How Quilters Get the Perfect 1/4" - Alex Anderson LIVE Fri Apr 3 10am PST, 1pm EST, 6pm London

hey everybody John and we we have just been I have to tell you we have just been in darn near a panic the equipment wasn't working and I will say as of 30 seconds ago we got it to work John was on a business meeting on the new hey Carol on the new website that we're working on and I go I'm sorry but my underwears in a bundle I can't get the website I can't get it going and and the hard web master goes your underwears in a bundle and then I have to tell you something that I think is hilarious the other day on Facebook I saw somebody say what see how do I set this up I don't know what day it is okay I know it Monday Wednesday Fridays but it's all mushing together and I'm sure you can all agree with that and it was something like can I go back and wear the underwear I wore when I was a little girl that went the days of the week on Easter day and asked so I was gonna take so hey Margo is gonna take some granny panties of mine and put a big M on it or big F in it I thought no that's that's just TMI okay talk about TMI this is really funny too back in the day is simply quilts I would ship down quilts or I'd bring them down with me or whatever a suitcase full of them and Ian who is our floor manager who I adore I probably get not the quilt my granny Underpants in it how embarrassing so the next time I went down there I got some really skanky thong stop and stuff so those are the things you don't forget about simply quilts so okay good morning everybody let me tell you we're gonna talk about getting getting the perfect quarter inch today and before I do that I want to share some things with you and the other thing is if you leave a comment I probably can back and scroll if there are questions this technology is super new to me and like I said I'm just kind of dramas rubbing my shoulders oh my god it was all screwed up okay so anyways first of all I go for walks everyday with the the weather willing and yesterday I decided to walk to my mom's normally I walk along an Arroyo that's kind of the bike path and all that but I was gonna go walk to my mom's and just check on the yard and all that because we had a little disaster going on and now my fabulous gardener has whipped it back into shape but anyways the first thing I saw when I was walking there and she is 1.3 miles from my house her her her home was I saw two teddy bears at a window at Maryland Frazier's house I would made me so happy and actually they were sitting on the roof and I went oh my gosh there's teddy bears I should have my eyes open more well then as I continued my walk you know the little libraries that everybody has well this one had books but it also had canned food and I thought that was absolutely fabulous so if you have a little library you might want to do that and then on my mom's block she's in the old section of town she's in a what was in a Victorian cottage some little kids went around the block and all of us I'm walking home so I'm going whoa whoa and in front of every single front door and like on the sidewalk where you walk into the house [Music] you saw this and this was all the way around the block at just that made my heart sing and so I saw an American flag I saw one little kid out there doing his art and I kind of want to take a picture of him but I thought that's kind of really creepy so I didn't do that and then this morning I am embarrassed to say I got sucked in by Tiger King okay and apparently there's a whole lot of stuff about that right now that how it was supposed to be a documentary but then they got in there did like how they do the reality shows you know so some people are pretty upset but this is great look at this picture that somebody did on their front yard whoops there we go Wendy go away there we go and it says it says on it I fed them to the Tigers but look at the tiger over there to the left-hand side of Joe I mean like wow there's some serious art going on there okay then I got some other questions and bring on you guys are helping me come up with ideas although the ideas are just coming very organically somebody I was throwing out a lot of product names on Wednesday because I was showing Raj applique and finished applique and somebody said is there a place where you could go and just kind of get the the the the download on the whole thing and I got hold of our culture select guy and here is our website quilters select and then you can see in the upper left hand corner you see meet Alex and then you have products and you can go to the products page and then it tells extensively about each of the products but what I want them to do and I'll let you know when this happens I was kind of a cheat sheet that would be a great PDF for people to be able to print out I was hoping I could show that to you this morning but that hasn't happened yet so thank you I can't remember who asked me that question but I super super appreciate that all right then let me see-oh then people were asking about the quilt behind me where to get the pattern the pattern is not on tqs it's on Alex Anderson quilts okay and then if you go into the