(gentle music) - Dearly beloved, we
are gathered here today on The Quilt Show to
witness the marriage between precision and preparation,
can I get an Aye-Man? - [Audience] Amen. (clapping) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] And now your
hosts for The Quilt Show, Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims. (upbeat music) (clapping) - Thank you so much everyone and thank you for joining us today on The Quilt Show. I say it's a good day to
be quilting, wouldn't you? (cheering and clapping) Absolutely and on today's
show, we got a marriage between preparation, actually
it's the perfect marriage. - Yeah (laughing) - Between preparation and precision. - I'd like to please welcome
Bernie and Shelly Tobisch. Welcome, welcome! (clapping) Thank you, thank you! (clapping) - It's great to have you here. - So Ricky, a little background here, was it Spring market or
Fall market, I don't know, I think it was last Spring market, right? - It was the, in Portland. - Spring market. - Yeah, and their booth
was just a sea of people because look at her work! - Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Well we're gonna have to look at your work and we want to do that a little bit first before we get to know more
about you 'cause otherwise they won't understand
about this precision stuff. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - So let's look at the first quilt. Tell us about this. - [Shelly] Well this
first quilt I designed and what I wanted to do was
leave more space in it than what I usually leave in my
quilts and I wanted to do that because my friend Faith
McLeod does beautiful long arm quilting and
so I sent her a picture to show her that quilt and
she did a fantastic job. - [Alex] It's beautiful,
it's making that quilt shine. - [Ricky] It is absolutely stunning. I understand there's kind of a funny story that goes along with this quilt. - Well there is and I
nicknamed the block in there muskrat paw and the reason
I named it muskrat paw is, one day on my way home from work, I saw a little brown spot
in the middle of the road, I was up on a hill driving
down and all the cars were swerving around it and I
thought it was a baby beaver so I pulled over on the side of the road and I took a blanket,
threw it on the beaver-- - [Ricky] Not your quilt? - No, it was just a blanket. (laughing) You know what Ricky, I
would have used the quilt at that time. - She would have. - I would too, I would too. - So I scoop up this little baby beaver and I hug it to me and I run to my car and I told Bernie, "I
just rescued a baby beaver "from the middle of the street" and anyway, he says to me, "You may want to look at the tail," and so I opened up the blanket
and I looked at the tail and I expected to see a baby beaver tail and it was actually a full grown muskrat. (laughing) - And at which point, what
did you do with the muskrat? - Well I drove home where
Shelly had already arrived and we have a creek that
runs by the back of our place and we kind of gently let
him out, go into the creek and he kind of waved
goodbye and swam away. - I'm gonna tell you this
stories of how Justin and I release rats back into the
wild 'cause we can't kill them. - No, please don't. (laughing) - Let's look at your next quilt. - [Shelly] That is Appleyard
Lane and that quilt, I love scrap quilts and as
I was creating that quilt, I designed it so I would
could pull out of my stash every single color that I
just wanted to put in there. It starts out as yellow
and it goes to orange, green, blue, and red. - [Ricky] It's beautiful. - Now when I think of you Shelly, this is kind of what I think
about and this is where you get the preparation and
then you get precision and you'll be sharing all
that in the show today but how long have you been quilting. - About 30 years. - Okay and then, Bernie,
you're in the business too? - Yes, we met in the business actually. I'm a sewing machine technician, I've been doing that for about 42 years. - Wow. - That's a long time - Wow, okay, so I want
to look at the next one. - [Shelly] This next one I
designed to be a little bit easier quilt, to help people get started, to learn easy precision piecing,
working with our products, and something that wasn't
going to be as complicated and as much of time consuming and so that's pinwheels and nine patches. - [Ricky] Yeah, I think
it's actually a very effective pattern for someone
that needs to get into that because you're doing two basic things. - [Shelly] Right. - [Ricky] Squares and
half square triangles. - [Shelly] Yes. - Now you emigrated to
Canada in 1986, right? - I did. - And that's kind of when
you got into the world. Tell us about that, of
quilting, not the world. (laughing) - Yes, I didn't know anybody
and so I was shopping and grocery shopping and
I happened to walk by the magazine section and
saw this magazine with a beautiful quilt on the cover
and so I wanted to learn how to make that quilt
and I went to the library, checked out every book I
could find on the subject and read as much as I could about quilting and I knew from the stories,
just all the stories of how, why people quilted in the past, I knew that that was something
that I wanted to become a part of. - And then something irregular happened? - Oh, well I was living
in an apartment building and a lady down the way
had, a fellow had come in and stolen her cash that was for her rent and when I heard about it I was horrified and so I put some money
together in an envelope and went and introduced
myself to her and as I was doing that, she opened
the door just a little bit and I could see a quilt
on a frame and I said, "Elsie, are you a quilter?" And she says, "Why, yes,"
and she opens the door and a great friendship was born. - That's what quilts do. - Exactly. - She taught me how to quilt. - I also have to brag
on Shelly a little bit because guess what
everyone, she has watched every episode of The Quilt Show. (laughing) (clapping) I don't think I've watched
every episode of The Quilt Show. - Oh you're missing so much. - I've certainly taped them all. - Well let's take a look
at the next one please. - So this next one is
called Song of Friendship and I created that one, I really loved the delectable mountain
block and the Kansas City and the way that those, the
little pinwheels twirl around. This quilt was actually made
for me by Carrie Lakatos and was also quilted by Faith McLeod. - [Ricky] It's beautiful.
