Quilting an Irish Chain

you know all quilts are not created equal some are trickier to quilt than others today we'll look at some tips and tricks for handling problem quilts and Carol syllabic stops by to share some of her award-winning secrets then I'll tell you about the best way for professional quilters and potential customers to find each other advertising so stay tuned Linda's long arm quilting is made possible by gamal quilting machine company bringing quality innovation and service to quilters around the world for over a quarter of a century by yli making decorative threads that help you unleash your imagination by Statler stitcher providing automation to enhance and expand your long arm quilting business and by Hobbes bonded fibers [Music] we've got a lot to do today we're going to look at handling problem quilts especially those pesky wavy borders we'll get a chance to cross hatch an Irish chain quilt top and I'm going to talk about advertising for the professional quilter but first take a quick trip with me to meet a special guest Carol Celebi is here with us today welcome Carol thank you well what we want to know from you is how long have you been a long arm quilter for about six and a half years now six and a half years and how did you get interested in long arm quilting actually I kind of quit my other job and got an offer at a shop and so I started at a shop uh-huh and I worked there for like three and a half years and then I decided to go out on my own and bought my own and so you do this still as a commercially or do you do this as a hobby I do it as a business uh-huh and I work out of my own studio that's terrific good for you and already you're an award-winning quilter let's take a look at some of those award-winning quilts okay what's the name of this one Carol it's red and green triumph and it's it's just gorgeous the quilting design is so complementary to the applique work is this trip punt oh yes it is it's it just has a little bit of trapunto just in these these raised areas there's no trapunto in any of the applique designs looks almost like a cording through here it's just gorgeous thank you and and what is the name of this one this is Irish cream mm-hmm and this has a wool batting in it and I made my own designs for to fit the areas in between the stars oh they're beautiful now is this for contoured with the wool batting no it's just it's just wool I wanted to try something new and I use just the wool and then I used a very small stipple to make the design race and the thread looks like this is a little finer thread yes it's actually a poly thread so it is a very like an embroidery thread yes oh that's great so let's take a look at this beautiful quilt that you've done while it's hanging in Houston with the ribbon on it congratulations Carol and the name of this quilt is a touch of yellow a touch of yellow because you have some dyed wool batting in there dyed will batting in it so let's see how you do this process first of all you have to start with the design where do you get your designs I go through some books and magazines until I find a little piece of this there are a little piece of that that I like and then I take one of those elements and I draw it out on graph paper and then I'll fold my paper until I get you know like my quarter panel so that I can start putting in the design and all four places so it's nice and even and simple just section it off and then kind of repeat that right okay and then I draw it on there and then I go over it with a heavy marker so that I can see it whenever I will tape it down to my counter top and then I will put my whole cloth over top so I can see the design okay through there and I take a washable blue marker and I trace the design which you can see on this piece here and as you can see I have the dyed yellow batting underneath and I've cut some of that away now how did you you just put this on your long arm machine then with just the batting and the top fabric yes and I used a wash away thread in the top only okay and I just used a cotton thread in in the bobbin and I noticed that you you haven't stitched around every single element in here with the wash away thread no you don't really don't need to you just need to go around like say your feathers on the outside edge because you're going to go back with your permanent thread whatever one you choose to do your D to do your detail work and then the first stuff will wash away and you will have just your your own permanent threaten stitching this looks like tedious work can you show us how you cut some of this away sure it's very it's very tedious and you have to be very careful with it and I just I basically start and just kind of rough cut the excess away and then um after I get that out of the way then I'll go back and and trim really close and you have to be really really careful what what if you snip your quilt accidentally well first you cry and then you you figure out what can I do fix it yes and then you figure out what extra little quilting touch you can put in there to cover up okay so it's not the end of the world it's not the end of the world but you must be very very careful I imagine yes there is a cut on my touch of yellow and it has been repaired and if you can find it good for you I would imagine in competition that you really have to be very accurate with this cutting especially if you're using a darker color that's going to show through something like this yeah the the judges don't like to have any of the colored batting outside your stitched area so you want to kind of maintain it inside of your design the thread okay and then you put