shop you'll be able to see I think there's a turns or something and it's on the the top row and the really great thing is that I don't have to ship it to you I just have to approve it prove the transaction and you'll get the PDF in in the mail and then last but not least we have new people coming on because of the 1995 for six months and checking us out and for those of you who've been with the quilt show.com for many a year you know you know how much is there as far as just even in the show content okay and so I want to take you here this is the homepage and then you go up to watch and then when you go into watch you can there's a show list and so here is the show list right now we're on season four series 26 in every single series there's 13 shows except the first one I think 13 shows yeah and every single one so do the math on that there's also a search function in the show area if there's something specifically you're looking for you can find it there there is so much information so for you new quilters get in there get busy and understand that like applique like we did on Wednesday here there's 10,000 different ways to do it and so you go in there type applique and you will be amazed at what comes up and then also there's classrooms and you can go in there and do that too so let's talk about getting the perfect quarter inch this has a lot of you might know this stuff but this question really burns in my mind because in one of these sessions in the past somebody asked why the quarter inch and it was a new quilter and I said it just is it it's it's how it's mathematically all figured out and close enough okay I started garment making first in six and sixth grade and when you're putting in a sleeve or you're putting in a neck or something like that close enough is good enough but on in quilting it can make or break the deal and the success of the quilt and so I want to talk about how I tackle the quarter inch and I'm going to talk like I'm tough sailor here you know I try my best and even I get sloppy okay so um Margo clabe oh never gets sloppy and she is watching right now Sally Collins never get sloppy yeah and we actually have her DVD available if you're subscribing member I mean and the show with her so anyways let's talk first about your setup all right let me get this this is what I was having a problem with this morning the panic okay this is a fancy machine I'm working on it's a Bernina 7 765 and it has a trillion fabulous stitches and so in order to support the stitches it has an extra wide throat plate here all right I had this is nine millimeters I believe a lot of machines have seven millimeters and then my Bernina my older Bernina has five millimeters and that's the width of the whole thing if it's over five millimeters I would strongly suggest that you get a single hole throat plate if when it's this wide your your fabrics just gonna all bump around and it's just gonna be ridiculous so I always change it out okay there we go i wanna Bernina you just push this back button here and then it cut pops up and then this just slides in and there you go so then I want to talk about the feet all all machines have the quarter-inch foot foots and they all vary a little bit this is my favorite it's the number 37 D Bernina also has one and other brands that have a side a bumper guard here kind of like bumper bowling you know where it's right here and I telling you I thought I had that foot and I could not put my hand on it no big surprise in my life the only time I use the bumper guard on the side that foot is if I'm strip piece because the prop I do pan and I pin a lot maybe I need to do a whole thing on pinning I'm a maven about pins if I'm pinning I'm a left-hander I'm coming in this way it will hit the bumper guard and then Bernina also has a 97 foot that's a little bit wider on this side and it's great with the wider feed dogs but this is the one I learned on the number 37 it is my go-to so there we go and put it on there then on my machine I'm gonna look up here yeah you can barely see it on my machine right in front of this feed dog is a little indentation right here okay that's my lead-in so when I'm when I'm sewing down when I'm sewing I am NOT looking at the edge of my foot my presser foot because at this point is too late I'm already I it's already underneath and I know the needles going to go up and down so I align it to this little guy right out here that is where my eyeball is and and then I scoot on through so what you're gonna want to do is if you don't have that I strongly strongly recommend to take a ruler I mean it's the quarter inch is just so important I can't begin to tell you and then I'm going to put my needle down right on that quarter inch and then I'm gonna take some blue tape some people like moleskin some you know you can use anything but what you're gonna do is you're going to put this right there keep it off the feed dogs and then that's my lead-in and if you wonder what all this garbage is I got to figure out how to get this off this was when I was sewing triangles and I was using a square and then cutting and I was using this line down here but boy that looks awful oh