Sewing With Nancy

The title of this Sewing with Nancy episode is "Sew Grand Dresden Quilts." I looked back over the past titles and realized that I've never used the word "grand" in a title before. With meaning such as majestic and impressive it's rarely a term used in sewing. Yet "grand" appropriately describes the large and distinguished quilt blocks I'll show you today. Made in approximately the same amount of time as a much smaller block the center block really makes a statement plus, the sewing is streamlined and enjoyable. "Sew Grand Dresden Quilts," that's what's coming up next on Sewing with Nancy. Sewing with Nancy TV's longest-airing sewing and quilting program

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In the corners, we have 16" blocks or 16" Dresden plates with a 6" circle instead of the 8" again, to make it proportionate. My staff and I made this quilt several years ago and then taught a class on it. One of the students made this quilt in totally different colors. You can just see a different look. Shelly K. is the designer of this with beautiful blues and purples. It's the same style I just like to show the same quilt pattern which is available in the book that accompanies the program in different color combinations. Again, it makes a great impact. When working with the big pieces of the Grand Dresden you can work with templates. You can elongate templates. I've used this designing template with both circles and long wedges. Or, for the smaller sections, you can use this. This is a see-through template that makes up to 8", or a 16-1/2" block. So, you have some choices to work with. There are many more options out there. For the fabric for the large plate I simply found on the designing tool that I can use an 8-1/2" circle, which is right here. I put my tape measure there. Then measure up to the 36" block. It says on the tape measure to cut a strip that's 14-1/2". If I was going to be working with a smaller strip the 6-1/2" circle with a 16" block I would be cutting, right here I would be cutting 5-1/4" strips. You'll see that next. You're going to measure on the design tool what size of fabric. You're going to be working in strips of fabric and doing some tracing and cutting. You may have seen me do this before. It's not a new technique. But if you haven't, it's worth knowing about. You place the tool on the fabric starting at a folded edge, and then trace the edges with a fine marker. Oops, I better trace one more edge before I do a rotation! Trace, and then rotate. Maybe at home, you can draw a little straighter than I am. Here we go. You keep on doing this by the length of the strip of fabric. This is cut 5-1/4", as I measured earlier. You just trace and trace. Then, you could stack several layers of fabric maybe up to four underneath this area. Then cut along the edges to create the wedges. So you're going to cut and cut. You get the idea of what's happening. After doing the cutting fold the fabric in half, each wedge in half. Across the top, you're going to stitch chainstitch just with a 1/4" seam allowance. Like little hotdogs, you chain them all together. You're going to have 20 of these, one for each wedge. You clip them apart, do some finger pressing and press this seam open. I've pressed the seam open already, how about that? It works a little bit better. Press it open and then turn it right side out. With a tool, make sure you get a nice, sharp point. On an index card, I marked a 45-degree line because I can line that up with the seam of the fabric to get it just in place. Then press. You'd press, not on your template, which I almost did but just on the fabric. Then, after you've pressed all 20 of these I'll show you at the sewing machine how to assemble the Dresden plate. Whether you're making a grand Dresden block or a smaller one, the assembly is all the same. You're going to be pressing 20 wedges for each circle and sew them into pairs. Meet right sides together. I like to start stitching at the fold because if I stitch a little off I know it will always match where I start. Set your machine for a 1/4" seam allowance. I have it set for a center stitch. There's a 1/4" mark on the plate of my machine. Get it lined up right at the fold and stitch. Just guide down the guide. Then meet your next pair have it handy at the sewing machine. Match it up right at that fold area and continue to chainstitch it together just the same way that you saw the chain of the wedges when I stitched across the top. So, you're going to be creating ten pairs. Then simply press the seams open. You can do that easily at your ironing board. I like pressing seams open in this instance rather than to one side because it distributes the bulk more evenly. The pairs are sewn together so you'd have four sections. You might want to get a different color combination. There we go. Then, if you wanted to add one more to this section you'd have enough for a fan. We're really not doing fans today but you could make a fourth of a block to create a fan. Or, if you put four quadrants together you've got it, you'd have a