Sewing With Nancy

As you might guess, I have been sewing a long time. When I was asked to organize my favorite sewing and quilting tips as well as techniques "A to Z," I took the challenge. During this three-part series, I'd like to share with you a sampling of my favorite skills. This is the second program of a three-part series. During this show, I'll be sharing techniques starting with the letter I through P. This may sound like an opening to Sesame Street but as you know, it's "Sewing A to Z" coming up next on Sewing with Nancy. I is for interfacing. Before purchasing interfacing, think less is best and you'll add perfect shaping to your next project. When I talk about interfacing, it's really fusible interfacing. I rarely sew-in any type of interfacing. I press it into place. As I mentioned just a few seconds ago, use a lightweight one weight lighter than the fashion fabric is generally my guideline for interfacing. After purchasing, rather folding it I like to roll it on an empty tube. Insert the instructions inside the tube so I have them there. That way, it's stored easily and doesn't become wrinkled.

I cut the interfacing on a 1

1 ratio with the collar, cuff, or whatever I'm interfacing. Years ago, if I had given this seminar or this television program I would've trimmed off the seam allowances. That's way too much work!

I just lay it down 1

1. The first thing that I do is fused a base. Fuse it down, just periodically around or in the area where the collar is, in this instance so that it holds and doesn't shift. Following the manufacturer's instructions with steam I usually cover it with a press cloth and again, just steam it into place. Within a few seconds you'll have your interfacing positioned. The important thing is that the interfacing does not change the hand or the drape of the fabric but it just makes it a little bit more stable. That's what this has done. You can see, it's still lightweight and pliable but yet it has a little bit more stability to it. You may find that you'll have favorite fusible interfacings that you'll work with. Buy it in bulk so that you have it on hand. Follow the simple steps for perfect interfacing. J is for jacket sleeve linings. Here's how to fully line and hem the sleeve in one step even if the pattern doesn't call for lining. Often, I like to make simple jackets. The jackets aren't lined, but having lining in the sleeve makes it easier to wear and makes the jacket look just a little bit better. So here's my technique. From the pattern piece, cut a second tissue pattern for the sleeve lining but make it just a little bit shorter. Trim off the hem allowance. This is providing that this is the correct hem that you'd like for your sleeve of your jacket. The cut out the lining from that shorter pattern. On the jacket itself, I placed interfacing in the hemline. You can see that I've pre-pressed the hem over a hem gauge, or your favorite pressing tool. Then, hem the sleeve first. It's the very opposite of what we normally do. Meet the hem allowances and sew this with a 5/8" seam allowance. After stitching this, here's what your sleeve looks like. It's been stitched, as you might guess. Now, to sew the side seam. It's really side "seams" that we're going to be sewing. We stitch, matching the cut edges of the jacket sleeve and it continuously goes to the sleeve of the lining. Pin these layers together and stitch this one long seam. This next sample shows that I've stitched them and started to press. I have a sleeve roll inserted. I've pressed the lining section already. Now, I just simply press open the jacket sleeve. I like to press over a roll because it prevents the seam allowance from making an imprint. Reach in the sleeve, a little magic here. We'll just grab the sleeve where it has been pressed. It's been pre-pressed. Shake it out. Match the cut edges at the cap. What you'll find is that it's already lined. The lining is shorter, just the way it should be. It's fully lined. Now you simply meet the cut edges at the top and treat this as one complete unit and set it into the armhole of your jacket. You can line the sleeves of your jacket in this simple step. K is for knit seams. When sewing knits, there are very few rules, just guidelines. Often, people steer away from working with knits especially if they're beginner sewers concerned that their machine can not handle the knit fabric. I'll just give you a few ways to fine tune your sewing machine if you do not have a stretch stitch built in. Let's look at the knits, first of all. Knits have greater stretch in the crosswise grain of the fabric and less stretch in the lengthwise grain. If you used a straight stitch you might have popping seams. I think you all can figure that out. Here's just a straight stitch. This is the crosswise grain, and this is often what happens. We don't need or want that. So we're going to change the stitch. Using a zigzag stitch is what I like to do, but I modify it. This is a traditional zigzag stitch and the preset that it comes with. Rather