here we go I didn't have that thing there I would use this as my lead-in and there you go I consider my quarter inch foot as a suggestion all right now the other thing I love about this quarter inch foot excuse me is the opening has a hole like this so when I'm pinning I can leave the pins in till the last minute and pull them out I'm gonna do a thing on penny I just decided okay so now let's talk about problems that can happen I spoke about this the other day and this is a la Sally Collins when you line up your fabric on this side I want to see blue on this side I want to see only white well that's not happening it's scooted so it's really really important to make sure that when I'm looking at the white side I'm looking at white when I'm looking at the blue side I'm looking at blue all right and if it's scoots like this your quarter-inch is gonna get goofed up I mean that's fact the other thing that people do is probably see it better on this side okay this is the beginning of my seam where my thumb is moving okay here I'm stitch stitch stitch stitch stitch oh I'm getting to the end and I trail off and I and I think that that is a common problem I don't know what the deal is but you want the end of this thing to look as good as up here you don't want to trail off and then the last thing you do is Sally suggests that you take two one and a quarter inch pieces of fabric sew them together press and then this measures two inches and if it doesn't measure two inches oh boy I hope it measures two inches yeah it does if it doesn't measure two inches you have to adjust what you're doing over here now I want to talk a little bit about thread if I may again I will go back and I'll look at questions here so when I started quilting you know this is actually pretty darn funny actually when I started quilting when the dinosaurs roamed the earth the thread that we used get over here mr. the thread that we used was a hundred percent cotton and it was like really thick it was on a cardboard tube this is like four years ago and you we were it was beat in our brains that you must use cotton because at that time it was things like house of fabric and all that and at off old tape googan will take off the tape thank you because that just looks like a chi double-l man okay wasn't it okay it was beat in our brains that you had to use this hundred percent cotton thread and there was a reason for that you guys cuz back in the day you would go to fabric land or whatever I hope they don't exist so that I don't get sued and they'd have these bins of thread you know like 25 cents for polyester and it was just yucky crappy thread okay so then I'd say the thread revolution has come about in the last maybe 15 20 years and I really tribute Bob Purcell from superior threads to be out there educating us about threads I mean there's so many to choose from and so what do you use for what in my opinion there's no longer a one thread thing you go to you've got to be flexible you've got to be able to move okay so then trying to think of a history of thread then we all went to Egyptian cotton 50 wait and there's lovely lovely brands out there like superior like Orville I know I know you guys have that stuff and I put it in the top of my machine and the bobbin on my machine now whatever thread you use is going to greatly affect you or quarter-inch so then there was a 60 weight polyester that came out that was designed for the bobbin okay so the higher the higher the number the finer the thread that doesn't even make sense to me but so then I started using the 60 weight poly in my bobbin with my cotton on top so okay that steps up Acuras it a little bit where that kind of came out with a big fat slur it's not even 5 o'clock anyways so so then with quilters select which is the brand I'm associated with it is that if it were 60 weight we're good why not 80 weight okay so our 80 weight polyester is called para cotton poly it's like cotton but it's polyester it is so dang fine it is so fine like you can tell on the computer nice try Alex and I use this in piecing on the bobbin I also use this 80 weight for binding that's how strong it is and that's how fine it is it's fabulous it hides like silk so I use this on the bobbin and then we came up with a thread that's a 60 weight and it is a polyester core with Egyptian long staple cotton on the outside I use that on the top of my machine so I have the bobbin and I have the top the reason I don't use when piecing the 80 on the bobbin and the top is because it's a pretty slick thread and so when you go to the end it might undo a little bit now some people just love this like that but I like the cotton outside on top and the 80 weight on the bobbin so anyways thread is so important and one of the things that Bob did in his classes is he would kind of wrap the audience up in thread and then he would have you guess the what the fiber content was and I'm purposely he would use cheesy thread but that was the lesson in itself because we couldn't tell apart some of the threads it you just want to use a high quality thread and that will help your piecing experience so I'm wondering here gosh I got someone from France