Sewing With Nancy

It's almost impossible for sewers and quilters to throw away even the smallest piece of fabric. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers were no different. They made use of every available remnant often tracing small half-hexagons or hexagon shapes to create a scrap, or even a charm quilt. Those small templates intrigued me yet the dedication of time is overwhelming. Then the idea came, why not super-size the templates? This lap quilt features the time-honored tumbler template now ten inches in length not the traditional four inches. Speedy to stitch and enjoy. "Grandmother's One Patch Quilts" that's what's coming up next on Sewing with Nancy. Sewing with Nancy TV's longest-airing sewing and quilting program 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. Years ago, often people would make charm quilts using this simple shape about four inches in length. They'd share fabrics, have fabric swaps and make a scrap quilt using this shape that tumbles, or can turn around. As you can see, it alternates. This small sample is made just with this one shape. That's why we're calling it "Grandmother's One Patch." In both of the programs we have a single template size to create the quilts. Here you can see it's simple to put together. But I like to make things a little bit larger and make it a little bit easier. Initially, when this was worked on as a project a template was used. People would trace along the sides and then cut out every which way possible that they would like to use inverting this template and tracing. Just keeping on going and sharing these little pieces of fabric with their friends and making a scrap quilt. We're going to take a little bit bigger approach as you heard a little bit earlier in the program. We're going to work with a tumbler template that is much larger. This lap quilt features some lovely color combinations and big pieces. The ends are cut with a template not just chopped off, as they had to do years ago. They would make an uneven side and then trim away the excess fabric. We can get it exactly to the correct size the first go round. You can make your templates bigger. You could make ten-, eight-, six-inch templates using your favorite template medium. There are other options that you can work with and that includes a template that includes a variety of sizes. Here are some options for sizes four, six, eight, ten. Then if you'd like, you could even make and cut which we'll be doing, the end pieces so that you don't have to waste fabric. On this particular template all of these shapes are included. It's die cut and colored. Here's four, six, eight and ten. There's a little arrow to show that this is the portion of the shape that is used for the end pieces. I'll show you how this works. Whether you're using a multiple sized template or a traditional one-size-only template you're going to be working in the same manner. Not to fear, this technique will work with any type of template. I have cut these strips 10-1/2". I happen to know that's the length I need for a ten-inch block. It tells me on my template, right there. You need 1/2" for seam allowances 1/4" at the top and 1/4" at the bottom. Cut fabrics, maybe two to three, perhaps. I just have two right here, layered one on top of the other. Then do take a little time. I like to add a spray starch or a spray starch alternative and make those fabrics crisp. It'll make the sewing process so much easier if your fabric is pressed and has that little extra sizing in it. Take some time to work with that. Then I'm going to use the multiple size template and start at the end. So I'm not going to waste any fabric I'm going to first trace the portion that's going to be an end piece. I'll align the guideline that shows it at the end. With your favorite marking pen or pencil just trace half of it. Now you can use the full template. Invert it and trace. Invert it and trace. You get the idea. But having it pre-cut, the size or the length of the finished block which would be plus 1/2" for seam allowances is a fast way of making this easy to cut. Then grab your ruler, rotary cutter, mat. I would imagine our predecessors in quilting would've really enjoyed having rotary cutters and mats. It makes things so much faster. Just cut. You get the idea. You'll be cutting lots and lots of strips and sections. You have big blocks to work with. After making a variety of cuts in all the fabric colors that you would like then we can do the layout. I like to do the layout first. If you're really doing a scrappy quilt you wouldn't have to do this you could just put a light and a dark strip together. But since we have about five different fabric colors we've predetermined how we were going to lay this out. Here's row one. We're starting with an end piece. Lay it out just to make sure you have the right color combination. Add a light next to a dark mixing up the color shades, mediums, etc. Here we go, just keep on laying this out. The next piece, here we are, here's an end piece. The next row, everything is inverted, so it tumbles. What was narrow at the top now is wide at the top. You can see the pattern that we have going on here kind of a row on the diagonal. You're