circle. To place this on the fabric, what I like to do is cut the background of the fabric and then press it into four sections. Fold it in half fold it in half again, and press. You can see the press marks. What they help you do is align this plate at the quadrant marks. Pin it down. You can simply topstitch this into place. We like to use monofilament thread in the needle and matching thread to the fabric in the bobbin. On my machine, I'm going to set it for kind of a quilting, a blind hem stitch. It's a straight stitch on the side and then it just catches the fabric. I'm going to lengthen it just a touch. I don't have monofilament thread in here because you wouldn't be able to see it. I'm just going to show you that you stitch along the side and then it bites over and catches the fabric. Stitches the side and bites. You don't have to really worry about topstitching straight because you have this particular stitch. You just stitch around. It takes a little time to appliqu it down. It's kind of a fun process. It will take a little bit longer than what I'm showing you now. I'll show you a close up of that stitch. It just catches the fabric. It looks like you've put it on by hand but you put it on by machine. Now to finish the block. To finish this big or small appliqu we're going to start with the center of the block. You can use a plate to trace the pattern or a template that is in three sizes. The fabric is cut in a square, not a circle. You could just use a scrap of fabric making certain that it's larger than the image that you're going to trace. I have fabric, plus a secret ingredient to make this work so well. That is fusible interfacing. The smooth side of the fusible interfacing is next to the right side of the fabric. I'll put the template on and trace in the die-cut areas around the curves. After you trace this and pin the two layers together set your machine for a short stitch length. Here you can see that I'm sewing around this curve. The short stitch length allows me to make the curve smooth. It just goes a lot easier, like driving in the mountains you go slower. So for circles, you do the same thing. Then to do some trimming we can notch and trim at the same time. Use a pinking shears or a pinking blade in your rotary cutter the 45mm rotary cutter. I've started to do this. Give yourself a 1/4" seam allowance. Trim around the edges. It's kind of fun to do. Now, you need to do some additional trimming on the inside which I've already done. Trim and leave one inch so that you have a hole like a donut hole. Now, to make that smooth seam, we have the pinked edge. We have the short stitch length. We turn this, so we have the right side out. Then you kind of work around the edges a little bit. You might want to use a creaser or a tool just to help smooth the edge. You see I have my ironing board handy to my right, your left. Then you're going to some pressing. You may have to do a little rolling of the seams. Take a little time to do the press. But you will get a smooth shape without doing a lot of work. You can see what I've just pressed. This circle has been totally pressed. If you'd like to center it on your square fold it in half, fold it in half again kind of pinch those marks. Then mark those pinches right at the area and appliqu it down. The centers can also be a design feature. We have three examples to show you of a grand style a big appliqu, with a small center. That same design now has a medium center. Then, for more impact, a large center. This quilt that my staff and I made used the centers not only in the plate area the Dresden plate, but also in the corners of the blocks. 8-1/2", 6-1/2" and 4-1/2" circles were used to carry out the theme. I like the play of the design and carrying the fabric used in the wedges throughout the quilt. It's a great way of working with a Dresden plate. Create a patchwork Christmas tree skirt with portions of a super-sized quilt block. Stitch a 40" Dresden plate, minus two wedges. Add a felt backing, binding, ties and you have a dramatic patchwork masterpiece for your Christmas enjoyment. Here's our big Dresden plate. We used the 40" size. For an artificial tree, I like to have the smaller open. For a real tree, it would be a bigger opening, of course. You're going to cut 18 wedges. Two less than the 20 you'd usually use. Sew them together in pairs, nine pairs. Sew those pairs together, you get the idea. Until you have 18 together. That's what I have underneath. You'll see them stitched. Here we have a larger opening. At the ends, press under a 1/4" seam allowance because you want to have that edge finished. So, along the long edges it's been pressed under on both sides. Then you're going to do some measuring. The backing of this is felt. So, you're going to measure the diameter of this. Measure from the dip in the wedge so from the very dip across. It measures 30-1/2". Subtract a half of an inch. Cut a 30" circle, in this instance with your favorite way of doing a circle like you learned in fourth grade, like a yardstick compass. Then that circle is going to be trimmed. You're