- [Alex] Oh nice. - [Ricky] I love, love, love
the colors in this next one. - [Shelly] And this is
Plum Pudding and again made by my friend Carrie and
quilted by Faith McLeod. - [Alex] So Bernie, you
grew up taking apart radios and watches and clocks,
do you think that geared you into what you did for a living? - I think so, much to my parent's chagrin, I used to take stuff like
that apart, absolutely. - [Alex] You're an engineer! - Or I de-engineer, I used
to de-engineer some things and luckily I used to be able
to put them back together too so this turned into the
perfect career for me. - [Alex] Great. - That's great that you guys
can play off of each other and you know you're providing
great things for Shelly and Shelly's of course
providing you opportunities to do your thing. - Our area of expertise is
different but we overlap in some areas and that's good. - [Alex] And so this last
quilt has just the simplest nine patch in it, it is so beautiful. It is so perfect. Tell us about this quilt. - [Shelly] Well, this is
Fruit Medley and again, I just wanted to pull out
all the fabrics from my stash and work with them and put
them together in a quilt and if you had seen the
stash that I pull from, like the piles are just
one layer of fabric that I work with to create
this and the little nine patch again, is used just
repeating the same block over and over again, using our
products and precision. - Okay, so here's the other thing. Bernie, you make it really
easy for Shelly to work, I hear you're quite the catch and John is pretty close to this too. What do you do every morning for her? - Well we get up and I
make a latte for each of us and we have our little meeting, let's say. We talk about what the day is gonna bring and it's a lot of fun
and I learned to cook a few years ago as stress relief. Shelly's a great cook
but she doesn't like it so I figured the person
that likes it ought to do it so I do the cooking and
sometimes if she's having a tough day in her room, I'll just
slide the food up and run away. (laughing) - That is awesome. - That's great. - Well you guys really
are the Tobisch team and you work very well
together, it's evident and as we go through the show today, you're gonna see how the
yin and the yang work. - Absolutely because coming up next, you're gonna see how to make a nine patch but I can promise you,
it's gonna be so precise and it's gonna probably be made in a way that you've never made one before. So stick around for that. (upbeat music) (audience clapping) - Welcome back everyone. Shelly, your quilts are amazing. - Oh, thank you. - And they're precisionly,
perfectly put together. So what we're gonna do you guys, is we're gonna take a real
simple block like a nine patch and while Shelly pieces the nine patch, she's gonna share with you
all the tips and tricks that she uses to get that kind of result. How many out there want to
get this kind of result? (clapping and cheering) Right. So let's start with sewing a
seam and getting it all right. You want to start there? - Sure. - Okay. - So I've got the nine
patch already started and I have put the two
fabrics, right sides together and sewn and pressed to one side and I'm going to start the next one and I'll walk you through that. - Okay, great. So here we go, I like your
iron, don't lose that one. - I really like that one. - I know. So wait, wait, what are you doing? - I'm gluing. So what we have here is
acorn precision piecing glue. - Okay, let me hold
that up for the camera. So I mean, this is a secret
component that you will not share with us right, Bernie? - That's right, we call this Seam Align and it's a glue that we developed. Shelly's been a, I call
her a professional gluist, for years and some of
the products she's used didn't lend themselves well to this. They were great products and
were great for other jobs but for this, they weren't exactly right. So we kind of went to
work, it took us about three and a half years
to come up with this. - [Alex] Yeah and look
it, you didn't go swoop, you just went dot, dot, dot, dot, right? - [Shelly] That's right, I put
tiny little pinhead size dots in the seam allowance. - [Alex] Okay. - [Bernie] And you have time
here, you notice they didn't soak into the fabric, you
have time to work with this. - [Alex] No, I see you're going, do I have to get this
thing together here or no? - [Shelly] You have time
to pick up your next piece and put them right sides
together and what I'm doing here, is I want to make sure that
my edges are lined up exactly. - [Alex] So let's look at this. So this side, you see
green and then this side, you see the beige so it is perfect. You know, I think people