that piece on the machine with a regular with whatever you're going to use your final bad I suppose yes and and your lining yeah after this is all cut so this one has all been cut and there's still some blue area here will you show us what how you go around that trapunto and what you do there this is a beautiful design that you're doing do you have a name for it I'm I'm doing sort of a small shell motif to fill in the background and then what it will do will make the designs the trapunto designs just kind of pop off of there and really stand out now in this piece you've already stitched around for your final stitching you've already gone around the motif yes I already went with the regular thread around most of the motifs I have a couple over there that I had an outline just this is an elegant design and the manner in which you're going around these is just wonderful you just want to work your way up to the edge of it and just really make them stand out the tip it looks like you're really staying close to your design - I would imagine that's going to help raise up the motif yeah it makes it pop right up there so it would be an important tip to make sure that you so close to the trip poncho to raise it up yeah you want to so close and you want to sew pretty solid so that you want to keep your background stitching fairly even so that it kind of pops up the same is after you wash it sometimes some of it will pop up much wider and you can notice the difference mm-hmm do you use a certain kind of thread when you're doing this what did you use on your touch of yellow I used a 100% cotton thread and that's really my thread of choice I usually choose a color that matches my background if you want your design to really show up you can use a different color fabric and then a contrasting thread but you have to be very very careful because then all this little backtracking stuff is going to show up really really well well that is just turning that wonderful I can see that it's really raising up our designs there and they're so good at it thank you you just keep working your way around and with this design you can jump from one place to another and you can go back and fill in a a spot that is a little bit wider than what you'd like it to be well that is a beautiful stippling design and thank you so much for sharing this method of the dye betting with us and sharing your beautiful quilts with us thank you for having me when long-arm quilters and Pacers are looking to connect the best way for them to find each other is advertising as a professional quilter your best advertising is your own good reputation that can also work in I find that advertising in my local guilds newsletter is also a wonderful way to hit your target audience display your quilting at a quilt show people really read the names at the quilt show and if they like your quilting they'll give you a call ads in quilting magazine are also a wonderful way you'll get quilt tops from all over the country pass out cards to friends and neighbors you might even play some in some of the local fabric stores whether you're looking for a long arm quilter or you want people to know that you are one you'll find that advertising is the way to go hi our special project today is an Irish chain and I know many of you may have already pieced and Irish chain you can make single Irish chains double or even triple Irish chains usually those Irish chains are cross-hatched down through the chain and then in the blank area that's left which is an odd shape there's a design put in there so I want to show you how to do that more traditional type of quilting on the long arm machine we're going to use a long guide not a smaller ruler and the reason that we cannot use our channel lock or use a device on the back of the machine is because these points may not line up exactly with those guides because they might be off just a little bit it's just fabric so let me show you how you use this guide first of all because the canvas can be a little slick when I put the guide up there I'm just going to put a piece of batting up there and that will help that wing hang on to that roller bar like that then I'll come up here and I'll go down and get my thread bring my bobbin thread up and take a few little security stitches there there we go and I'll just get that thread out of the way then I'll line my guide up like this and push gently against the bar and I may have to make some adjustments as I come down because again everything isn't going to line up perfectly in a straight because it is just piecing even though in a perfect world everything would be perfect this is not now if I keep my guide exactly 1/4 inch away my foot is a half an inch that really helps me because if my if it's right against my foot that means the needle goes in at a quarter inch if my foots a half an inch so if I keep that right against there and you'll notice my right hand is only going to turn on the machine and then gently pull the Machine down you see and I'm making sure that I hit those points now notice my left hand is out here on this bar my left hand is not up here because I have no control over this long guide unless my left hand is over here on the bar out here to help stabilize this so I just keep coming down if I need to make adjustments I can do that and on the back of the quilt it will look straight so I can come all the way down and if I need to stop because you can't go all the way down to the bottom of the quilt and keep rolling and cross-hatching you can only go to a certain point then I'm going to make sure that if I if I'm in a dark color with dark thread that's where I'm