Sewing With Nancy

It's great fun to watch improvisational comedy or be involved in a spontaneous game of, let's say, baseball. But have you ever thought about quilting, that it could be spur of the moment? Please welcome my guests, Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle, modern quilters who are going to show us how to work with 1" strips and be spontaneous. Welcome to Sewing with Nancy. Thanks, Nancy. - Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here and to share these quilts with you. They're-- we're going to show you a series of quilts that we've made starting with a plan, and then we go in and improvisationally splice 1" strips to bring life to them. Our Chorus Line Quilt is really the ideal quilt to start this series. The rows of 1" strips transition from numerous to few and give the impression of a Broadway musical's grand finale. Bill will show you how to create this modern quilt design. "Magic Inch Quilts," that's what's coming up next on Sewing with Nancy.

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Sewing with Nancy, TV's longest-airing sewing and quilting program with Nancy Zieman,

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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. Amazing Designs and Klass Needles. Before showing you the technique, you just must look at this quilt very close up to see the beauty of it and the flow, Bill. It has great flow to it. Thank you, Nancy. We really were trying to capture that sense of movement that starts with the dense upper row and then makes its way, bit by bit, as it opens up and just kind of drips off the edge. -

chuckles

Baby Lock

Now, the 1" pieces that are inserted... Mm-hmm. End up being 1/2" wide. Exactly, and that's the beauty of this quilt, because every row starts out the exact same width. And then whether you splice in-- here, we have 40 splices. And by the time we get to the bottom, there are only three splices down here. And whether you've done four, ten, or three... Uh-huh. The finished size is exactly the same because you lose a bit of seam allowance, and then you gain that 1". Now, when you talk about accuracy, you know, sometimes accuracy-- you can think, you have to be accurate, but there's-- it's very freeing to be accurate because you have movement, and you don't have to worry. That-- that's what's really neat about this. You worry about the precision with which you cut, but you don't have to worry about what goes where. Sure, and, you know, I-- that's a really great lesson to learn. And here's the example of what happens, is that-- we're using a smaller width, not a full width of fabric. This is 20", let's say. And then you cut it and insert it. And it ends up being 20". The exact size. - Right. So you can see here, when we have the un-spliced piece, and here, we've spliced in seven, and it just ends up being the same size. Magical. The inserts are 1", exactly cut, not 1 1/4", not 7/8", but 1". So if you like efficiency-- and some people think, "Oh, I'm going to cut through a stack of six." Don't do that on this quilt. - Okay. This is a quilt where it's really nice to lay out and cut your strips one at a time. Just enjoy-- enjoy the fabric. Enjoy the process. Now, speaking of fabric, you used a lot of fabric in this quilt. There are over 70 different fabrics. And when you look at the stash here, it's so bright and colorful, and yet it's transformed dramatically when you just get that 1/2" sliver of each of them. So now that we have the fabric, we have a 5 1/2" wide strip cut, you're gonna do some slicing. Some slicing. So the key to this is keeping everything parallel. So it's perpendicular to the row... Mm-hmm. - But parallel to the edge. And on this, if I wanted five splices, you notice, I haven't marked anything. I'm just going to cut. And that's one. And I'm not worried too much about exactly where they are. And, you notice, I'm not even using the 1/4" marks on the board, because if I follow all the 1/4" marks, it'll look really regimented, and it'll lose some of that improvisational nature. So I'm slicing. And I started away from the edge because I don't-- I don't want one of these to get stuck halfway under the binding. Sure, sure. But you can see that it really ends up being that I have five different pieces-- or six pieces because I made five splices. And I'll just open that up a bit. Sure. And they're all slightly different distances apart, just like they were in the finished quilt. And we can stack six pieces up, stack six colors of fabric, and then we can stitch them. We talked about the accuracy of cutting 1"strips. And, Bill, you made these great samples to show the importance of the 1/4" seam allowance. It's an important thing, and it'll help you with all your quilts, not just these. Because when you stitch a 1/4" seam with 1"-- with 1" strips of fabric, you never change the width of the fabric. Right, it's-- it's interesting math. If you think about it, you've got-- on the back there, you see the four 1/4" seam allowances, so those four 1/4" add up to the 1" that you've spliced in. And this insert kisses right in the middle. But, you know, this kind of looks like sometimes I quilt... -

chuckles

Baby Lock

You know, maybe not too accurate. And from the back, you can tell that we have overlap. And, you know, on some quilts, that doesn't matter. On this, that little sliver does make a difference, and this shouldn't be something you're anxious about. It's a great opportunity-- because you're doing a lot of these strips-- to just improve your craftsmanship, and it's so rewarding. It looks great when it comes out right. And you could have exponential changes in your sizes. You really can. Over those 40 splices in the top row, you could end up creeping an inch or two there. Sure. And so just looking at this, doing it methodically, and one of the things that I always suggest is that people practice a couple test strips to get their 1/4" seam allowance, and measure it and make sure it's good. And Bill also likes to use-- and Weeks-- like to use a walking foot. And this walking foot is beautiful on this machine. It keeps the top and bottom really tightly together, and so I'm going to do a couple examples right here. And I'm gonna start with that walking foot in place. And we have a nicely marked 1/4" here. So I can just go right ahead and-- whoops-- I'm gonna feed right in there.