are sloppy with that. - Sometimes you can get a little off and that does make a
difference in your precision with your patchwork. - Okay. - And I know we're
talking a nine patch here but this kind of precision
and attention to detail is important whether you're
working with a nine patch or you're working with a block that has-- - A zillion pieces. - Exactly. - Okay, and you don't pin because, tell me why I for sure what to use this. - Because when you start to put pins in this seam allowance here, they are going to distort your fabric and then when you get
things lined up exactly the way you want it and then
you take it to the machine, the first thing you're gonna have to do when that foot comes up to that pin is you're gonna have to remove it. - [Alex] Right. - And now your fabric gets to
have a little shifting party. - You're right. - And then you don't
know if they're lined up so this way with the glue, I
know I'm completely lined up. - [Alex] Now how do you know it's ready to go to the machine? - [Shelly] Well what I
need to do next is press. - [Alex] Okay. - [Shelly] And I press for
between five to ten seconds, it doesn't take long and now I know that this is not going to shift. - Because it's dried. - It's dried, the glue is set. - So over at the machine now,
let's talk about the threads you use and the needles
and all that good stuff. - Well right now on my machine,
I do have an Aurifil thread and that is one thread
that I really love to use and the other one I like is DMC, these are both 50 weight threads that work beautifully in your patchwork. - Okay. - I want to use a lightweight
thread for my patchwork. - All right, then what do we do? - Needle wise, Shelly
uses a fine sharp needle, a needle that is matched
properly to the thickness of the thread and the reason
she wants to use a fine needle is because when that needle
hits the fabric, we don't want a lot of resistance because we
don't want the fabric to try to push down in the opening
of the needle plate. - [Alex] Right. - And to pull the edge
of your fabric away from the edge of your foot. - Now my guess is you use
a single hole throat plate. - I do, I have a straight
stitch plate on my machine and I've also started
with what I call a header and I sew on the header,
it's two pieces of fabric that are, I put them wrong sides together because I like to look at the pretty side. (laughing) - [Alex] It gets you a little payback. - [Shelly] It really is and
I do cut them the size I want that's just the way I am and so what I did is I stitched until my
needle is right off the edge of the fabric, I raise the
presser foot and then I'm going to stitch and what
I'm doing is lining up the fabric right along the
edge of the presser foot. Because I have established
my seam allowance and I know that that's
where my fabric needs to be for this presser foot. - [Alex] And then do you,
then you end with fabric or what, yes? - [Shelly] So I end with the
needle right off the edge of the fabric and then I put
what I like to call a footer at the end of my piecing. - [Alex] Why two fabrics,
why not just one? - Because I'm usually sewing
through two pieces of fabric and it seems to work
better, I think our mechanic can tell us about that. - Bernie, can you grab the
scissors over there while, oh here's some here, okay, I'm sorry. Yeah, tell us Bernie. - Why do I want to sew through two pieces? - I wanted to explain why
Shelly starts with the needle one stitch off the fabric,
then puts her two pieces in. - Off the header? - She stops the needle
one stitch off the header, needle down and she puts her
two pieces that she's joining in and the reason for that
is that if you're gonna have inaccuracy it's usually
at the very beginning and at the very end-- - You're right! Because you trail off at the end. - Yeah, you bet. So, there's two things that
I know about that and that is that if you push the fabric
up to the needle and have lined it up with the
edge of the presser foot right to the needle, you start out right. It's the same thing
when you get to the end. You'll notice that Shelly maybe
just put her finger on here and sew it to the end
and drop the needle off and then put another piece of fabric in. What she didn't do was stitch on air and not because it's going to
tangle or anything like that but if there are prolific
chain piecers in the audience, what they may find when they go home, they look at the underside
of their presser foot and the groove's worn in by the feed dogs and then you'll wonder why maybe
the stitch length is uneven or the fabric isn't
feeding properly anymore. So in our classes, I'm
gonna suggest that maybe 30% of the people that have
been chain piecing a lot, find the damage to the