going to stop in that color so that when I come back and meet that up then I won't have a real detectable place where I have stopped and started now just so that you can see it a little bit better I can go down and I can go up so on this line I'm going to go up and you'll see the thread a little bit better here as like as I come up and meet these points again you can see this hand it's just gently guiding the Machine along the side of the ruler and if I need to make adjustments I certainly kind of any point along the way there we go and then I'm gonna again make adjustments there we go and right up to the corner so I just continue to crosshatch back and forth that works very nicely now you can also use a regular ruler and I do have the extended base on here most of the long arm machines you can add a base like this to give you a nice flat surface and in between all I have to do is continue to stitch in the ditches I come down like that hold my ruler here and again come down point to point and then I move my ruler making adjustments as I come because as much as we try we may have just a little variation from point to point and then I continue down like that so I want to show you some other variations that you can do in this chain area you don't always have to crosshatch one of the variations would be a continuous curve and that's just like a half a circle and we can just do half circle half circle and you meet the intersections like that and then you come back like this we do this on lonestar's two and then just go up to the next section like that and then back and then you come down the other direction and over and down and that makes it lovely it looks like you've circled you see each of these areas when you're because you can't see the dark thread inside and so that makes a very lovely finish for that chain another idea would be just to put a pinwheel in sight of each of these squares try to be as consistent as possible so into the middle and out into the middle and out into the middle and out into the middle and out and you would certainly figure out a system so you would be going across and back and so you'd do it in the most continuous fashion you could another idea that is often used is simply to meander in over all of these chains and still set your design in the plain area but just any and or over all of it like that so that's gonna quilt all that area and flatten it out and depending on what thread you use are so many fabulous threads now a variegated thread over that would be just gorgeous so there's some ideas that you can use in the chain area of the quilt now I'm going to change the thread because I want to show you some ideas that you can do in the blank areas of the Irish team I've been stitching in the ditch around this Irish chain I want to show you how I've been doing that I think it's really important even though you've crosshatch to contain that area and it makes such a difference on your quilt when I go horizontally I just sort of freehand it there when I do vertically I just put my ruler there and you see I stay right in that ditch and I have put on a variegated embroidery thread to do this work down here and that completes that Irish chain so that is really secure that whole area now I'm going to place a design in that area and to do that I can use the laser light right in the front of the machine I have stabilized it with a piece of acrylic here and I've moved the laser light up to the top of the machine this is going to go on point this little pattern is called I just made this little pattern up but it's called Irish luck now I will get my Center what I think is my Center and then I will put this pattern where I believe it's going to go and then all I have to do is follow the actual template here is scored so all I have to do is follow those score lines all the way up and I can see I'm just a little bit off so I can move it like that I don't have to pin I don't have to tape it's like just like a little mouse here on a computer just move it around on the template there I am I'm centered so I can find a good place to start I think I'll start up here I hate to start in the middle of a design because the first place your eye goes is in the middle the design and I'll go around this and regulate it and just follow my design with the laser light just about finish because I know where I started the nice thing about this front laser is as I come up here I can look right here at my project and I can take my left hand and stop exactly where I started and I just went over the stitches where I started just a little bit and while I'm right here I can start and do my stipple around there now I want to talk just a little bit about that stippling it's really important that you have a stipple strip and this is simply all different sizes of stipple from very tiny up to very large and if you are professional quilter you must have this because your customers are going to want to choose what size stipple and you need to know what size did they mean when they said small stipple also it is a nice guide because if I decide that I'm gonna do this number one stipple I can keep this number one stipple right by my project as I'm doing it and compare it all the way through the quilt I don't have to roll the quilt back to the beginning to see if I'm doing the same size because sometimes we get tired and so our stipple gets bigger and bigger and bigger so make sure you make a stipple strip even if you're on a home machine you're going to want to use a stipple strip to compare your work with so then we would go around and stipple to outline staying very very close to the project