um I see how do I go over here and look yeah le I remember being told I have to use cotton only yep we were all told that but um that's not true anymore you just want quality so I'm looking here if there's other questions goof-off thank you oh my gosh Alex thanks my new Elna throat plate has that quarter inch mark ii never noticed it before I know I I noticed it maybe six or seven years ago okay so this is a different subject but but the other day joyously you talked about a book called the new quick and easy blog tool your husband ordered it good all right so here's the other thing I wanted okay if you have any questions put them up right now and I'll see what I can do with that I I so love this you guys I so love that you're taking your time to be with me during you know this whole isolation thing so I mentioned that our mini group the other in February I you know what I don't need under Underpants that have the day of the week I need Underpants that have the month written on them are you guys losing track of time it's crazy so who for the gene Wells class um I chose some pictures of bark okay from a book of her she copied it for me okay um look at this bark could you believe that's from a tree can you believe that's the colors and the quilt behind me I I had this hanging on my wall and all of a sudden I look up and I go what's this arm that's it those are the colors right back there so that got me pretty excited I'll show you okay they said the polyester will eventually cut through the thread not if it's good call it it's not gonna cut through those thread I think a lot of that or miss OMERS Miss nomer 'he's alright you know someone says yes this is Friday right oh my gosh you guys want to see the next color combination I want to work with let me go get it off the board when Jean was teaching the class she had some samples and this just absolutely drew me in like no tomorrow I love this oh that's kind of Glary hmm anyways and then she had gotten these little fabrics doodads and scraps and I think that's really an interesting idea to take these doodads and scraps and then put them together and see if you like what's coming out there so why are some of the what are some of the good quality threads I'm not going to get into that because I'll miss somebody buy it from your local quilt shop I have mentioned superior I have mentioned aurifil I have mentioned quilters select but there's you've got wonderful there's there's good threads out there just don't go to the 25 cent bin cuz that is not a good thread alright can you explain the quarter oh thank you the quarter inch versus the scant quarter inch when I was officially a spokesperson for Bernina they table what do you need what do you need what do you need what do you want as far as feet and stuff like that and somebody said well we want to squirt a scant quarter inch and I said no we want a quarter inch because there's so many variables that go into it listen if I use different thread on here and I said - so it's going to be a different situation and that's why you just need to get it right and probably the scant quarter inch came from when we had that big fat thread we were having to deal with the other thing that a lot of people do too is you know they'll over cut their pieces and then size them down there's always that - what was the weight number for the top thread I I love these questions yeah the the top thread of mine is a 60 weight and it's quilters select and for piecing PC do I just use a basic color for piecing pretty much I pretty much use a light light gray and or on my bobbin I darn near always have this white on or you could do an off-white you know unless I'm doing a black quilt and then of course I would I would you know trade that out so I don't really worry about the color of my thread when piecing unless the seams are going to be pressed open if the seams are gonna be pressed open you're gonna have thread that you're gonna see so if I were working on like navy blue and red I would not want a white thread I would want a navy blue or a dark dark gray or something like that um okay let me see what was the weight number for the top 70 are you still hand quilting in my fantasy yes but in reality no but I used King Tut by superior when I was hand quilting that's what I used is the 80 good for hand applique yes it's great for hand applique and we have our bobbin ring let me get that way I'm glad I have real pants on and not my pajama pants like a lot of the anchor people are doing right now you know they got their suit on top and then they've got their you know whatever underneath these are for me these are the 8080 wait all the colors 40 colors I use it for hand applique machine at well I don't do hand applique anymore but you can anything you could do is silk you can use this for if your machine as drop-in bobbins we do sell pre-rounds that doesn't work on my Bernina okay where did you tape the presser plate where did you measure the quarter-inch from what you're gonna do Mary is let me go back here you're going to take your ruler and you're going - I gotta get turned around here I can't do this sideways you're going to take your ruler