underside of the presser foot. - And we are in a segment gonna talk about some sewing machine things like that. You are an expert, right? - I hope so. - I think so. Okay, now pressing. - Okay, so I wanna set the
seam and I'm going to press to the dark and I'm going to let
my fingers do the work of the iron at first and that is I'm
just pressing this seam right to the thread and that's why
I want to make sure when I'm sewing that I'm sewing
with a nice straight line. - [Alex] Right. - [Shelly] A nice straight seam. And what can happen when you're sewing or when you're pressing,
you can see that this piece isn't laying perfectly. - [Alex] It's jumping up. - [Shelly] It is and so
now I'm going to apply this Easy Press with my Easy Press
Pen, I'm going to apply. - [Alex] What is that, what's in there? Or you cannot tell us? - Well I can't tell you
exactly what's in it, it's a proprietary thing
that we've come up with. It's a starch-like solution but
not like anything out there. I think you'll notice
when Shelly's done here that you're not gonna
find any kind of a sheen or any kind of flakes and
everything lays very flat and what she doesn't have to do here is beat the fabric into submission. It's a very gentle
procedure and so you can see that she's ended up with
very very straight edges. - Oh, it's beautiful. - So when she goes to nest seams
now, they're very accurate. - Right, now you have a cool cutting trick that I have never seen before. - I do, I do. - [Alex] Because we got to cut it into now pieces that we can stitch. - [Shelly] So I am into
precision piecing and cutting and these rulers here, I
really like to work with. - [Bernie] By the way,
we really love these Creative Grid rulers. - [Alex] Do ya? - [Bernie] Oh they're so accurate. - [Shelly] They grip the
fabric, they have the lines at every eighth of an inch
and I can see clearly when I'm lining up my pieces. - [Alex] Okay. - [Shelly] And so I'm
just choosing any of these horizontal lines to line up my seams with. I lay them, put them right sides together, move this apart. - [Alex] Then you got your 90 degree, that's the idea. - I do, very important. If you tend to have, sometimes
the piece wants to pull away from the ruler so what
I like to do is just give a little push at the tip and cut and then you don't end up with that piece. Sometimes when you're cutting,
the piece pulls up and then snaps back and you end up with
a little triangle at the end. - [Alex] Okay, so then why is, I mean, is it important that this thing
stays on the piece or what? - [Shelly] I'm in the habit of
just leaving it on the piece because these are smaller
pieces and as you're cutting, they do tend to stray, they'll
move away from your cut and then you have to realign everything. - [Alex] Okay. - [Shelly] So I just do a little cut here. - [Alex] I have not seen that before. - [Shelly] And then a little cut there. - [Alex] Have you guys seen this before? - [Audience] No. - Yeah, all right. So you've got this now
cut, let's go down to here. Now what I want you to do is, you've got all these pieces. Now, let's just see what you're made of. - Okay. - 'Cause we got to line
these things up, okay? - [Shelly] I'll see if I can do it. - Exactly. 'Cause I don't know that I
could do it without my pins. - This is where the glue
really comes in handy. - Yeah. - [Bernie] She puts the dot right in the low side here of the ditch. - [Shelly] Right on the low side. - [Bernie] Where they nest. - [Alex] Okay. - [Shelly] And also one
place we really want to pay attention to is our corners. - [Alex] Okay. - [Shelly] So we just
want to line the pieces up and I want to make sure
I'm lined up at the corner. - [Alex] If you're not, you
know you're in trouble, right? - [Shelly] Well, you do,
then you know that things aren't going to match up exactly, that's what you're aiming for
but you can with this glue. It's really easy to ease
things in if you have to. - Okay. - And so I just get
everything lined up nicely, making sure once again I'm
lined up front and back and I press to set. - I learned that a long
time ago and it was like a light bulb went on because you think, "Oh, I'm just gonna put
those two pieces together "and sew it in, uh uh." You want, this side you
want to see this color and this side, you want to see this color. - You do want to make sure
and it just makes a difference if you start getting into the
good habit of doing all that while you're working
with your nine patches, it carries forth to those blocks
that are more complicated. - [Alex] And Bernie, talk about needles, what exactly, what
numbers, what does she use? - [Bernie] A good match
for this particular weight of thread is a size 70 needle. - [Alex] Okay, sharp? - [Bernie] A sharp needle
