Quilting Techniques with Linda V Taylor and Sue Patten

well hello there today we are going to learn about sue patton's plunk and play discuss choices in thread colors and using stencils so stay tuned we have one talented lady with us today we are so excited she is going to show us what she calls plunk and play and i cannot wait sue patton to see what this is about sue has been a friend of mine for so long and we're just so excited to have her here way back way back way back no not that far not that far back now yeah so plunk and play what is it okay so you know how i like to do things really really quickly yes but i like them to look spectacular and they always do so we're excited to see this i love thread yes okay so this sort of came the whole theory came from doing so many edge to edge oh and a lot of people do that yes and it's quick and it's efficient and it makes the quilt look fabulous but i just needed to take it a level up of course so what i like to do is i like to take a specific design of any kind and literally plunk it so i'm just going to throw it different sections of the quilt it's super simple you can use stencils you can pre-mark if you have a staedtler all these fabulous computer ice machines you can just plunk one here plunk a design here plunk a design there all different sizes whatever design you want anything now this is you're talking about edge to edge still i'm talking about edges okay okay then what i'm going to do is i'm going to work around and through my designs in an edge-to-edge fashion okay so super quick super easy i can increase my price just slightly because you take it to the next level and you have these fabulous sporadic fun little textures all over the quilt and you don't get bored and this keeps it really exciting yes yes and the main thing that i want people to understand is you just need to relax it doesn't need to be preset it doesn't need to be exactly lined up or perfect you want to throw it on the quilt like this so you don't have to do a lot of pre-planning and i think people spend too much time thinking yes about you know they're afraid they're going to mess up exactly so and then there's lots of ways that we can tackle it so the first way i'm going to show you and we'll talk a little bit about how to plunk and play into a custom quilt oh good a little further along great okay so we're just going to move these out of the way now just so you guys know super simple i do not pre mark anything i'm not quilting it quick twice okay i'm going to throw my quilt top on here as if i was just going to run an edge to edge design across it then i'm going to pull something anything that coordinates with what my client wants and these are these your designs these are my stencils yes so we'll do a little bit of information on them um i like to have the different sizes though or you could choose different designs that coordinate oh okay okay so if you were if you were doing something that was featherish for your client you could choose a feathered heart and a spike tart give it a little variety a little pop here yes because that's all we want to do is spice it up a little bit we don't want to make it difficult okay so what i would do is i would just pounce literally just throw them down because okay i'm not one of those consistently accurate and this is a pounce pad this is and you're using black now you could do a piece top up here too right i mean this doesn't have to be whole cloth we're talking exactly and 99.9 percent of your edge to edge are going to be going to be pieced okay so what i do again i don't i just throw them i don't want it to look like i'm specifically placing them so plunk just plunk them anywhere you want and then i'll choose a variegated because i like the variegate i'll choose something that's going to coordinate with as much of the fabric as i can okay now i can also the first thing we're going to do is i'm going to show you how we can before we start our edge to edge and of course i free motion so what if i wanted an almost custom i could take some of these little designs and i could coordinate a darker or a lighter thread so that it pops even a little bit more then i can get my thread play in a little contrast right okay especially if there are some areas that might not be 100 perfect okay so most is that possible i know all of mine that come in are perfect and of course all the ones i do you know what i try to do is when i lay my quilt top out instead of deciding what design i'm going to use first i decide how much manipulation it's going to require to make sure my quilt's perfectly flat and square oh good okay yes hence the different sizes i might need a little bit of extra quilting on that block that aunt sally threw in so around the corner maybe in that corner especially with those great borders added on i might actually throw it so that it falls into the border oh neat to keep that corner flat and that draws it in draws it all in cool so fabric manipulation fabric manipulation manipulation okay so what we're going to do first and i this is my favorite tool white clover washaway pen ah i can and it's gone and it's gone yes and i just found out after 10 years of using it because we learn every day you can steam it out you don't need really so it's okay to see because a lot of things the heat will set it in so this was