be the same size. No, varying them actually gives them more realistic looks, so that's the fun of it. You really can go crazy with it. Make them look like bubbles or pearls. Make them all the same size. As much fun as you want to have and creative as you want to get. Now this is a time where you must, you must, sketch. It really helps. It really does, because this muscle memory is when you really need to learn. It's a little counter-intuitive but once you get it it's very simple. Basically, when you're trying to do a Chain or Pearls or two circles next to each other your tendency is always going to want to be to make a figure-8. That's just the way your mind naturally works. But you want to avoid that tendency and start with a circle. Go back over it a little bit and then make your next circle. Go back over and make another one. What you get that way is nice nesting of the two circles together. Versus if you were to do a figure-8 you would get two teardrop shapes together which don't really look like pebbles once they're all stacked. That's why this muscle memory really is important. Once you get going and you get used to going back over your lines a little bit it's a lot easier. Some people think of free-motion quilting never to cross lines, and that's not important. No, no, it really isn't. And it really depends on the designs. Sometimes the designs really require it. Yes. This time, you know, if you go back over your lines if you want to go all the way back around it'll just add more texture and more depth. And you might need to to get to where you need to move to the next time. So that's just the way. But you definitely don't want to just go right into your next circle. You always want to give yourself a little bit of space to nest that up nicely so it looks like a circle and not a teardrop shape. So once you've got the concept down in your mind, in your hands you can go to fabric. Right, right. Let me show you what that looks like on fabric. We're always going to take a few stitches in place. Get going. With pebbles, again I'm going to go back over my line a little bit. And vary the size as much as I can. I like that look because it looks more natural to me. That just helps you go where you need to go. We were even talking about a Chain of Pearls. If you wanted to do that you can fit that into any border. All a Chain of Pearls is is a single row of pebbles. But you can just go along a row or a line and do a single row. This fits great into border designs or in the spine of a feather-- Wow, spine of a feather! --when you get a little further down the road in your quilting. Yeah, it's fun. You know I have stippled many, many quilts especially landscape quilts and all I do is the stippling or maybe a little leaf design. And these ideas give me so much more flexibility. Yeah. I can't wait to try it. They are a lot of fun. I have tried it, but I can't wait to really do it. There you go. Notice again, I keep pointing out the speed at which Molly's working the ease, breathing. You want to really keep relaxed. That's the ticket. If you stress out it's going to show in your quilting. Your lines will be jagged and they just won't look as pretty. The softer and more relaxed you are the better your quilting will look. We've shown you three techniques in this first program of the series. You just saw the pebbles big, small. We're going to do the wood grain in the next program. Here you can see the all-over stippling the writing of the word. What interest it can bring to a basic quilt design all for beginners or experienced quilters. From a colored pencil drawing to appliqu sixth graders learn to take their art to a new medium. Please welcome Maria DeGroot. Maria is an involved mom and a quilting enthusiast who volunteers at her children's school to teach the art of quilting. Welcome to Sewing With Nancy, Maria. Thank you so much. Now you are an enthusiastic quilter as I stated and you found that your kids where learning about radial art in class. Yes. And you've made quilts from their projects. I did, I did. Here's the quilt. Give us a little rundown. We'll show the process, but this is an amazing quilt. Okay, the kids do this radial art design in the fall. They start with just a pencil drawing of their name in 1/8 of the pie, of a circle. She has them mirror image it and then repeat it to form what I thought were medallions. I didn't realize it was their names. It hung in the hall for a long time. I kept walking by, going, that has got to be a quilt. That needs to be a quilt. And you made it happen. I did. I convinced the art teacher to let me come in and do art with them in the spring. So they did the pencil drawing in the fall and then we transferred it to fabric in the spring. This is a great process. Maria made for me my own quilt block. Why don't you go over the process with our viewers. Sure. I started with a circle and then folded it into eight pieces like a piece of pie. In one of the pieces of pie I wrote Nancy's name. Then they used chalk to-- It's actually a charcoal pencil. You draw over it, and then flip it to get that mirror image, then draw over it again. Sometimes at the end their original pattern is destroyed from drawing through it. Sure. So here's what they do. Here's my Nancy, then Nancy in a mirror image. And then times eight, or four of each. Yeah. And depending on how the kids arrange their letters it can have a very symmetrical look like this or it can have a very chunky or real artistic looking design when they're done. Then they get to choose color. Yeah. You tell them about color at this point. At this point I have nothing to do with it. When we're doing the colored pencil that's all the art teacher. When I come in in the spring is when I have a few things to share with them. Here's kind of what you-- The process. Yup, from that circle I use paper-backed fusible web. So if you look at the art along with it all of the 'N's on the outside are drawn here. And by fusing it to the back side of the fabric I've now created fabric 'N's instead of colored pencils. Then they have to do that with all of the letters in their circle. And here we go. So here is the radial art in fabric form. They'd go from paper to fabric. Really, really fascinating. Yeah, and I make them do all the tracing. They do all of their own cutting. They even iron everything on. So some of them aren't exactly circles when were done but because I can sew I can fix that later on. Sure. So you then fuse it and do the stitching. I do. Lay it out on the great black background. If we take another look at the big quilt and some of the name medallions why don't we start with Hope. Sure. Here you can see the Hope circle. That one's pretty distinguishable. It is, it is. With only four letters, the letters are quite large and that is a little bit easier to see. Another one you'd like to share? Regan is another one. She has crossed over her 'E's and some of the letters so they're mixed up a little bit. But her name still goes from outside in. And fun colors that they all chose and worked with. Yeah, I brought in a bucket of fabric. I said, here's your new colors. So they could do what they did with colored pencil but I told them they are the artists just like they were in the beginning. They're recreating their art into another form so go ahead and pick what they like. Let's look at one more. How about-- well, Josh is red, white and blue. He's hard to see, but it is a very cool effect too. Uh-huh. And he did that in honor of-- Of a relative that's in the service. So that was kind of cool. And Maria, you used this as a fundraiser. I did. The quilt is donated to the school. They have an auction in September. I have the second quilt in progress already. Good for you. My own child will be in the third one this year so that's kind of fun. Well, what a great project. Thank you for sharing this. You're welcome. What a great story. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. I hope that you've enjoyed this segment of Sewing with Nancy and will be back with us next time for the second part of our program on "Free-Motion Quilting for Beginners." If you'd like to find out more information go to nancyzieman.com or you can re-watch this program. You can click on videos watch four seasons of programming and find out more of Nancy's Corner guests. Thanks for joining me. Bye for now. Molly Hanson has written the "Free-Motion Quilting for Beginners" book that serves as a reference for this two-part series. The book includes the fundamentals of free-motion quilting along with ten practical projects. It's $19.99, plus shipping and handling. To order the book, call 1-800-336-8373

or visit our website at

sewingwithnancy.com/2819. Order Item Number B1248 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.