than having it at a 3.0mm width I'm going to shorten it to a 1.0 width so that it "wobbles." One guest a long time ago, Betty Cotton, used this stitch as a decorative stitch on quilting. We're going to use it as a stretch stitch. The zigzag gives built-in stretch. Let me show you a sample that I have that has that same fabric that no loner pops because it was stitched with a slight zigzag. In the needle, I used a stretch needle. If you don't use a stretch needle, or a ball point needle your stitches may pop or skip and not even sew through the fabric. This is a very important addition to your sewing machine. Change that needle. The very first "A to Z" technique was using an anchor cloth and that's so important when working with knits. Start to sew in the middle of that piece of fabric and you just sew from one fabric onto the other. This is working with a seam allowance. Just sew away. Then you'll trim away the excess anchor cloth. Then as the second thing that you'd like to do is to do a second row of stitching. With knits, you do not need that full seam allowance. Trim the seam allowance down and do another row of stitching so that it has stretch, as well as stability. Now, a serger, probably the best stretch stitch that you can work with. I'm working with four threads on the serger. You can see that I have set it up according to the manufacturer's instructions. This has great built-in stretch for crosswise grain which I'm going to do, crosswise stretch. I have the width of the blade set at 1/4" just a standard industry stitch. There's an "L" setting that I'm simply going to guide the fabric along that area. You do not need two additional, or another row of stitches because this simply just gives great stretch crosswise and lengthwise stretch. My two favorite seams, a wobble stitch as well as a serge stitch. That's sewing with K. L is for layering a quilt. Fuse basting quilt layers together for an easy yet secure way of holding the layers together. Commonly, to have the top of the quilt, the batting and the backing secured together you'd use pins. But the fast way that I like to use is with paper-backed fusible web that you cut into strips from the yardage. Or, you can simply use the strips that come on a roll. The choice is yours. Either way works. As with pins, you would place a pin about a fist width apart. I'm just going to place, with the fusible side down little squares. You don't have to measure, just place the squares a couple of inches apart, and press. Another option is that you don't even have to cut them. Fuse a section, hold it down tight, and just tear. Just fuse it. This is a very fast way of fuse basting. We're placing one layer on the batting and a second layer on the backing fabric. If you'd like, you could place these both on the underside depending on the thickness of your batting you could place it both on the wrong side of the batting and on the quilt top. You can see how fast that goes together. On the second sample that I have we had the fused sections in place. In order to do the pressing you just remove the paper. We've given these paper sections a head start because sometimes that's the trickiest part just getting the paper peeled off. Once you peel off the paper from the batting then go to the underside and peel off the backing area. Perhaps you may be able to see the shiny areas left. That is the web that's holding it together. This is not going to replace stitching. This is just replacing pinning. We have the batting, the backing and we have this all nice and flat. We have one more piece of paper. There we are. Then just do some pressing. Lightly press. You'll be pleasantly surprised when you open this up. The top portion has dried. It is tacked into place. It's "pinned" into place with fusible web. M is for mitered corners on a quilt. Like a picture frame showcases a photo the mitered borders frame a quilt. You don't see a full-size quilt on my table just a small sample to show you the technique concentrating on the borders. Add a border to the left and the right side the east and the west side of a quilt stopping your stitching 1/4" before the end and making certain that the border extends at least an inch beyond the width of the border. So if this is three inches, this would be four inches. Press the seam allowances toward the borders. After you've added the borders on the sides then add the borders on the top and bottom or on the north and south part of the quilt and stop stitching, again, at that 1/4" seam allowance. Press the seam allowances toward the borders. That's been pre-pressed. Now to make the miter. This is just a little sleight of hand. Fold the top border so it aligns evenly with the bottom border. Making certain that those extensions are matched up press. The pressing will give you the stitching line. When you fold back, keeping these edges aligned you can see that line is just where you're going to stitch. You're going to stitch in the well of the pressing area. On this sample, we've already done the