Sewing With Nancy

Today, during my Nancy's Corner segment, you'll learn that you can bend the rules of quilting when finishing art quilts. Join me at our annual Quilt Expo event in Madison, Wisconsin, as I meet with one of my favorite art quilters. I'm here today with Frieda Anderson, art author, quilter, designer, fabric dyer. Yes. Boy, you have a litany behind your name, Frieda. I keep busy. Keep out of trouble. That's what you do. And today, we're going to talk about art quilts, big or small, and some interesting inside and finishing details. This is a cute little picture. It's of my dog, George. It's a portrait of him. And this is an art quilt that is postcard size, but notice how stiff it is. Right. And you use a lot of craft interfacing in your projects. Yes. It makes for a wonderful way to frame out smaller pieces. And that's what I've done in different ways on these little quilts that I have here. And you also use fusible web to adhere the fabric to the... To the interfacing, right. It does come with fusible. You can buy it both ways, but I like it better to fuse it myself. And it's stiff. It is very stiff, but not so stiff that you can't sew through it. It's very easy to sew through. It doesn't require special threads or needles to do that. And it's 20" wide, so that's kind of the maximum width. Yes, that's about as big as you can deal with it as a frame. So, you've seen the little project, and the little project is finished on the edges just with satin stitching. And I've use a rayon thread to do that, so it's a bit shiny, but any thread would work to do it. Cotton or silk or polyester or whatever. And before you finish it, you want to put some kind of little label and hook to hang it up with because once it's all layered together you can't do that. Now, we have-- The next option is two layers. Yes. I love your contemporary, bright colors. So this little quilt was completely made and bound with a fused binding, and then, I covered the interfacing with fabric and used a decorative blade to cut it with, and then sewed the quilt right onto the frame. And, again, it has a little loop on there. And I sew this label with the loop on before I make all of the layers. So the label goes on first. Correct. Then you would apply... This to the front. So, it's a picture frame. It is. It frames it really nice, and it gives it body when you hang it on the wall so it becomes stiff... all by itself. I like this. It's very fun to do. Now, the next option shows-- beautiful color combinations, I might add, but it's more like a pillowcase. It is. I created the little quilt top and then pillow-cased it so there's no binding on the edge. And then, I left a slit in the middle which I have covered with my label. Clever. And then I cut the interfacing the same shape as this, a little bit smaller, and fit it in. Like the pillow. Like the pillow. So, you made the pillowcase, which is the outer design? Slipped it in, and then you did... And then I stitched a little bit to hold the layers together. Like stitching in the ditch. That's exactly what I did, yep. Now we have a pretty, pretty one for the... One more way to deal with it. I'm just going to de-thread it. There we go. So this one, I made the little quilt again and finished it off. And then when I took the interfacing, I wrapped it like a package. And you can see the corners right here are mitered, just like you would wrap a package. And I put a little bit of fusible in there and fused it down. Right behind the whole picture, there's no fabric. So it's the white showing. And then, stitch the quilt onto the front of it. Again, with a little label and hook on the back. And this is about as big as you can get with the project. And also, in the bed of your machine, you only have so much width. Exactly, you only have so much room you can feed it in there. And since it is a little bulkier, that's why. Right, but it is stitched down through the machine, so you can see that that's five or six layers that I've stitched through right here without any issue at all. It really stitches so easily. Well, Frieda, many of us think of quilts as big bed quilts, but they can be... Small wall pieces, art pieces as well. And then, instead of using the traditional batting, work with craft interfacing to make them like works of art, which they are. Thank you. Thank you for being with us. My pleasure. Thank you for asking me. It's time to wrap up this two-part series on "Hoop it Up." A special thank you to Marie Zinno for sharing her embroidery expertise. If you'd like to rewatch this episode or any Sewing with Nancy episode from recent seasons, go to NancyZieman.com, and you can watch online. Or at the site, join me on my blog or follow me on Facebook. Thanks for joining me today. Bye for now. Marie Zinno and Eileen Roche have written the book, "Hoop

It Up

Guide to Successful Embroidery" which is used as the reference for this two-part series, and includes six embroidery positioning tools. It's $29.99, plus shipping and handling. To order the book, call 800-336-8373 or visit our website at sewingwithnancy.com/2924. Order item number BK00125, "Hoop Guide to Successful Embroidery" Credit card orders only. To pay by check or money order, call the number on the screen for details. Visit Nancy's website at NancyZieman.com to see additional episodes, Nancy's blog, and more. Sewing with Nancy TV's longest-airing sewing and quilting program with Nancy Zieman

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