Sewing With Nancy

When most of us think about creating a new quilt we imagine a process of exactness. Precise cutting and sewing that leads to symmetry. Today's guest is a self-described hippy-quilter. A young hippy-quilter. Her free motion designs are totally modern yet she uses tried and true quilting techniques. I'd like you to welcome Tula Pink to Sewing with Nancy. Thanks for being with us Tula. Thanks for having me. Nancy, I'm obsessed with pattern. Everywhere I look I see the potential for a quilt design. For example, fields of soybeans and corn that I now see from my backyard inspired my quilt "Beanstalks." Growing up in Los Angeles the scenery was foreign to me resulting in a unique interpretation and a modern quilt design. "Quilts from the House of Tula Pink" that's what's next on Sewing with Nancy. Sewing with Nancy, &nbspcelebrating30 years of sewing and quilting with Nancy Zieman

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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. One of the greatest parts about quilting is choosing fabrics. Tula, you design fabric so you have a whole array of choices to put into your quilts. I do, I have a lot of bright choices. When we look at the stalks you said your inspiration was from fields. My surroundings, beanstalks, corn fields I live in the Midwest, so I have a lot of that. Within each stalk you have lots of colors. Yes, we start with the main color of the stalk, the stem, which is the green and then we carry that into each what I like to call the blossom of the stalk. Then each wedge here will contain five fabrics beginning with the green ending with a white background fabric and the three varying fabrics in between that create the color of the stalk. There are ten fabric prints used within this quilt plus the solids. You can see she has different configurations within each blossom unit. We're going to talk about those. Yeah! So you're going to choose those five fabrics and cut them all the same. Yes, they'll all be cut exactly the same. Then, when we start to make our blossoms and rearrange them is when the organic quality starts to come in. We're going to start by cutting a 1-1/2" strip a 2-1/2" strip, a 3-1/2" strip. I think they get the idea. Yeah, and it's just goes right on through to a 5-1/2" strip. So, a 1-1/2" strip, a 2-1/2" strip, a 3-1/2" strip a 4-1/2" strip and a 5-1/2" strip. Then you're going to have five fabrics cut in those configurations and stacked. Then you're going to use one strip one size from each color. Correct. To make a strip set. Each strip set will contain one of each size. You said that much better than I did. I'm going to hand you some of the strips. This looks like a 2-1/2" strip to me. Then this fun little print, here you go. That's a 3-1/2" strip. Here's a 4-1/2" strip Then a 1" strip. It doesn't have to be in this order I'm handing them to you so you have one of each size. Right, and each strip set, just like this is going to contain one of each size beginning with the green, ending with the background and these in the middle can switch around any way we want. Now you're going to sew these five fabrics together. The fabric is 40" or 42" wide so you'll have a lengthy strip set. Here we have some options. If you want to put those to the side, Tula I'll lay out two of the options that you've created. Notice it's the same width but a 1" to a 5-1/2" really gives a different look. It really makes each blossom have its own personality. Now the personality also comes with the cutting of the wedges. On Sewing with Nancy &nbspinthe past we've cut wedges using rulers and been precise. We'll kind of throw all of that out the window. Yeah, and this will either drive you crazy or make you really happy! So we start with our strip set-- as opposed to standard quilting where you want to straighten that edge out what we want to do is create an angled edge. Then from here, you want to start making your wedges by creating opposing angles. I'm not measuring anything here. Yes, I couldn't believe that when I first saw that. "I want to measure this!"