going to trim out the middle section which we have already done, and the portions of the wedges. You're going to pin the Christmas tree skirt right onto this circle. At the wedges, you cut it a half of an inch shorter so 1/4" of each edge is going to be a little bit less. It covers all the raw edges. You just pin it down. Then, you're going to do a little hand sewing. On our finished skirt, I'm going to show you that this felt has been stitched just caught by hand around the edges. That way, you can sit and watch TV or listen to TV and do this. Then, add some bias trim. You can buy bias tape or make your own bias tape that matches and finish the edges. This is a really kind of dramatic as we're making in this program, holiday decoration. It's a great gift. I often give this out at a bridal shower because it's unique and most newlyweds need one of these. Or, give it as a gift for a friend. It's a wonderful, dramatic way of learning to work with Dresden and then making holiday decor. Change the fabric, plus modify the technique and the Dresden plate design turns into twirling parasols. The use of bright colors along with an asymmetrical layout gives a modern approach to a very traditional quilt pattern. What a change from the first quilt pattern the traditional to this contemporary design. Same tools, same techniques. Well, almost the same techniques. You'll see a modification. We have, in all, six twirling small parasols and two very large ones. The unique thing about this is that we've combined a solid wedge with a striped fabric, or a pieced fabric. The interesting thing is that when you cut this you'll have another parasol that you'll make. Notice we have small orange, blue, green. Then as we travel up the quilt the opposite is the case in this parasol with small green, blue, and orange. It flips and you'll see how that works. I chose different center colors than the colors that were included in the wedges. It's really bright. It pops. It's fun. I designed this after going to a modern quilt guild conference. I was inspired by the colors and thought maybe a Dresden plate could work well in parasols, and I think it does. Here is one of the big parasols. This is a 36" parasol. There's another one that's wrapped over the board. This is a double sized quilt, so it's large. You can't see it all right now. You can sew pieces of fabric together to create a stripe. That's what you'll see on the board where I have the blue, green, and orange stitched together. The seams have been pressed open. Then, using the same technique that I showed you earlier of placing the template on the fabric, trace the sides rotate it, press-- I guess we're not pressing, are we? Rotate it, position, and then trace. You're going to be cutting out all the wedges. Here's how you get the two options for your pretty umbrellas. Because what was large is small, large is small. To create the parasols, I used a white strip of fabric a wedge just cut out of solid white, in between. Sew them together. Now, obviously, this Dresden does not have points at each wedge. We skipped that step. It saves a little time by doing this. You meet right sides together, create a pair, create ten pairs in all. Then sew those pairs together. This is what it looks like. It also kind of looks like a Ferris Wheel at this point. Fun and colorful. Here you can see we used the alternating colors. You have some options when working with this. If you liked making the circles, that's the same technique we're going to be using for the parasols. Meeting right sides to the smooth side of a piece of interfacing and stitch 1/4" around the edge. I have half a sample here to show you. This has been stitched. Then you'd use the rotary cutter and cut around the edges just to trim and to get rid of some of the bulk. Turn right sides out. I should show you this one. It has been trimmed with the interfacing away. You turn right sides out and you guessed it, you're going to press this. I'm going to press a little bit to show you that you don't want to have a lot of interfacing just a little bit of the interfacing on here. But it gives such a nice edge and finished look to that appliqu. In the book that accompanies today's program you'll get the instructions on how to make this working with big blocks in the background. They divide some of the parasols in half. I think it adds some motion to it. It's fast to piece that background. You can place different colors of circles in the middle a different circle color than I used in the wedges or the spikes of this parasol. We had this professionally quilted by a long-arm quilter to give it a little extra pop. Enjoy this process. Textiles with memory serve as the canvas for today's Nancy's Corner guest. She uses the process of hand embroidery to stitch the past together with the present. I'd like to welcome Leslie Nelson to Sewing with Nancy and to the Nancy's Corner segment. Leslie, when I read about your memory cloths, I was intrigued. Share with our viewers how you started. I'd be happy to, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you. I