going to get that effect. Then, after the initial layout, if you like what you see then simply meet your right sides together. You could pin, if you like so that the edge is just slightly offset. It's offset by about 1/4", just a small, little amount. I'm going to grab my pins from underneath my table and show you that you just pin, maybe one pin per piece, would be all that you need. Then you can lay it back to where it was and then add the next piece. Then just pin that together, just adding that scant little 1/4". After you've pined one row, then go stitch it. Here's a close-up of stitching the seam. Start to stitch right at that little V portion right where the fabrics overlap. A standard 1/4" seam allowance. Stitch seam after seam and soon enough, you'll have rows. We've reset the table and you can see that we have two small rows that have already been stitched, and how nice they look. They're even. They're square, because we have these end pieces. Then, look at the pressing. This is optional. I like to press these open, especially the long seams rather than to one side because the next step is to sew this long seam. Because the seams have been pressed open there's not going to be as much bulk here. The other option is to press the seams to one side or to the other. The choice is yours. After a few rows of stitching you'll have the body of your quilt created. We added some borders, inner border, outer border, binding. In a few hours of stitching, you'll have a quilt top that's interesting and has the effect of an antique design but contemporary, using the super-sized blocks. You're not limited to this design. This is one of my favorites. You'll see it later on in the program. It has a different style but it's the hourglass style, where we alternated, end-to-end wide end to wide end the various different fabric colorations. That's kind of an interesting look. Another design we did with just two colors. Very bright, perfect for a teen or pre-teen. It's working with hot pink and a batik. The batik fabrics work in this manner. The basic technique of working with a tumbler is very simple. If you trace various sizes, larger, for example you can certainly get a speedier process as well as a quilt that has interest by combining fabrics of light, medium and dark colors. Stitch a sashing strip to one side of each tumbler block to give the quilt added interest. Batik fabrics were chosen for the tumbler blocks in this quilt with a coordinating print for the sashing pieces. It's a refreshing change of color, as well as fabric. I would imagine if batik fabrics were available when the initial tumbler designs were brought out they would've chosen these fabrics as well. We worked with a batik print, and from that print chose three colors that coordinated. We used the hourglass layout. End to end. I didn't stagger them, I just put them in a row. It's kind of a nice, simple, contemporary look. The tricky part, not that tricky but the part that I'd like to tell you about is adding that sashing strip because you're going to have to offset the strip just a little bit. Before we get to that part, let's talk about the fabric. You're going to cut a variety of fabrics in the colors. For this particular quilt we used the six-inch size. Make certain that from each color that you cut some end strips. You'll need a few of those. I have the fabrics stacked to the left of my needle because I'm going to be the stitching. I'm getting it convenient. The sashing strip, we just happen to choose 1-1/2". I say "we," because I certainly don't do all the sewing. My staff and I chose 1-1/2". You could make this width any width you'd like. This is the proportion that you see. For set-up at your machine, always put in a new needle. This may seem redundant but I can's stress that enough. With each new project, put in a new needle and use all-purpose sewing thread for your seaming. The foot, you're going to choose a quarter-inch foot or set your machine to 1/4" seam allowance. I chose a foot that has a single opening. Make sure your machine is set for a straight stitch before you start stitching. This happens to have a guide bar so I can easily get an accurate seam allowance. Let me just pop this back on my machine. Then we'll talk about stitching. I'm going to place the sashing strip on the bed of my machine. Notice that I have the foot about an inch from the edge. The inch is the magic number. Because of the angle of the tumbler block if you sew the blocks end to end the sashing strip will be short at one end. We have to allow one inch between the various strips. I'll show you what I mean. I've started approximately an inch from the end. But then I don't like to be approximate. It's better to be assured so that as I reach this end instead of starting with, again, the narrow end I'm going to rotate this and start with the wide end. You'll see why in a few minutes. Then in addition, I'm going to measure a generous one inch between the two blocks and then continue the stitching. I ended with the narrow end. You'll see it coming up. Then just match the narrow end at the beginning of the next row. Measure a generous inch. After a while, you'll be able to eyeball that. Then just keep