this is okay with the steam and you know i do exclusive testing on anything that i use so when i went to the washaway white clover i hung it in my window i left it in the trunk of the car to heat set yeah all the things in my way i shouldn't do it really i wanted to make sure it would come out and i never had an issue silk suede comes off of suede any kind of cotton so always pre-test but have never had it come back in a moisture change either super so and it's clear i know exactly how much ink is in there so i don't start a project and run on and run halfway through okay so enough talk let's quilt okay okay here we go so what i've done is i have taken the small stencil the smallest design and i've taken a dark color of variegated so it has some pinks and it has some oranges and it has some purples and what i'm going to do is this would be a higher end and i'm going to get right in here and i'm going to do a little bit of thread play okay so let's just start her up you can start anywhere because this will be one of those situations where we're going to stop and start so i'm plunking casting off and then edge to edge quilting around it okay and then we'll go on and i'll show you how to hit it as we go if you're using all the same color variegated okay okay so we're just going to get right in here and i'm simply going to relax and i'm going to do just a couple of different strokes i'm not going to be overly concerned we're just going to relax and have fun you don't have to stay right on the same line oh no that line's going to disappear okay i like that yeah i really want absolute no stress i want it to be fun again if it's not fun you know then yeah you need to find something else to do yeah i think that what happens is we buy these you know gazillion dollar machines because we love to quilt then we start the panic and all that fun gets blown out the window yeah so when i'm doing especially an edged edge or quilt for the kid's bed i just want to go in there and have some fun with it i don't want any stress at all so you're going over each line two three times yep just depending on how much thickness okay um i'm a little bit neurotic when it comes to the variegated colors i like to try really hard to control where those colors are going oh man are you sure that's not stressful it's not it's fun now are you use what are you using in the bobbin right now i'm just using a basic black pre-wound okay so if you're going to use the pre-wound and you're going to do any kind of thread play i like to match the color of the pre-wound as close to the top fabric as humanly possible oh okay that's a good rule now we could do single line as well on this and then go back on it or just keep you could just leave it as a single line okay or you could go back again and go really really thick we could go in here and actually do some thread play or create something fun inside of it but again remember time how much money is being spent to actually complete the quilt if it's for a customer you can just come in and i notice that you're in constant speed oh absolutely i you know linda when i started there was really no stitch regulator to be heard and i started non-stitch regulator i love the sound i love the feel and i've just never jumped to the wagon and gone to that stitch regulator well that's good to know there are a lot of people who don't have stitch regulators but even those who do sometimes won't try the constant and i think that there's a reason that we have all of this you know and i try very hard to tell my students when you get your machine you need to practice in non-stitch regulated mode the non-stitch regulated mode allows you to learn to move at a consistent speed so when people go into their stitch regulated mode what happens is the movement is nice and smooth and consistent that machine doesn't rev up and down oh and that can drive you crazy no you feel like you're and it's not that the machine can't handle the slow and fast movement but the smoother the movement is the more consistent it is the better the stitch the more relaxed you are the better the design works absolutely i think absolutely okay so what we're going to do now is i'm going to switch out my threads i'm going to go from a bright variegated of the pinks and the oranges and the purples and i'm going to go to identical colors in softer hues ooh pretty yes and what we'll do this time is we will actually work our way across doing free motion edge to edge tackling the plunk and play as we hit it okay so what we're going to do now is i'm just going to jump right in i'm going to start my edge to edge procedure right inside the design of choice i'm going to simply trace around it very quickly just once i'm going to jump out and i'm just going to continue the rest of the row free motion edge to edge quilting so let's go okay you might want to jump out of the way i'll jump i'm gonna i'm gonna try and stitch slowly oh yes i noticed that you're stitching so very slow but i'm still gonna travel pretty quick okay okay so here we go we're just again super relaxed enjoy it it's not rocket science it's quilting okay let's go that really is a pretty little design too i love it yes it's just fun it's got your points in it and your little curls some of it kind of looks a little bit hardish but then you've got that nice jagged peak that i love in