was a quiltmaker, and I saw this exhibit of embroideries from South Africa called memory cloths. They were experiences that were done in embroidery. There was a written narrative next to them that told the story of what happened. The light bulb went off and I said I have to do that, too, and so I started. I started doing memories from my childhood. On hankies. I used my mother's and grandmother's napkins handkerchiefs, and tea towels, too. So this was when I was in sixth grade. I was trying to remember who was a famous woman. The only famous women I could come up with was Cleopatra and the Virgin Mary. Quite a combination! I knew there was no way I was ever going to be that famous. That was not possible. This is linen, a napkin. This was my grandmother's. I've done the whole set of napkins and the tablecloth. Then I do things I've discovered. This was me having hot flashes, which started when I was 40. I used to go, oh, dear, I'm having a hot flash. Now, I came up with this idea of thinking of the hot flash as burning away whatever attitudes or beliefs that I wanted to release from myself. Now, I get hot flashes, and I go, oh boy, great! A release. Yes, it was, it was incredibly healing. I have to show our viewers the back because you put the story back here plus some scraps that create the backing. I love doing piece work, so I just kept doing that. Now I have a small one, and this is very touching. I'm going to hold it up by itself. Let's do this one first. Because that one came first in time. I got a phone call from a friend that a mutual friend, Ray, died. We were not expecting it all. I didn't know what to do. In my grief, I just started going around in circles doing different colors. I went around and around and around, for days. It was like such a soothing, relieving thing for dealing with the grief that it became this piece. Lovely and radiating out, it has a lot of significance. It's like a Mandala. Then, the day after my mother died I took her wedding handkerchief and I made a Valentine to her. It's got a diamond in the center of the heart. This is the handkerchief that had the blue on it. That was the blue that she carried at her wedding. Look at the beautiful work of this. A lot of us have hankies that we're afraid to use and what a great way of using them. I like the dowel on the back so you can hang this. I invite people, when they see these, they say, oh, I have handkerchiefs and linen napkins that I never use. I always say, please do it too. That would be a wonderful thing to do. This is pretty obvious. Learn to love ourselves, yes. I had a teacher, and she would say this to us. One of the other things I do with the embroidery is I write words that I want to embed in myself that I want to remember. It's not so much this was a memory this is something I'm choosing to remember. As you're working on it it becomes a part of your psychic. Exactly, it gets embedded. So, when I took this idea from the women in South Africa that were doing it about traumas from Apartheid I felt a little guilty that I was using it for my middle class issues. I went to South Africa to visit the women and they had deliberately done it as a healing process. What I've learned since then is that the repetitive movement is a meditation that actually changes your brainwaves and changes how you think about what it is you're embroidering. Fascinating. Then the act of putting the stories out there is another way of releasing them from yourself. So the whole process, it's how I live my life now. Whatever I experience, I embroider. I carry my embroideries with me. I love your palette. These palettes are around us and they've been used, and worn, and loved and now you've put something memorable on it, as well. Right, and so many people have them stacked somewhere, and don't know what to do with them. I invite people to, as the women in South Africa did to me say we love that you took our idea. I would love for other people to take the idea and do it as well. I encourage our viewers to do that, Leslie. I thank you for joining us. I'm so happy to be here. I thank you for watching Sewing with Nancy today for our program on "Sew Grand Dresdens." You can find more information about this program you can re-watch it find information about Leslie's work and her ideas when you go to nancyzieman.com. We have 52 of the most recent Sewing with Nancy shows that you can watch online. You can also sign up for my blog or social media connections so that we can stay connected. Thank you for joining us on Sewing with Nancy. Thank you, Leslie, for being with us. And, as always, as I say, bye for now. Nancy has designed templates and written a book that can be used to create the designs featured in this program. The templates are $19.99, plus shipping and handling. The book is included free with purchase. To order this reference material, call 1-800-336-8373 or visit our website at sewingwithnancy.com/2720 Order Item Number BK2720 "Sew Grand Dresden Quilts." 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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