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Baby Lock

And because we have so many pieces, I prepare a stack ahead of time. Mm-hmm. - And I can just reach them. And I'm not really paying attention to which fabric is mated on which, because I can sew these all together, and then I can pull them out later and determine the order of them. Sure. - So just take these out. So you could strip all once-- put the 1"strips on one side of each of the cut pieces. And right now, I'm just going to open this up. And I would like to have it go together so I'm putting right sides together, and I'm just going to line those up and go right back to my machine. And you can chain-piece so many of these. Let's see-- I'm getting ahead of myself there. You can chain-piece a whole lot of these and then go to the sewing-- or the ironing table-- I'm sorry-- after that. Mm-hmm. So I'm gonna go right through there. Little trim. And open that up. And I'll just press this piece as Bill can-- chain-piece a lot together. But pressing open is really important. You can kind of run your thumb down and then press it open. And as we often do on-- when working with quilting is that-- to get that seam pressed, just hold it down with a clapper, and it absorbs-- or a wooden piece-- it absorbs the moisture, and you can see how those seams kiss together. And now we'd like to show you how to assemble the quilt. As you can see, the sewing is very pleasurable, just kind of rhythmic. You make the strips. - Yes. But you'll probably make the top row first. The top row is a great place to start, first of all, because you're doing it over and over and over and--

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Baby Lock

And you get in the habit, and you don't have to make many decisions. If there are 40 splices... - Sure. And 70 fabrics... - Yep. It'll-- it'll just work. But as you progress down the rows, you definitely can see the unevenness, purposeful unevenness, and you want to make sure you don't have a river. Yes. So the rivers are where you have-- if you can imagine water flowing through, you don't want it to go straight down. And I know I moved that very quickly. -

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Baby Lock

But going-- you want it to kind of meander a bit, so that means both the teals have a meandering as do the solid-- or the pieces of fabric. Sure, and you can resolve that when you are laying it out because-- we have an example here, and there's kind of a river. Yeah, sometimes you want things to actually touch, but let's say we're laying it out and that just doesn't feel that good. No. Because these are nice rows, you can flip it. Sure. And all of a sudden, it's staggered, and what I actually do is, I sew little sections of two or three or four, and I lay them out on my design wall and then rotate them, and that lets you do two things. It lets you avoid rivers, but, also, if I have a hot pink here and I have a hot pink here, that would be very distracting, and by rotating, I can just move your eye around. And one thing we're gonna talk about throughout this series is, in addition to design and technique is color. And it-- you-- we cut 1/2" strips because they're-- that's the finished size. And if you have a color that you think might work, but, mm... Not sure. This is a great way to audition. Because these 1/2" strips, just slicing them from your stash, you'll see exactly what works. In this case, the hue is almost identical, and it disappears. And here, that kind of dusty purple might look good in a big piece of fabric, but when you put it here, there just isn't sufficient contrast, and it'll end up looking like a hole in the quilt, especially if it were-- let's say we had it right here. If I cover that up, it will actually make it look like there's a giant space between those. Sure. So now you know the basics of working with "Magic Inch Quilts," starting with the Chorus Line. Working in columns is a fun and fast way to tackle our next quilt, Splice of Life. In any size, you'll love the freedom of choosing the number of splices and then spacing them to make this quilt your own. Choose two colors for a graphic quilt, or dig into your stash for a scrappy version. Now, Bill and Weeks worked together... Yes. On these quilts, and this is-- it was a-- it's a big quilt. Right. It's a queen-sized quilt. But here, we have it folded down so that you see just three of the accent columns, and then it's pieced. Right. It's made in columns. And the fabric that we've used as the band is the same for the-- I guess you'd call it sashing. That's a wide sashing-- and dramatic. Very wide sashing, yes. Now, the angle of the splices and strips is not straight across. No, and that's what's so fun about it, because you really make the decisions as you go. So another improvisational process. Yes. Now, color is really important in this. Absolutely. As in any quilt, in any home, you know, color is great to work with, and you've chosen fabrics in the same color family. Right. And the other thing that's really important is to have sufficient contrast, because what looks like it's good contrast from here to here might not look that way from a distance. And, again, you can do the audition. You can audition, if you're concerned, to make sure that-- 'cause even though that's a different color, it's just too dark. Whereas that would work well. It would. - Right. And I love this example because this is kind of what maybe I'd think would be-- work for a splice in this quilt. Right. - One of these prints. But tell the viewers about your example here. Right, so what happens is, sometimes people want to match colors, and what happens is, the-- the eye will visually make a connection between this background color and whatever little bits of brown are in the strips. So we need to really avoid strips that have brown in them. And-- to get the Swiss cheese effect. Yes, you get the Swiss cheese effect if the background color appears in large areas. -

