© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 8 comments
Post categories: Favorite Things, Featured, Quilting
Tags: connecting, Inchie Quilts, Inchies, quilt friends

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Mmmmm….YLI #100 Silk Thread, the finest silk thread on the market. Have you used silk thread in your quilting or fabric art? It’s just incredible stuff, with an unsurpassed sheen all its own. I started using YLI silk thread years ago, at about the same time Diane Gaudynski and YLI teamed up to offer this gorgeous thread in larger put ups for machine quilting. It’s just fabulous for machine quilting since it’s perfect for intricate design motifs as well as tiny stipples or other background designs, adding texture and subtle color without making your quilt look “thready.”

I’d collected a few of the larger spools over the years and I used the silk thread in a few of my quilts for machine quilting, and I also used it for a bit of hand appliqué. When you use silk thread for hand appliqué, the stitches just dissappear into the fabric because the thread is soooo fine. At some point I started working on a show quilt where the design called for some pretty intricate hand appliqué and I realized that I just couldn’t do that much needleturn appliqué anymore, so I started searching for an appliqué-by-machine solution that I could live with. (...)
Read the rest of Studio News: YLI #100 Silk Thread Collection (223 words)

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments
Post categories: Creativity, Favorite Things, Featured, Quilting
Tags: appliqué, DWQ Studio, machine appliqué, silk thread

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I received the prototypes of my tools from Rulersmith two weeks ago, and let me tell you, they are awesome! They are every bit as wonderful as I hoped they would be in the beginning, and the quality is, of course, perfect. The ruler is absolutely perfect just as it is, and the tool only requires a very minor modification to be perfect as well. If only I’d been able to find this company before I’d gone so far with the first one! (I looked, I really did, but somehow didn’t find Rulersmith until the second go round, and I don’t even remember how I found it then!) My experience with Rulersmith has been completely opposite in every way to the one I had with the other company.

I sent Dave at Rulersmith pdf files of my designs (instead of the original Corel Draw files, Photoshop files, graphics and fonts, etc.), and from just those pdf files, his team drafted the designs and made the prototypes that were perfect and nearly perfect. (...)
Read the rest of Quilt Ruler Manufacturing Report–Good News at Last! (378 words)

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments
Post categories: Creativity, Favorite Things, Featured, Quilting, Tips
Tags: cool tools, Inchies, InchieSee InchieDo

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I love the AQS Publishing blog, and for more reasons than the above. For example, the post just after the one about Inchie Quilts says that Anita Shackelford’s book, Infinite Feathers has been reprinted, which is fantastic news since it’s the best book out there on feather quilting. Truly, the best book. I use mine all the time when I’m designing quilting designs like those I used on Material Marquetry, and it’s been one of the most used books in my library since I bought it.

Speaking of my library, I do still have The Library page on the site, even though it’s not really “findable” from anywhere but the sitemap. The Library pulls my quilting book titles from LibraryThing, a totally awesome and fun site where you can catalog your books, whether quilting titles or not. When I found LibraryThing, I cataloged all my quilting books (as well as the rest of the books in the house), tagged them by subject, and then life got in the way and I sort of forgot it was there most of the time.(...)
Read the rest of Bookish Things (368 words)

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
Post categories: Favorite Things, Off the Bookshelf
Tags: Amazon AuthorCentral, Inchie Quilts, LibraryThing

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I got these from my Moda rep (the lovely Kim, whose daughter is also a rep) at Quilt Market in October. They are just too cute to actually use for anything, so they sit in their little box on my sewing table with my bunny from Build-a-Bear, and a lovely framed antique stencil that was used by young French ladies to stencil their undergarments for their trousseaus (a gift from Kimberly that she found at the quilt show in St. Marie aux Mines last year).(...)
Read the rest of Moda Bake Shop Boxes=Cute Overload (226 words)

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
Post categories: Favorite Things, Quilting
Tags: fabric, Honey Buns, Moda Bake Shop, precut fabrics, Sweet Rolls

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On a small quilt sandwich with unpieced bali fabrics on both sides and Hobbs 80/20 Black batting in the middle, I used a ruler and a hera marker to mark the straight quilting lines on the sandwich. A hera marker is simply a piece of plastic with a nicely tapered, curved edge which, when pressed on the fabric, compresses the fibers and leaves a mark that is fairly easy to see. Note that this particular model by Clover is the one I’ve had the best luck with; the others that I’ve tried have been made of softer plastic and didn’t make as nice a mark.

I marked the lines on the quilt sandwich in one direction only, meaning all the lines that are parallel to each other in an up and down direction. If you mark all the grid lines in both directions before you start quilting, you may find that when you mark the second set of lines across the first, the first set of lines will have little waves or points where the second set crosses them, and it will be difficult to quilt straight lines later.

When I’m quilting a grid, whether it’s big or small, I always start with a line of quilting close to the center of the quilt or space, and then work outward to the right and left. I always begin quilting at the top of the piece or area, and quilt toward the bottom, which means rolling up the bulk of the quilt to fit under the machine head when working on the left side. Even with a walking foot or IDT/dual feed, the layers of a quilt sandwich will shift; it’s just a fact of life.

Starting each line of quilting at the top will prevent diagonal wrinkles from forming on the quilt top or back from stitching lines in both directions. Remember this “top-to-bottom” stitching technique the next time you’re putting down stitch in the ditch between rows and blocks on a large quilt, too, as the same idea applies and the same diagonal wrinkles can happen, just on a larger scale.