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Because what we're going to do is eventually trim them down. All we're creating here are our wedges. So what's happened by creating opposing trapezoid shapes when we put all the wide ends together you'll see that this piece is on the outside here and on the inside here. You'll find out that you'll be cutting several strip sets doing some mix and match. Do the same with the white, the cream colored background. Correct. Just cut wedges and be very cavalier about it. Yeah, and the more cavalier you are about it the better really it turns out. When I designed this quilt, I made two versions one where I was really rigid and one where I was very free-form with the whole thing and they turned out exactly the same. So... Hence, be free-form, very organic. Then you're going to put them together. Yeah. You're always putting a short end to a wide end. What I like to do is actually place all the ones that have the green at the wide end because this is where our stem is going to go. These are identical. We have some other ones. What do you say we mix it up a little bit? You mentioned you like to have at least a 1" width at the bottom. I like to have at least a 1" width at the bottom. I like to keep it under 4" at the wide end. Every once in a while one will expand outside that measurement. There we go. You can start to see how this is creating-- by having this really strong red piece here and having it move around it's creating a different look on each one. When sewing this together you can see how this is starting to build. It is almost straight. It really evens itself out as you go. Surprisingly. You showed me yesterday that sometimes-- I guess that's the wrong color. If you accidentally sew a wide end to a wide end you can see right there, it's already starting to turn. So how we combat that is by sewing a narrow end to a narrow end here. Then it's starting to even itself back out again but creating a really interesting, nice curve. Which is going to show up in the sample quilt quite a bit. Sure, then you're going to sew these wedges together. Tula recommends sewing one by one, not in pairs. Here you can see I'm just meeting these edges together. Sewing a traditional 1/4" seam allowance. Just keep stitching and stitching. More often than not, I won't even pin them because I am going to be trimming those side edges down. Speaking of the side edges, here you go. This is a mini one. I like to start with wherever the narrower end is to even it up because I don't have much green here to connect with the stem. I want to start there. Again, I'm not really measuring I'm not lining anything up. I'm just creating a nice even edge that I can measure off of to get the width of my column. So I'll line it up here. 14 inches is the width of our column. When I go to sew my columns together they'll be perfectly sewn together. The two columns are connected with the stem. You can see that there are two separate beanstalks that we have here. Great fabrics, fun configuration. Organic, but with a purpose. Absolutely. Tula's houndstooth quilt design takes what is a traditional design woven into fabric and super-sizes it into a pieced quilt top ideal for a masculine or urban-chic decor. Creat it with just two high-contrast fabrics or gradate the fabric colors for subtle drama. The fabric in this quilt is dynamite but you can make it simple. Yes. Which we're going to do, just with two fabrics. We'll show you later how Tula combined six or more fabrics together. But it's the houndtooth that's the showcase. Yeah, and this the pattern is the real pop. That's the power of the quilt. The fabrics just need to be high contrast. They can really be anything. What is more high contrast than black and white? We're going to create strips sets for this piece here. We're cutting a 2-1/2" strip out of our light and our dark as well as a 3-1/2" strip out of our light and our dark. You want the 3-1/2" strips on the outside and your 2-1/2" strips on the inside alternating light to dark, and light to dark. Like a normal strip set, you'd sew the pieces together and we have that already done. Our life is in samples! Tula, let's just look to the back of this because it's important to talk about pressing. Yeah, and when I'm using extreme lights and extreme darks, like I am here I really like to press the seams open because I don't want any of that black showing up on the white side. As well as when I'm cutting into 6-1/2" squares I'm going to get a nicer, more even cut if I'm not going over bulky seams. In long seams, it's easy to do that pressing. There's one size of block that you're going to need for the strip set as well as for the squares. It's simple. It's one size block for the entire quilt. I like to use a 6-1/2" ruler because then I don't have to guess at the angles. I can line up my top corner and my bottom corner right on my center seam. I know it's in the middle. Just cut along that edge. We're at a really awkward angle for cutting. Yeah, so I'm not going to cut all the way around. I won't promote bad rotary habits! I might do that at home in private but I won't do it here in public. After you've cut the strip sets into 6-1/2" squares on point you'll cut 6-1/2" squares of the same fabric but you don't have to do it on point. Right, right. These are just going to be straight, even cuts. Then we're going to do a layout. This is where the magic happens. I love that you can create something so powerful and graphic