there and this design's a little bigger than the other one that you were doing and now see how i am sort of adding my own little texture in there this is how i would be quilting it i would not be going right on that line worried about that stain exactly on the line i've been doing some ribbon in there oh twisting around it's just an outline it's more of a suggestion really but it gives you some structure gives you a little bit of structures great and it keeps it nice and open so that we are creating that difference in texture where the next little set of things i'm going to do will be a little bit tighter now i'm just going to come out and i'm just going to start creating an all-over edge to edge design did you have this in mind before you started or you're this is all just spread out i like to just go with the flow okay whatever fills the space is basically what i'm gonna do so the ideas keep the motor running exactly think ahead don't plan ahead but think ahead now i'm just gonna keep watching i came around the inside of my preset design so now when i travel out to fill in that space free form it doesn't jump out and hit you it looks as though it was intentionally planned to be that way which of course it was now i'm going to jump through on this side so i can travel around this way i'm going to come up and i'm going to do a little bit of a spine and i'm just going to start filling in my spaces i like to be consistently inconsistent but i'm constantly in this section going to pull in that little ribbon that i created around that inside design i'm watching my fabric so that i can manipulate everything to lay nice and flat come around in here and back down and you're just feeling the space as you hit it looks like you're doing swirls and some ferns and just really combining some fun things together absolutely and i'm just pushing the fabric around so the left hand is just a helper there to manipulate the fabric if needed absolutely and of course at home it would be the hand that was holding the coffee cup okay we're gonna come back in here that is so cool sue so you have a design here and then you have your free hand around it so you can pick that out or exactly that's great look what happens as i work my way around my edge to edge is one consistency but this is just going to be a subtle paw every time now again we've got a panic area here and i just want to show my viewers how i'm going to deal with this again i'm going to use that spine and work my way out of instead of getting trapped inside getting yourself cornered absolutely i always travel with my spine and then i fill in around that spine space [Applause] you don't have to have the same design on every single section now of course what i'm going to do here i'm not going to get back to this area so i'm going to tackle it right now before i move on won't pass that way again right right that's right and i don't want to get stuck to a point where i have to cast on and cast off to get back into that little section so it's okay to go over your line you know cross your lines and that's all right absolutely terrific now i do try very hard to cross over where it's appropriate i would not cross over in the middle through a design bottom of a spine anywhere where there's a ribbon twist is the perfect spot to cross over into the next section so right there you just close this at the bottom all right okay you're just gonna work all the way around this is too much fun and it's so easy you know there's no stress here i'm using one hand a finger and a thumb at home i would have my music on enjoying my coffee but people can use two hands oh they couldn't yes okay you know if they didn't have m m's in a bowl beside them they could absolutely utilize both hands swirl again so you just continue across like that all the way across now once you get to this end we're simply going to roll it up we're gonna throw down one of our sizes stencil over it and stitch all the way back across i love it isn't that good okay so now it can we take some time i'm gonna show you how to take this sort of to the next level so if you were custom quilting you can still use these great plunk and like ideas and then thinking outside of the box you can pre-plan or you can throw and plunk specific design ideas to highlight areas of that custom quilt and then just complete it in the normal fashion so plunk and play with custom quilting custom play with plunkin yes with custom quilting wow that's a mouthful okay let's do that let's do that so what we're going to do now is we're going to take a full quilt and of course mine are small because there wasn't a whole lot of room in the trunk and what i want you to start thinking is how you could plunk a design or a shape or a motif or your favorite embroidery design or your favorite statler design into specific areas of the quilt now not necessarily like back here where we put it right in the center of the block but let's just start randomly placing them so as you can see here i have my actual custom quilting in the main base of the center then i've plunked specific thread art designs then i've gone so far as to plunk all tiny little circles and little tiny flowers and then gone in and quilted everything in behind it you know what i really like too is that you've taken half designs like on in the border you've brought those in so