Once the first set of gridlines was quilted, I marked the second set perpendicular to the first. The second set of quilting lines needs a bit more attention to detail than the first. When you start adding quilting lines that cross other lines, you can run into trouble when the fabric starts shifting. As you come up to a previous line of quilting, you may find that the top fabric of the quilt sandwich starts to form a little hill, which will become a pleat if you keep sewing.

The solution is to slow down and pay special attention in this area. You can use your fingers on the top of the quilt to gently nudge the top fabric toward the presser foot, essentially forcing the top fabric to feed more quickly into the machine to reverse the negative pushing effect that the presser foot is having on the quilt sandwich. Not just for grids, this little nudging technique is infinitely useful whenever I do any kind of machine guided quilting with a walking foot or IDT/dual feed.

A few simple techniques made quick work of this little display quilt, so stay tuned for pics!

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2008. | Permalink | One comment
Post categories: Favorite Things, Quilting, Tips
Tags: cool tools, machine quilting, techniques

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Anyway, I scrapped the idea when we moved. The owner left her board here for us to use if we wanted it, and it was a really wonderful specimen from Leifheit that had an attached iron rest and even a power socket on the board itself. I went on the hunt for an even bigger, better model, and found the perfect thing. It’s big, it’s beautiful, and far and away the most stylish ironing board I’ve ever owned: the Leifheit Dressfix Plus.

Here she is in all her plaid covered glory, next to the old board:

Notice that instead of a standard shape, it tapers asymetrically so that there is a longer straight edge, perfect for pressing yardage or quilt tops. There’s also a movable iron rest with an attached power socket and cord minder. The iron plugs into the rest, and the rest plugs into the wall, which leaves more cord length available to travel with ease over the wide open spaces of the board.

To add to the list of lovely features, this baby is a mile high. I’m tall, and I was always bending over the other board to get up close and personal with intricate pressing tasks. The new board saves my back because it’s about eight inches taller than the old one! At the highest setting it’s right at low waist level for me, which is perfect.

Seemingly well made, it should last quite a while, if not forever. I told ITMan that when he (predictably) asked “And how much was that thing?!?” It’s all in the name of comfort and functionality, my dear.

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2008. | Permalink | 4 comments
Post categories: Favorite Things, Quilting
Tags: cool tools, ironing, pressing

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Yeah, this is cool! Three of my favorite things (quilts, Mustangs, and clothes!), pimped out in pink for Breast Cancer Awareness: Check out the Virtual Quilt at the Ford Vehicles Warriors in Pink site and add your message. Be sure to take a look at the Warriors in Pink Mustang. If I didn’t already have a Mustang, I’d go for it! (if it came in a GT model, anyway) Kelly Clarkson serves up unique ways to Rock your Warrior Gear, and 100% of the net proceeds from Warrior Gear are donated to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Tell a friend and spread the word about Breast Cancer Awareness! Way to go, Ford!

Note: I found this site through AskPatty.com, a great site for women to get advice on cars and automotive related issues. Check it out!

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2007. | Permalink | No comment
Post categories: Favorite Things, Quilting
Tags: breast cancer, car love, virtual quilt

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I discovered LibraryThing a couple of weeks ago, and I’m in book lover’s heaven! I could instantly see major potential here, and I’ve already started to get a couple of long-term goals accomplished. Ever since I started writing at Quilt Epiphany, I’ve wanted to make a Library page, showing all the quilt books in my collection, and either linking to my review of the book (if there was one) or to the book at Amazon.com, or both.

I do have a Worpress plugin called Amazon Media Manager (AMM) which makes it possible to insert a pretty picture of a book or product into my posts and have it linked directly to Amazon where readers can buy it. Oh, and the veritable river of cash that flows from the Amazon Associates account into my wallet is staggering, as well. However, while AMM works great for one at a time inserts, or lists of two or three books or CD’s in the sidebar, I just couldn’t see spending the amount of time it would take to input 140 quilt books into my AMM list, and then program the thing to display them on a separate page. Never mind.

Here’s why LibraryThing is such a killer app. I made a free account at LibraryThing (a one step, two word process, believe it or not), and added a couple of books to my Library. It’s a simple process, since you can either enter the ISBN of the book, or search by title or author, and then select from a list to add the book to your Library. You can see the contents of your library, add tags, write reviews, share your profile with other users, see what other users are reading, etc. This is social networking for book lovers, (...)
Read the rest of Techie Coolness: LibraryThing (447 words)

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2007. | Permalink | 4 comments
Post categories: Favorite Things, Off the Bookshelf, Quilting, Tips
Tags: online shopping, product reviews, programming, techie stuff, web design

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I’m so excited! Electric Quilt is finally releasing Version 6 of the software, just in time for the holidays! I’d been kind of wondering about a new version for a while now. I went to the site this morning to download the free palette for EQ5 (see this post), and saw the news about EQ6. The best part: preordering for shipment in late November gets you a special reduced price on either an upgrade from Version 5, or the full version of EQ6. Wow! They’re giving you at least a $25 discount if you preorder! This one is a “wrap it up and stick it under the tree for yourself” gift. You could even say it was from Santa.

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2006. | Permalink | No comment
Post categories: Creativity, Favorite Things, Quilting, Tips
Tags: Electric Quilt

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