with just three simple blocks three simple piece sizes. The only rule to laying this out is that each row is either light squares or dark squares. I'll do the solids, how's that? Okay, sounds good. In every row that has a light square you're going to put your light corner of your triangle in the upper corner. It doesn't necessarily make that much of a difference which corner it's in as long as it's consistent the whole way through. Sure. Now that we have a row of dark squares I'm going to switch, and put my dark corner in the upper lefthand corner. We're alternating, obviously, like tiles on the floor. Yep, it's just a big checker board. Now you can kind of see what's happening. The third row is the charm. The third row is where the magic happens. Now you're starting to see here's your first big houndstooth. It takes three rows to actually complete the shape. Then from here on out you'll just keep seeing it all the way down. You can imagine a quilt totally of these two fabrics. As I said, urban-chic. It really has that look, but you can also add more. Yeah, and it's great for a man's quilt, too. I know we all struggle with what to do in that situation. This is a great one, because it's graphic, it's bold. Here's some more bold colors where you can see in the far corner we have the high contrast and then you incorporated another color. Yes, and you can see I have two darks. This one is a little bit darker than this piece so I paired this piece with my lightest light. Let's just raise this so everyone can see how on an angle, you integrated the colors. Yes, I go from a really, really light pale green all the way through this chartreuse color all the way to a really green-green with a slightly blue dot in it. It's charming how the colors work together but yet you could make it very simplistic with high contrast fabrics and enjoy the process as well. It's a simple, not too high-thinking quilt. We like that. Have you ever fallen asleep in one direction and woken up in another? Disorienting, isn't it? Underneath this quilt you will always know which way is up. It's a unique technique that Tula and I would like to share with you. As we look at this full-size quilt it's impressive. It's big. It's a big statement. The big appliqus, they're kind of appliqus-- They're the arrows, stating the obvious. I just want to hold up the opposite end. You have a warm side and a cool side. Right. You used scraps. Yes, this was all scraps from quilts that I've made over, I don't know how many years. It was a great way to use them up. Tula is a prolific quilt-maker. You'd think someone her age wouldn't be as prolific but you make how many quilts a year? About 45 to 55. That's a lot of big quilts so you have a fair number of scraps. Yes. Since you design fabric, you can combine your scraps and your love of fabric into this whichever-way-is-up quilt. When I'm making the pieces for the actual appliqud portion I like to cut these with a pinked edge rotary cutter just because it will reduce the amount of stringing that happens later on through washings. Again, this is something that I'm not going to measure a whole lot of. I'm just going to create pieces that I can use. Sometimes I'll focus in on a color. You can see half of this is more purple half is more pink. Maybe I'll cut it in half so I can use this piece over here and this piece over here. Until I have enough pieces that I feel like I can really cover an area. The area that we're going to cover is going to have a paperbacked fusible web or a webbing applied to the fabric. We're not doing an arrow today. Right, we're doing a heart because it's much more manageable on this table. Yes. This can be applied to all kinds of shapes but when you're choosing a shape you really want to choose a shape that's really recognizable, that's very simple because the more edges you have, the more complicated the edges the harder it's going to be to see when we cover it in a bunch of scraps. Sure. Simple shapes work best. So, on the paper side you draw your shape. We wanted this symmetrical, so it's the way you do a heart. The fusible side is the other side. We've done this, oh, 129 times on Sewing with Nancy, I think! We're going to fuse it to the right side of the fabric which we've already done. Follow the instructions how long to press in one spot. Then just peel off the paper. You can kind of see the glistening portion of it. That will become our outline, the edge that we follow that shiny side. It's a little difficult to see in this situation but when you're eyes are right on it you can see it pretty well. We start by really just following that edge with our scraps. I'll fill it in with you. You just want to make sure that every portion is covered. I doesn't matter where they are. Some of these pieces will overlap. Where you have two fabrics overlapping each other you're not going to have any fusible there so that's why we need to also stitch it down. Let's do this. I like to go in pieces like this, and press as I go. We can save that paper covering so if your iron goes over the wrong area you can just simply do that. I think that's pretty self-explanatory. After you've covered your whole area here you see a close-up at the machine where I'm stitching around the edges just to tack it down. Here's the example for a pillow top that Tula has done. Tula, as an ending let's look at the raw edges. There was more stitching. There was more stitching and the quilting. The quilting is really what holds it down. I