on stitching. After you've made enough strips stitched the blocks to the sashing strip then you're going to do the pressing. There's one little hint to work with for the pressing, as well. You're going to press toward the tumbler blocks. Here's the pressing technique. Just press all the strips in one direction. You can see, if you pressed it in the alternate direction the seam allowance of the strip would go the wrong way. We need that seam allowance of the sashing strip to be flat. Press to that area. Then we can do the layout. After you've done all the pressing we have to do some cutting. For the cutting, we'll use a rotary cutter and a ruler. I'll show you that right at the table. After stitching the sashing strip to one side or the other of the tumbling blocks, then it's time for the cutting. I can't stress enough that you have to press the seam allowances toward the block so that when you align the ruler with the edge of the block, and you do the cut, you'll have the right width at that end. Then angle the ruler. You can see now why you need that little extra width. An inch is probably generous but I'd rather that you had too much of that little sashing strip than too little. The first time I made this sample, I had too little so I learned from my mistake. I will just finish this first row. Just some simple cutting to get all of the pieces trimmed to size. When I look at these strips and I put and align the wide ends, you can see that we have the sashing strips on alternate sides because we're going to be positioning these end-to-end. That's the reason for alternating when sewing the sashing strips together. Earlier, when we made the first tumbling block with that big ten-inch block or shape. It's really not a block. We laid out the rows. Since this has a very specific pattern design we're going to do the same. The end piece-- remember you can cut those end pieces right from the design template if you like. It's in this area. Let me flip it around so it's correct. From the dotted line to the edge, you'll be using-- Let me get these in the right direction. Here we go. You'll be using one end piece without a sashing strip. Then as I lay these out, you'll see what happens. Alternating wide end, short end. Then the opposite end of the end piece does have the sashing strip. So you'll know if you need a sashing strip or not when you lay this out. The following row, everything is inverted. What started out wide at the top is now narrow. Simple as that. Again, just for repetition we roughly pin these edges together. When you pin them, just overlap the ends. That's what I like to call a little rabbit ear as it's commonly called in our industry. It extends above the straight edge. That's approximately 1/4". That's where you'll place a pin or just pin the pieces together roughly. Open it up, if you want to. Place the next piece along the edge. Make sure you have just that little extension. Pin the pieces. You pin all the pieces together to create a row. Just keep going. Then go to your machine and stitch. I'll pin one more. Of course, this is a mini-quilt you'd be working with a much larger piece. If you don't do this little preliminary pinning there's a good chance you'd get the wrong color in a spot. Then this would go to the machine. You'd do the straight stitching of the seams. Do all the same thing for all the rows. We have some samples of that already completed. Here we go. One row, two rows. Since this is a sash quilt, we'll add another sashing strip through the middle. To one of the rows, you're going to simply stitch. I like to stitch with the seams on the top so that as you're stitching you can make certain that you're not going to stitch the seams in the wrong direction. After you've stitched the sashing strip to one row then add the second strip. You can easily see how this comes to be. You could even vary the widths of the sashing strip. Let's say, one width for the interior and another one for the horizontal strips. There are a lot of options when working with quilts. When we look at the finished design it's just a very appealing design. It's easy to create, made with six-inch blocks and 1-1/2" strips that have been sashed together. During this program you've seen that we worked with very big blocks to small showing you the traditional tumbler block. Four inches is about a traditional size. The difference here is that they had to trim the sides and they had to work with very small pieces. You can get this same interesting tumbler effect by enlarging the size, making them super-sized. This isn't that large, it's only six inches but in eight or ten inches, as you saw examples earlier. A perfect quilting project to share with a beginner. If you'd like to teach someone to quilt this is a great way to start. Fabrics make a huge difference. You can see the contemporary styling makes it wonderful for all age brackets. The tumbler block is a great way to start learning grandmother's quilting secrets. As sewers and quilters common terminology is to quarter-mark fabric when sewing knits or create quarter-scale triangles or even those fat quarters. Quartering is also important when it comes to meal planning. Gail Underbakke, a registered dietician