and then you've got your little quarter inch mark here on your ruler and you're gently going to put your needle down on it and then you're going to put the tape out here because you don't want to get it on feed dogs either right so does that make sense um when you tape the presser foot okay do you always use a straight stitch only throat plate when i'm peacing yeah absolutely 100% of course when I'm doing machine appliqué and stuff I've got to use the other one and I do think I do think that I some of the machines come with single throat plate okay coats and Clark I I can't talk about it because I haven't sewed with it and forever so what is the shelf life of thread huh-huh I don't know okay so Margo just said allow for the fold over and that the fold over she's talking about has to do with the thread that is in your machine see this is the way Margo so good let's see I have a solid piece of fabric and the color is Buffalo plaid and I'm wondering when hand quilting what kind of pattern do you do for it oh he gags I don't know I don't know when I do a quilt I and I'm going to quilt it myself I will always put it on my wall and look at it and I will always consider is the quilting really gonna show so if I don't think it's gonna show I am an old school girl I always go to crosshatch I just think it's classic it's beautiful but you might want to pick some sort of repeating pattern my clamshells or whatever but without seeing it I'm just throwing a dart with you know behind my back okay why do we have different throat plates because Lena if your throat plate is super wide like this it will your your fabric will get jammed down into it and I believe in embroidery you also use a single hole throw plate - so what about silk for hand applique it's hard to deal with so I haven't used much of it I heard it cuts the thread because I think you mean the fabric silk what silk duh I love silk absolutely love it I'm not worried about it cutting the fabric at all okay it hides beautifully the negative with the silk and this and my eighty way it's a little bit like this it can it's slippery and so it will slide on your needle and all that I remember on the quilt show we had a guest on that showed us how to not have the fabric slide around in your needle and for the life of me for the life of me I don't remember who was yes you can always send me an email wait do you add for turn of cloth you're you're gonna have to just figure it out on your machine with the fabric you're using and the and the thread you are using and so it's a matter of that sewing that quarter of those to one and a quarter inch strips together and seeing what happens I mean my boutiques might act very differently than my case okay um so here we go ahead thread on sewing what Margo say put a knot near the needles on the eye really well she knows her stuff so anyways so let's see what else what else who's gonna do something creative today I'm gonna tell you in all full disclosure I've had a little trouble sitting down and sewing I truly have and so if you if you are don't beat yourself up it just it is it is what it is you know and Ozark has uploaded its third season that's a real gross wonderful sir I meant however it's hand applique what needle size do you use with the finer thread that's a very good question I was using a 70 and the thread was breaking so then I went to topstitch and I think it's an 80 that's what I'm using now and it's fine the other thing with the when I'm using the finer thread on top thank you for that question I will slow down my machine a little bit I heard once that when you're when your needle goes up and down a thread will go in there 50 times before it makes it to it to your quilt top or your to your piecing that's in so that's a lot of friction so the other day I was feeling really cocky and I thought oh I'm just gonna speed this thing up and that was a mistake yeah so remember you guys here's the thing here's the thing you need to know on the quilt show main page if you scroll down we are archiving all of these lessons alright and so you're gonna maybe you want to if you've missed a day you can go back and watch it Rikki's days got a little confusing but now they are Tuesday Saturday Sunday at noon California time let's see I'll tell you what if anybody's really bored they can come clean out my cupboards oh no I guess we can't do that either so you guys have a wonderful day have a nice weekend again turn off the news it's just and I think I'm gonna go be making some face masks for John and myself to go shopping with so you guys are the best you keep me inspired thank you so much and sixty wait thread just use whatever needle you want it doesn't matter okay I'm gonna hit finish and we'll see what happens love you guys

Channel: THE QUILT SHOW

Views: 14,628

Rating: 4.8810811 out of 5

Keywords: Quilting, TheQuiltshow.com, The Quilt Show, Alex Anderson, Ricky Tims, Bernina, Quilters Select, fabric combinations, quilting fabric, quilt blocks, quilt patterns, facing a quilt, virtual quilt show, machine applique, Perfect 1/4

Id: rD_iAGR59U0

Length: 33min 15sec (1995 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 03 2020