for sure because the sharp needle meets less resistance. - All right, now we have to see, the rubber's hitting the road here, man. - Okay, let's see what we've got. So I want to make sure that I
set the seam, very important. - [Alex] Does that make
you nervous to open this up in front of everybody? - [Shelly] No. - [Alex] Wow! - [Shelly] I think I trust my glue. - [Alex] Wow! - [Shelly] Well, what do you think? - [Alex] Whoa! (clapping) I'll take it! - And then we want to make sure. - Look at how it really bouncy! - [Shelly] It really
bounces up and I like it when things are flat and so
I'm just applying light-- - [Alex] So no steam I'm
guessing in your life. - [Shelly] I don't use any steam. - [Alex] Okay, why? - I don't use steam or pins. Steam can actually really
distort your fabric and it can cause more problems. You can do a fantastic
job at your sewing machine and then when it comes to the pressing, create all kinds of
distortion of the fabric. - Yikes, maybe that's it, I don't know. Anyways, you guys, this
is a book that Shelly has put together and it's
Easy Precision Piecing and you have what in here? You've got a lot of quilts. - [Shelly] There's six
quilts and there's also block builders in there. - Okay we'll get to that in a little bit. Go ahead. - It also talks about, it's a
handbook on working with these products, it will help to
walk you step by step by step. - [Bernie] All the methods explained. - So let's look at this little itty bitty beautiful block again. You know, it's so funny
because you could say, "Oh, it's just a nine patch." Oh, it's a nine patch
and it is looking sharp and it is looking good, right? - Thank you. - Okay. (clapping) Love this, love this, love this. All right, I'm gonna put these down here, they may go home with me. No, I wouldn't do that to you. - I'll gift those to you. - That's okay. Hey listen, up next, Bernie
you're gonna talk to Ricky about some things about our sewing machine that you probably don't know
and you'll be enlightened when you learn about it. Stick around. (clapping) (upbeat music) - On the next Quilt Show, innovative, improvisational
quilter, Sherri Lynn Wood joins us for a powerful hour of patchwork. - So, let's just put this section together and then we'll leave this for later. - [Alex] Okay. See how Sherri Lynn uses
a common traditional block as a starting point for
inspiration in creating her improvisational pieces. - [Ricky] Plus, see her
fascinating hands on bereavement process where you work with
clothing from a loved one. - [Alex] Then, a face
familiar to the TQS audience, has some Bohemian art making
tips that will have you thinking twice before throwing
away the smallest threads or clippings. - I wanted a subject matter,
so I wanted them to stand out from the piece and that's where I came up with this applique method. - [Ricky] Meet these two
women who are warriors at going with the flow
on the next Quilt Show. (upbeat music) - Welcome back everyone. We're spending our day
with Shelly and Bernie. And they say that it takes 10,000 hours to perfect something, have you heard that? 10,000 hours. Bernie has serviced over
50,000 sewing machines. I think he knows a thing or two, right? You're basically
German-born, is that right? - I was born in Germany, yeah. - And you traded your
lederhosen for jeans. - Never looked back. - Never looked back, I
want you to step back and show everybody what
you got on your jeans because this is the sign of
a true quilter right there. Tell you what, I think I
need to start walking-- (audience clapping) Is that one of your trademarks, is this like something
you wear all the time? - No, actually matter of fact, I put this on about three
days before we came down here. I tripped and I tore my jeans and I needed something to fix them and there was a nine patch laying there. - Well, one patch wouldn't
do, so do nine patch, that's what I'd say, right? - Absolutely, yeah. - All right, you're going
to show us now today just a lot of things about the sewing machine that a sewer who sews all the
time really might not know. - I hope so. - So, I'm gonna let you guys have it and I'm gonna watch for
a second, all right? - Thank you, thank you. Shelly and I teach a
lot of classes together and we try to include the
sewing machine component in the class so that
people can have success learning the techniques that
Shelly is teaching them. And one of the things I found is that people are very afraid of tension. They believe it's some
type of a black art. (laughing) Tension really, honestly
is probably one of the most simplest things your machine has on it and if you understand it
and what our goal always is, is to ensure that you have