chuckles

Baby Lock

Sure. - Right. So we cut these the finished width just to get a visual representation, and then our sample, again, shows that we have the strip-- this happens to be 9 1/2" wide. It could be any width, right? - Right, any width, yes. And then with piecing, it still ends up with 9 1/2". Being the same size. This is what I love to show you. Not only the front, but if you look at the back, the kissing of the seams, the 1/4" of the background fabric, the inserts... Right. Oh, perfect. Good job. - Good. Thank you.

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Baby Lock

A lot of practice. So now for splicing. - Right. So let me show you how we do it, because a lot of people are a little intimidated when there isn't a given angle, and so we try to look at the angles in the previous rows, but for the first row-- here, I'm gonna put my chalk down-- we just make very-- not super dramatic angles but maybe just slightly off-kilter. So I'm gonna go ahead and cut here... Splice it? - Yep. And I'm gonna go-- make five here, and you'll see that I went slightly in the opposite direction. And for the next one, I'm gonna go a little bit more straight up and down. You're gonna try to stay away from the edges because you don't want it to go under the binding. And let's do a couple more. And so, I went in that direction before, so maybe I'll go in this direction now. Mm-hmm. This is where the spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment thing comes into play. Yes, and again, if you're looking at the rows above you, you get an-- a way to kind of remember what angles you've been using. But now you really want to number it... Uh-huh. Right. Because from here to the... - Yeah. The sewing machine, you might get a little lost. I like to number in the upper left-hand corner. Okay. So your 1's are clear, where they are. Sure, sure. And your 6's don't become 9's. So I go 1-- Oh, let's see. 1. And we wash all of our quilts after we quilt them, so all the-- this is just regular school board chalk, which is a little bit easier on a dark fabric like this, but you can use any marking pen or chalk pencil you like. So we'll take these six pieces plus the 1" strips of fabric and show you the trick of matching the angles. Due to the angle of the cut in the fabric, there are some additional tips that Weeks is going to pass along to you. Yes, I like to make the strips a little bit longer than the piece that you're sewing them to because each one is gonna be a little bit different length, so we'll trim them up later. So still 1" wide. It's still 1/4" seam allowance.

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Baby Lock

And do a lot of straight stitching. And I'm not using pins, but if you're doing this for the first time and you feel more comfortable using them, feel free to do so.

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Baby Lock

And the old adage-- once you've stitched a seam, you can do some pressing, and I'm gonna be the presser. So you can finger-press the seams open just to get it started. Just press it open, and, Weeks, the beauty of pressing a seam allowance open is that it distributes some of the thickness of the fabric. Absolutely, and I also find it easier, for other quilts, to be able to match points and to quilt your quilting through a wider distribution of bulk, not just having all the seam allowances on one side. There you go. So now what we're gonna do is, we're gonna trim off these ends to show how to align the next piece. So we're gonna have the ruler on the edge so you know exactly what the angle is, and it will be different for every piece because every angle is different. So-- so you can see, just straight across. And I'm gonna turn it around and do the same thing on the other end. All right. So now comes the part where we're going to show how to align this angle, because it's a little bit tricky. And what you'll want to pay attention to-- and I'll point it out with a pin here-- is, this is the point, 1/4" from the raw edge, that you want to align with that next piece. If you slide it down just a little bit more, you'll be able to see the point at which this brown fabric disappears. That should-- into the blue-- that should happen right at the 1/4" seam. The dip at the 1/4" seam. Absolutely. So... And that, you may want to pin or you may not. Yes. - It all depends. These are sticking together pretty well. But it's a good idea to pin.

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Baby Lock

And then I usually like to have needle down while I adjust, and you'll see at the bottom of the piece, you'll also see that it disappears. That same divot. - It-- 1/4". And that's with-- that's the way-- why it's so important to do that trimming. While Weeks is finishing stitching this, you can see on this sample how that little dog-ear, rabbit-ear is finished. And, presto, the seam. What do quilting and wood carving have in common?