they're not always full and that just just really is appealing to the eye so remember how technological and how tricky and difficult this is here's the strategy plunk and play so if my circle falls half into the yellow zone and half into the blue zone then i might choose just to stitch and do some play in the blue zone or just put some blue thread in the yellow zone okay try to think out of the norm we're not centering we're not pre-positioning we're literally going to take for this one a set of different size circles we're going to plunk them in areas then we're going to go inside those areas and play okay so of course i like to choose my templates or my design segments so that they have a multitude of different sizes so they go from very very small all the way out to nice and thick i actually use a design tool that's very thin because i am not using a base and bringing my machine around it where if you wanted to use your base you could use a thicker and put your base on your machine and you could you could travel around the outside of this and make a perfect circle i'm going to use my little drawing tool we'll slide over here a little bit so i'm just going to take my white wash away i'm going to position and i'm simply going to that one's too little let's put this one in here i'm just going to draw around that circle and notice how i'm not panicking i'm just making an area to stitch in i like to try and keep all of these sections in close together so that i have a continuous line to slide in and out of each of the little sections as i'm stitching now before i start to stitch i'm going to show you some thread choices that i would use i like to choose my variegated first and we will again we're going to tell you all the codes and all the numbers for these in case you want to try it at home i would choose my variegated now this variegated has a purple a blue and a little bit of green in it it's very subtle very yes yes i'm going to use this for my background fill to intensify sections so i'm going to choose two to three solids so i'm going to choose this purple the purple we have on the machine now that you'll see me stitch out and this fabulous green because i like something to jump my favorite green oh it just pops right out now you could also go completely different and we might throw this into one of the little background areas as well but what we're going to do now is i'm going to move this thread out of the way and we are going to make these little group of circles jump pop and dance with some thread try to remember that all you are doing is creating texture try not to get so caught up on the design itself that you're spending hours and hours and hours interpreting what's going to go in there in your open areas like this try to pull from your sashing ideas so anything that you do well in a sashing you could absolutely throw inside of these so you don't have to go around the circle no absolutely not now you could definitely if you wanted to trace it out um sometimes i do sometimes i don't it all depends on which way the wind's blowing and how much manipulation that fabric actually needs so if i had a section on my quilt that i wanted to lay flat and maybe it wasn't quite fitting into the space that it was already in i might then outline first and then go in and do my design now what i'm going to do now is i'm going to come in here and i'm simply going to start filling that area in right away with a nice light open design concept so anything quiltish anything that you stitch on a regular basis maybe something that you're going to put into one of the other areas of the quilt i'm going to come in here make a nice little stipplish area along the spine and then i'm just going to work my way back down and into the next section where i will continue to go around through here now you could change your thread colors each time if you wanted to you could instead of doing just all these little bubbles let's do another idea let's come all the way around and all the way down and now let's use that as our spine and come up and use that inside circle just as a base for our design concept now you can do you know the whole thing coming around clockwise i like to switch it up so that i'm traveling in a different direction on the way down so that it really appears as though i've stopped and started even though we all know that i have not done that okay now you could also come out come all the way around here you're so smooth when you do those circles whoops and as soon as you say that i slide around okay and you could fill in the inside around back down around back down around back down around back down around back down yes i talked to myself when i quilt so do i isn't that great it just helps your brain to decide how large that little space has got to be and your brain reacts to sound the same as it reacts to touch it just helps our brains determine what direction what size what we want to fill in there now of course i would choose specific designs to fill in each section i might even go around more than once to make it a nice thick line to create different textures adding in as i go but always ending up in and around the same area so that i could continually be quilting no stopping no stopping and starting that's really looking very pretty okay now let's just talk about the outside i would definitely