stitching. Just stitch. You may want to test it out, by opening this and testing to see if it's a flat miter. As you might guess, this sample is right, in this instance. Then, we're going to trim. Trim this down to 1/4" like you normally would trim that area. There we go. I like to have my hands underneath to make certain that I'm not cutting something I shouldn't cut. After trimming, there we have one corner of the quilt block just the way you'd have a miter on a picture frame all by stitching, folding and then doing another stitch in the press mark. It's my favorite mitering technique on a quilt border. N is notches, the quintessential pattern marking. Notches can be marked, clipped and even notched. It doesn't get more basic than this working with notches on patterns the little triangular shapes that are cut off right along with the cutting line of the pattern. Then for marking, we have some suggestions. Most of you may do the simple nipping or clipping 1/4" or less, little nip right at the notches. One notch is always for the front armhole. Then you'll have notches at the side seam just a small little nip or clip right in the seam allowance. Without doing these markings you'll have a difficult time getting the pattern pieces just where you'd like them. Some people don't like to clip the fabric especially if it's really ravely, it really doesn't pay. So another option is to use a marking pen. We would like the notches marked. Simply fold this back a bit. Have this on the wrong side rather than the right side and mark notches, and notches right across from the marking, right on the pattern piece. In college, when I was doing some pattern drafting and designing, we used a notcher, like this to mark the cardboard or the manilla type weight. A sloper, it was called, that we drafted patterns with. It takes out a notch of the paper. We've incorporated this into sewing. It's used when you're going to be serging a seam. Rather than using the other two marking tools we notch out a section. It really is quite a large section that comes out. Let me show you up here, maybe one more time. You can almost hear it cut through the fabric. You get a substantial notch that comes out of the fabric. The reason for doing this if you're serging the edges, you can't see the nips. Many times, you can't see the markings. Here we have serged over the edge. You still have a little opening so that you know where the notches are. Three ways to mark notches, a sewing basic. O is for organizing fabric. Use pocket folders and a few clever folds to tame unwieldy fabric. Here's how. Sometimes my fabric stash is really unorganized. When I take a few minutes to organize it this is what it looks like. It's well worth it, because then I can see what I have. Here is my solution. One day, one of my kid's school folders was lying around and I just decided to use that as an organizing tool. Here's the fabric, 45". I'll just turn it the other way so you can see the fold already. I'll fold it in half again so that it's about 11" wide. We have a folder that's 12", or so. We use this folder simply as a base. Organize the fabric as you go along, folding it. Fold the corner in half. Fold it around, and then tuck in the corner. Then, get a paper clip, or a pin, or a hair clip, whatever you may have at home. Clip the end, pull out the school pocket folder and you have fabric that's easy to coordinate. If you have fabric that has been cut just simply fold the straight edge first and have the cut edge, the unwieldy edge right in this area. Tuck it in and you have organized fabric. One of my simplest organizing techniques. P is for pintucks. Take the guesswork out of creating even rows of stitching with my favorite techniques. When working with heirloom sewing whether it's for creating children's wear or for working in home decorating equally-stitched tucks to add texture is simple to do as long as you have the right accessories. The main accessory will be the foot. The pintuck foot is found in most of the accessory boxes. It may be metal. It may be plastic. And on the underside, you'll see grooves. Grooves that will be five, perhaps seven. The more grooves there are the closer the stitching will become. Earlier in this series we did "D is for double needles" and I showed you how to set up a double needle stitching with a 2.0mm needle for heirloom sewing which we're going to be using. For the thread, unwinding in different directions so it doesn't twist. The first row of stitching is done with a marked line on the fabric, so that you're just stitching along that line. Sew slowly so you get it straight because this will determine the distances and the straightness of the other rows of stitching. After one row of stitching I like to cut my threads by hand this time so I have a nice thread. Then, I place the groove. I'm going to place the second groove from the end over the first row of stitching. I did starch my fabric. I'm working with a lightweight fabric and I find that if I make it crisp it sews a little bit