The answer

Fraser Smith. Fraser is a master wood-carver who creates unbelievable quilts on a box of glued wood. He joins us today via Skype from St. Pete's Beach, Florida. Welcome to Sewing with Nancy, Fraser. Hi, Nancy. Thanks for having me on. This is quite exciting. When I saw images of your quilt, which-- of a quilt sculpture that you did-- or wood carving, not sculpture-- wood carving that you did, which our viewers can see right now, I thought, "That's wood?" And I'm just so impressed with this. Could you give us a little summary of how you started working in this medium? Yeah, well, basically I started as a kid. And my father ran a sawmill, and we always had wood around. And he also had some carving tools, and he liked to carve a little bit, and he got me carving. And then, I went to college and was taking sculpture classes. I was thinking about being an architect but took some sculpture classes, ended up working a lot with wood, and basically decided after school that I didn't want to be an architect and started just carving. And the subject matter I use is-- it really started out with sort of things that we have that we hold-- keep in the back of the closet, like an old jacket or a-- you know, something that we'd wear that we have memories-- that we're connected with. And so that was the idea in the beginning, and so I did coats and hats and sort of things that we'd save. And then in about 1987 or '88, I was sort of sitting around thinking, "Well, what could I do that sort of has "that same feel but has a lot more chance for artistic expression and things like that?" And I thought, "Well, why not a quilt?" Because a quilt is the sort of thing that we hang on to, and no matter how threadbare it gets, we'll still fold it up and stick it away somewhere and keep it, because we've used it. And you use basswood to create the-- your wood sculptures. Yes, it's-- it's sort of-- it's sort of medium-hard, medium-soft. It's not-- - Sure, mm-hmm. It's the same stuff they use to make, like, popsicle sticks and stuff like that, but-- and so it carves easily, but it's also sort of homogenized. It doesn't really-- really look a lot like wood once-- once you've carved it and stained it and stuff like that. You got to get close to see the graining. And what we can't really appreciate is that your pieces are large. You start off with a large piece of wood. And they're heavy. - Yeah, it's-- Yeah, I start off with-- you can't find a block of wood that's either 5' wide or 3 1/2' high. Basically, I take blocks that are 4" thick and cut them to the length or width that I want and then glue them up. A usual piece will have four blocks, five blocks of 4" basswood, and it'll weigh-- it'll start out around 170, 180 pounds. And then you go through the sculpturing process. Walk us through that, please. Well, I've got a couple of tools here. This is what I start with. It's just an angle grinder with a blade with three teeth on it. And it really removes a lot of wood fast. That's what I use to get the shape. So you've got the folds and the waves that-- of a quilt hanging. I use them-- I show them hanging from a rope because I like the idea of it sort of being a casual thing. Sure. And people walk into the room and think, "Well, why is this quilt here?" First off, and then also, "Why is it hanging over a rope?" Well, there's that effect, but, also, it gives more of a three-dimensional quality to the whole thing. So I'll use that tool to-- to get that shape of the folds. Then I take out this tool, which is a similar tool, but it's just sandpaper, and it smoothes it down. Mm-hmm. At that point, I start drawing in the pattern, and I design it on the computer, and I'll get the computer to print out the templates, life-size, just like a real quilter might do. Yeah, interesting. And then I'll simply draw that pattern on the piece, and then I start carving with tools like these. You know, they're rotary shaft grinding tools, and that's what I use to make all the stitches, the puckers, the details-- the surface detail that you'd find on a real quilt. And then there's a whole lot of this. Mm-hmm. - The sandpaper. The sandpaper, sure. And you just sand and sand and sand and sand, and that's what's really makes it look like cloth rather than a carving. They're so amazing-- the folds, the dimension, the texture. I'm blown away by your works of art, Fraser. Well, thank you. And thank you for sharing this with us, and we'll look forward to seeing more of your artwork as you finish it and your process as you go along as we follow you on social media. Thank you for joining us and sharing this great idea. Well, thanks, Nancy, for having me. You're welcome. And thank you for watching at home. Watch this program again or any other Sewing with Nancy program at NancyZieman.com, and we'll see you next time. Bye for now.

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Be inspired by a fresh approach to quilting taught by Weeks Ringle an d Bill Kerr in their book Magic Inch Quilts. Learn their secrets to piecing small strips of fabric to create quilts th at will delight both beginning an d veteran quilters. It's $15.99 plus sh ipping and handling. To order this book, call 800-336-8373, or visit our website at se wingwithnancy.com/3020. Order item number MIQ, Magic Inch Quilts. Credit card orders only. 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,

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Baby Lock, Madeira Threads, Koala Studios, Clover, Amazing Designs and Klass Needles. Closed captioning funding provided by Riley Blake Designs. Sewing with Nancy is a co-production of Nancy Zieman Productions and Wisconsin Public Television.