with tiny sniffles like this all the way around the design and then when we finished going around the design outlining that design with our stipple then we will continue out and fill in the entire area you can see this one is done and then I and then I went inside and I put a little diamond shape inside I love that very pretty now I also want to show you that you can do a freehand design in there so I'm going to move this over and in this square even though I haven't stabilised it yet which I would much prefer to do I'm going to start in here and just do a nice little feather design for you freehand I'm reaching out into those corners you see I just used my corners as my guide making teardrops here it's like a double figure eight like that okay and I get to that point let me cut my thread here and I'm going to put this in about nine stitches because I can go a little faster then go clear up into this little square see sometimes it's hard to find patterns that go right up into the area with your Irish chain and I can just fill in this whole area with this feather and back up here like this feeling those feathers in and then all the way down again teardrop here into that area and again one two and three making sure that I get the same amount on every side so it looks like I have a really consistent consistency in my pattern and out again now these are just like teardrop shapes and then one more to finish off this and I'll show you also why I like to have that stitch in the ditch I think that it's pretty apparent the difference between this one that I haven't stitched yet but I will go back and stitch around that there we go put a couple stitches there in the middle and cut our thread and you can see you see how we get some space in here it's just not quite as clean as it is over here when it stitched in the ditch so definitely go back and stitch in the ditch but you can see how fast either one of those are so you can place a pattern in there real easy now I want to show you something else I want to talk about some tips and techniques for quilting those pesky wavy borders today this is a seven sisters an antique quilt that I bought it's and peace and as many of those antique quilts are when they're hand pieced the border as you can see how much fullness there's gonna be in this how am I gonna quilt this it's also very dog-eared so I'll show you how to do that in just a minute that's one thing that you want to look for when you have an older quilt that's an piece some of those have wavy borders here's another one that has pieces that are on the edge that are bias there's going to be some stretch in those and so when I go to do that that's going to be totally flared so I'm going to have to be careful there as I'm actually PC as I'm actually quilting this one I can take little tucks in these little seams if I'm very careful and I do an all-over meandering pattern another thing to watch for in case you are looking for problems as if you have more than one border on the quilt if the border is added incorrectly each time the orders added it will be compounded the problem will be compounded this one happens to be very flat but I wanted to show you what I meant by having those three borders this will be a dream to quilt so how do we deal with that border as we're quilting it I've already secured my thread here and I want to show you what you can do on the machine the best thing to say to your customer or the best thing to suggest to your quilter is go ahead and do a small stipple out in that border and you can ease that in if you push ahead of the machine so watch what I do as I'm doing my stipple can you see how I'm pushing ahead on the machine I'm actually pushing this down now your right hand is gonna have to do a little bit of work here because your hands are pushing against each other but that's the only way that you can ease some of that extra fullness in and also you could take a talk if there's a seam there you can take a little tuck and then as you take that tuck you just quilt along that seam using your wavy line sort of like a serpentine line and so that really eases and grabs up all that thread and just takes it up so we've talked about some great techniques on for the Irish chain and if you're a pisser consider leaving nice big areas open for your filter to to really bring out the soul of the quilt and also pay attention to those pesky borders if you have a wavy border it could be a real challenge next time on Linda's long arm quilting we're talking about quilting partners we'll see how I stitch around applique and set in designs to be a good partner to the people who bring me their quilt tops we'll talk with sherry my Nicky Johnson one of my favorite partners and look at the award winning quilts we teamed up to create and I'll share my best advice for professional quilters to make good partnerships remember if I can do it you can do it see you next time for more information visit us on the web at [Music] okay don't get in the shop again I don't want to do it again [Music] Linda's long arm quilting is made possible by Gamal quilting machine company bringing quality innovation and service to quilters around the world for over a quarter of a century by yli making decorative threads that help you unleash your imagination by Statler stitcher providing automation to enhance and expand your long arm quilting business and by hobbs bonded fibers [Music] you

Channel: Linda V. Taylor

Views: 41,800

Rating: 4.8272424 out of 5

Keywords: linda, taylor, longarm, quilting, gammill

Id: C3U0v_86sY4

Length: 27min 41sec (1661 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 11 2014