easier, because we're working, as you can see, with lightweight fabrics. There you can see you can get equal distance between the rows. It's very simple. It's not very difficult. It just requires the set up the double needle, the pintuck foot, and making certain that the threads are unwinding in different directions and you can get these rows perfectly even because of these guidelines. So, if you're working with children's wear if you're working with heirloom sewing perhaps making a decorative pillow this is a great way to add texture, as well as interest. My assumption is that my Nancy's Corner guest never thought he'd be quilting when he was an architect in Dallas nor did he think that his dining room wall would become a design wall for quilt blocks when he was working with websites full-time. Yet, as life paths changed so did my guest, Bruce Seeds. Hi, Bruce. You marry color, detail, artistry in quilts and you used your architect abilities your web design abilities, now into fabric. Yes, the precision required to really make this type of quilt come off right is very appealing to me. And yet, the fact that I don't plan it ahead and I have to make it up as I go, is a challenge. But also, it provides a lot of the delight. As history has it, in about 2008 you found your career in flux. Yes, well, sure everyone remembers the downturn of 2008. Sure. I had some time on my hands as the website business was waning a little bit. So, I saw this book, "One Block Wonders" from Maxine Rosenthal. I had never seen quilts like the ones I saw in this book. I said, well, I have a 30-year-old sewing machine I'm going to try it. And I did. Your first time quilting? Yes, I had made one small log cabin quilt about this big a while back. That's the only thing I made. You start out with one print fabric. Yes, this process starts with one large piece of a print fabric in this case, an oriental print. Let's show it to our viewers. Sure, I incorporate a piece of the original fabric into the back of each of my quilts. So this one is a lot of it. Blossoms and water and there's even a little Asian temple in there. I divided it into stacks of six identical triangles and then I arranged those radially into hexagons to create something like a kaleidoscope. Then I used those as units to compose on the wall and compose the overall quilt. Putting the six triangles together and designing. The design really starts when you start cutting. But it really starts when you start composing each hexagon because each set of six triangles could be oriented one of three ways. Of course. I play with those until I get the one that I like and then I move on. You can see this is a beautiful quilt but wait till you see them in their full size. This quilt, you just finished. Yes, I call it "Geologic" because it reminded me of a geologic fissure perhaps geodes, amethyst. I wanted a long, strong fissure going diagonally through the quilt. I even broke through the border and headed off to the edge of the quilt. Violating that border is always a good thing. It's a lot of fun. It creates instant three-dimensionality. When I saw that, I thought, I know you're an architect because it really does have earth and a lot of symmetry in it, plus great design. Thank you. You've taken another look, and worked with a much brighter fabric in oranges. Yes, this one started out as a print of poppies oranges and pinks, divided up and put together. I found the orange sort of wanting to go into a swirling pattern. I created a giant swirl. I solicit feedback from my fans on Facebook. I had a friend who suggested it looked like a dragon. I set the eyes and said, "Dragon it is." So that quilt's name is Dragon. Aptly named. It's really fun. Thanks. I know you've made several quilts using this concept. You never tire of it. No, and the reason I don't is because when I start I do not know what it's going to be. Coming from architecture and web design I'm trained, and used to conceiving, planning and then executing the plan. Whereas with this, I can't preconceive it. I do not know what it's going to be until it's done. I simply start executing. The creativity and the design comes through the process. That keeps me interested and engaged. I just keep going. We share being Type A personalities. Absolutely. I never like to do the same thing over and over again. I don't either. So this gives you that creativity. Each one is different. You could not create two identical quilts using this process, if you wanted to. You'd have to try really hard. Bruce, great job, very inspiring. Keep in mind that you can start quilting at any time. For more information on Bruce Seeds' quilts,

simply go to

NancyZieman.com and click on "Nancy's Corner." There, you'll find information on Bruce. Also at NancyZieman.com you'll see additional episodes online. You'll find my blog, and a lot more. Thanks for joining us, Bruce. Thank you, Nancy. And thank you for being with us on Sewing with Nancy during our second program of "Sewing A to Z." Thanks for joining me. Bye for now.