and coordinator with the University of Wisconsin Health in Madison, Wisconsin returns again to Sewing with Nancy to give us guidelines when planning meals helping us to be healthier and more creative people. Gail, in today's program, we super-sized the quilt blocks but that's not what we want to do for nutrition. Exactly. Unfortunately, over the last couple decades that's exactly what has happened in America. You know, you may think it's a little odd to do nutrition on a sewing and quilting program but if we don't feel well, we can't be creative. Exactly. Good eating is a source of energy. It helps you have that creative feeling and ability throughout the day. It keeps you interested in your projects, too. This is such a striking example because you mentioned that this was a standard dinner plate size how many years ago? At least in the early 1900s for sure and probably up to even 1950. Today, this is a standard dinner size plate. Exactly. When I serve myself, I kind of like to fill my plate. Exactly, it looks better. We think it's more food. There's a definite visual aspect to our satisfaction. If the plate is filled to the edges we think, oh, yeah, that's a lot of food. But on that big plate the same amount of food is going to look pretty sparse. You put it on the small plate, it's filled up nicely. It's much more satisfying. We talked about quarter marking and fat quarters for quilting. This is where the correlation comes to nutrition. Yes, I think this is a great tool. It's become more common in a lot of dietary guidelines to talk about recommendations for food in terms of cups or servings now rather than just like a number of ounces of this or that. Here on this plate, as you can see it's divided into quarters. One of the quarters is dedicated to protein which is important to keep us healthy and help us be satisfied and keep our hunger under control. A quarter is dedicated to some sort of grain or starchy type food which again, is a great source of energy. If done in moderation like that is just fine. But the key thing, I think, on this plate is that half of it is filled with vegetables. Vegetables, of course, are lower in calories. We chew more. It takes us longer to eat them. We're more satisfied because we take a longer time with our meal not to mention the vitamins and minerals. It's about the same size as the old-fashioned plate. Maybe we should go back to a luncheon plate instead of the super-sized dinner plate. Yes I think that weight management, that approach by using smaller containers, whether it's a plate or whether it's a bowl of ice cream instead of a cereal bowl, if you have a dessert bowl that would also make it look more satisfying. You mentioned that many of us struggle with getting enough fresh vegetables. Now we have more conveniences. Yes, I'm so glad to see that the supermarkets are offering options for people. This is an example of many different things that are in the stores now. They come in packaged servings that would be appropriate for a meal. If you took a sandwich to work, plus you had a container of frozen vegetables like this you've got your plate filled. Exactly in the right proportions. So, a half-square triangle we have a half-plate of vegetables. Now we can also add some color. Right, yes. This salad mix, of course it's a lot of different colored lettuces and other sorts of greens so there are a variety of nutrients in the salad. It looks prettier, so it's going to be more fun. Like a quilt, lights, mediums, and dark colors. Light, medium and dark vegetables. It's satisfying to the eye. And it's convenient. Both of these are, I think. It doesn't take a lot of time. Just have it on-hand and you're ready to go. We all like a little dessert. Oh, certainly, yes! I have to say, that's my weakness. You might have noticed there wasn't a fruit on that plate. But fruit makes great dessert or snacks. It's high in fiber. It's nice and sweet, and can take the place of dessert. Or, in this particular case I've included a little chocolate here. Dark chocolate. Dark chocolate is more healthy than the milk chocolate and it's delicious. We need healthy fats. Yes, we do, they're satisfying. They help keep our food intake under control. This is an example. Olive oil is one, other liquid vegetables would also be. This is an avocado. It could be used in a salad or to make a dip to use with crackers. Lots of options. Gail, thank you for joining us. I think we've gotten it in our minds that we shouldn't super-size our meal planning just our quilt blocks. Scale down those plates! If you'd like more information on this segment

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www.NancyZieman.com You'll find links to my Nancy's Corner guests, such as Gail. You'll also be able to watch current Sewing with Nancy programs online and read my blog. Basically, you'll find everything related to Sewing with Nancy &nbspat that site. Thanks for joining us. Bye for now. Nancy has written instructions and design templates that can be used to create the quilts featured in this series. They're $19.99, plus shipping and handling. To order this reference material, call 1-800-336-8373

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