go around and make a nice thick outer section but then what i want to do is i want to enclose that design so i'm going to come up with something very simple that works all the way around so i'm just going to go bump over back bump over back bump over back and make a little almost like a lace doily around the outside so that it absolutely encloses whatever i have played on in that section to complete the design so it doesn't look like i've just thrown it somewhere and then left it not completed come all the way around notice i'm not panicking about all of them being the same size it's art you could if you were so much inclined if you were one of those consistently accurate people you could absolutely pre-mark this to look very similar now if that wasn't enough if that was just a little too foofy or a little too soft for you you could absolutely come in and get some spike action happening come all the way around i want you to start thinking fun when i get going on my custom quilting it's just a matter of knowing when to stop because i could literally spend the days and days and days just playing inside my plunk areas and forget about the rest of the quilt so do you do that with your since you still do customer quilts do you i actually have not done um commission customer quilts now for about two years okay i still do quilts for other people's books and magazine covers and stuff like that you know when you travel as much as we do on the road i'm on the road about nine months out of the year oh my goodness when i go home i want to just enjoy the time with my kids and have some time to be creative on my own do you have any idea how many ufos i have it's funny and don't tell anyone because it's a secret but i have quilters so to get those edge to edge yeah i still quote by check that's okay i just know that there are people out there who do quilt you know for the public and so the extra stuff that you would do like going around it again would depend maybe on the price that they absolutely you have to remember that everything that i'm showing you each level is an absolute increase in your pricing if you're quilting for customers and we don't want to undercut ourselves as much fun as we want to have we want to be able to afford boots at the end of the day that's right we want to pay the mortgage buy more fabric so absolutely in and around run somewhere between find out exactly what your customer is looking for what he or she the intensity that they want and then meet them in a section you might just do one center plunk and play you might just do a plunking plate in the top right hand corner in the bottom left-hand corner and then just do minimal custom everywhere else so that it looks like they're getting a whole lot extra and it looks spectacular but it's not taking a lot of time and then next time if they really like it they'll be willing to pay a little bit they'll go up a little bit more so now the first piece that we showed before we started playing it was very intense there was a lot of thread art a lot of thread it doesn't have to be that intense we could just do a little bit of outline plunk and play so what we have here is that same idea and what i've done is i've done a couple more sections or rows of those circles and then just single design all the way around all the way out but my main piece is done in the center section of this quilt whereas on the corner pieces and this is the back i like to use same thread front and back so that when you flip it you've got that whole cloth look on the back it looks so beautiful that cool yes so if i turn this over you can see this is just a big open block but i have no background quilting i simply have an outline a play and some little guys just plunked in on the side now i can go in and do my normal custom quilting in all my half square triangles and in all the sections of the quilt so i really just have five little areas that are highlighted you can even go as minimal as this section right here where i've simply just thrown in half a circle a little bit of edging a little circle here and just enough to tack it down i like that contrast and i also like the way you brought in the coral color thread and just combine those so beautifully now i will tell you i do charge an extra fee when i'm quilting for customers for that thread change so the first color is free every color after that is a 15 charge okay so you know if you have three colors that's an extra 30 that first cone is free but it really adds a whole lot of depth and texture oh yeah without adding a whole lot of time it made that quilt just beautiful absolutely oh thank you so much i'm so glad you brought me back yes i know the viewers are going to be just as excited as i am about these plunk and play and start thinking outside that box you know these little plunks could be anywhere one here one there little just in the borders is spectacular and we really like that casual attitude as well and not not the stressful oh no stress so thank you for bringing the less stress into our life thank you see you next time thanks we'll see you again

Channel: Linda V. Taylor

Views: 1,332

Rating: 4.9365077 out of 5

Keywords: quilting, longarm, shortarm, quilt, rulers, techniques, gammill

Id: Xa4SCQFLgBc

Length: 34min 4sec (2044 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 15 2021