like a heavy stitching on my quilts. You have a wood grain on the arrow and then a swirl here. Right, and since this quilt is so definitively divided into two halves we did one stippling here, one here and then alternated the stippling on that side. Very charming, and a great way to use up scraps. Absolutely. During today's Nancy's Corner segment you'll again realize that the world is very small but it's oh, so connected. I'd like to introduce you to Ken Wing. Ken works with a woman's cooperative in India where scraps of silk are turned into fiber yarn. Yarns that we can use for embellishment. Welcome to Sewing with Nancy, &nbspKen. Thanks for having me, Nancy. I was intrigued when I first saw your beautiful fiber yarns but then more intrigued when I learned the story behind it. Right, it's an interesting story. It all starts here. It does. It starts with silk sari remnants and selvage from the factory floors of India that are donated to a women's co-op. They turn them into beautiful hanks of fiber. Yes, exactly. What they do... is they sew them together end to end all the waste and selvage and they make a beautiful silk yarn out of silk waste. You had this great photo of a gal sewing these together and just making nothing into something. Exactly, something useful and beautiful out of nothing. Giving the women some income, a purpose. And a sense of self-reliance. Basically, they're subsistence farmers. It's a cluster of villages and the women work only during the harvest which is about two months a year. So we thought it would be nice to give them something to do all year round. We get the benefits of scraps that would be thrown away turned into great embellishments. We'll show you the embellishment ideas and you can kind of get the idea in just a few minutes. But then, there's more than just the fabrics and the selvages leftover. There's fiber as another option. There is fiber leftover, as well. Wow, pretty. But that would be a little hard to work with for most of us. It would be in this state. But what the ladies do in this case is they separate it into color stories and hand spin it into soft, silk yarn. I love the texture. A lot of texture, a lot of color. It's a drop spindle, drop spinning. Here's an image of that being done. They can do it practically anywhere. Exactly. Sit and create the beautiful yarns. When I first saw your baskets of fibers I just stopped and admired them because they're so pretty to look at. Thank you. The options of working with them are quite fun. They are. This is a great looking scarf. This is done with any water-soluble stabilizer. It's very colorful. It's got a lot of movement. They put the fibers on the water-soluble stabilizers twist them around. Right, and because they're continuous strands of silk you kind of just swirl them around and then you can zigzag sew it onto the paper and rinse the paper away. That's what you have left. Charming. A great shawl, really a wonderful accent piece. Right. Then this one is woven. Yeah, it's woven. It's done with the same water-soluble stabilizer. The strips are pressed out and woven. The color! My goodness. There's no color like silk. No, there certainly isn't! I can feel kind of where they're coming together where the seams are met. And then, on the back You can see more readily where the stitching is. It's random stitching on the water-soluble stabilizer. Then couching is a great option. Couching is also a great option. This is with the spun yarn. Right, the spun recycled silk sari yarn It's just couched down onto this pillow. You can zigzag over it with matching thread colors or you could use clear threads. It has many, many options. What time of year are these yarns made? Is there a certain time? They're made all year. They make them all year round. It requires about 250 woman. So we help about 250 woman with this project. It always amazes me the community of sewing and quilting. As I mentioned, it makes the world small and connected. I love to connect the dots on Sewing with Nancy to see where things I've used are made from recycled materials that help someone, perhaps, have greater self-esteem or improve their self-esteem. Here's a small other option that can be made. A little clutch or handbag. Your art program where you have worked together. We can find out more about your yarns. The company you work together with is? The company is Leilani Arts. We will be featuring those on our website. If you go to our Sewing with Nancy website

which is

nancyzieman.com You'll find all things Sewing with Nancy &nbsponthat site. Under Nancy's Corner, click on Ken Wing and you'll find a direct link to that area. Ken, thank you so much for being our guest on Sewing with Nancy. Thank you, Nancy, I appreciate it. Also, thank you for joining us. Next time we'll be back for our second program of "Quilts from the House of Tula Pink." Bye for now. Tula Pink has written a fully-illustrated book entitled "Quilts from the House of Tula Pink" that serves as the reference for this two-part series. It's $16.99 plus shipping and handling. To order the book, call 1-800-336-8373

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sewingwithnancy.com/2610 Order item number W1582 "Quilts from the House of Tula Pink." Credit card orders only. To pay by check or money order call on the screen for details. 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

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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.