control of the tension not that it has control. - Certainly, because it
can be so frustrating. - You bet and we like
to use props to teach and this is one of our favorite props and I have to say the first
time we ever did this, I forgot to tell Shelly what I was doing and we were talking to a guild and we got up in front of them and I handed her these pie plates and Shelly had her hair in a
ponytail like she does now, by the way you look fabulous. - Thank you. (laughing) I feel fancy. - So I handed her the pie
plates and I reached in the back and she caught on to what
I was doing immediately and I went like this (audience laughing) and I went like this (laughing) and I did it again and this is to signify that
when you lift the presser foot on your sewing machine,
your tension discs separate. - Oh that's great. - So when your presser foot is down, your discs are together. Your presser foot is up,
your discs are apart. (laughing) - That's great. - Now what that means is,
when I thread my machine with the presser foot up, my
top thread gets in between the tension discs so that
when I drop the presser foot to sew, I now have tension on my thread. - Right. - It's a very very simple
concept and it works every time. But let's say we threaded the machine and the presser foot was
down, now all of a sudden. - Oh there's a problem. 'Cause the thread didn't get in between. - You got it and all of sudden,
you've got these big nests on the underside of your fabric and often what people will do,
they'll grab a screwdriver, take out their bobbin
case and start tightening because it's under the fabric,
so it must be bobbin thread but it's top thread and so
for us, it's an easy way to illustrate that concept. - That's a fabulous, fabulous visual. - Thank you. - Because I'll tell ya, many
of us will quickly just say, "I gotta fix this." We'll have our presser foot down and you don't realize
the discs are together. That's a revelation for me. I mean, I got to know that
but it's still a revelation. - Or you miss the disc. - Or you miss the disc. - So anytime you have
that nest underneath, best thing to do, lift your presser foot and re-thread your sewing machine and probably nine times out
of ten, you'll have success. - That's great. - So we try to teach people
how to calibrate their tension. And a lot of people are afraid of that and I've had people say
to me, "I was in a class and the teacher said,
'Never touch your tension.'" And my answer to that is, "Well, why is there an adjustment,
usually from zero to nine "on your top tension, if
you're not meant to adust it?" - Sure. - You are meant to adjust it
and if you know what you're doing with it, you gain
control of your sewing machine so it's very important to
me that people learn that. So how this works, there's
a spring on one side of these tension discs
and it pushes against that and that creates the pressure
of the disc on the thread. The less pressure, the
less tension there is on the upper thread. So I ask people to set
their machine to its default top tension setting. Now if it's a number dial,
it's usually zero to nine, so we make four and a
half the default setting. - Sure. - Some machines have an Auto setting, that's your default setting. - Sure. - If you have a computerized
machine with a touch screen, usually it comes on at its
default setting already. So with your machine set
at the default tension, we then sew a seam and we
examine what that will look like. Thanks Shelly, that was ridiculous. - Thank you Shelly. - Did I do good, thank you. (clapping) Thank you, thank you. - We'll see you again in just a moment. Thank you, Shelly. - And what we're trying to do is, we want to know what to look for. So in a perfect situation,
if you can see the knot here is right in the middle. So this piece of wood
signifies the fabric. - [Ricky] This is a piece
of fabric and we're looking on the side of it. - [Bernie] It's a piece of
fabric so we have a cut away here and this is showing us exactly
where that knot should be. - [Ricky] And this
closest to us is the top. - [Bernie] Closest to us is the top. - [Ricky] And over here is the bottom. - [Bernie] And over here is the bottom. - [Ricky] The bobbin. - Right, so let me remove
that and here's often what you'll have. So you'll notice the knot now is-- - [Ricky] Is way closer to the top. - [Bernie] Is at the surface
so that can mean two things. So let's say I have the top tension set at its default setting. What this tells me is the
bobbin tension is too loose. - [Ricky] Yes, because the
top is winning the battle. - The top is winning the battle. - And it's pulling it up to the top. - Exactly and so now I
tighten my bobbin tension until again, I have this
result that I'm after. - [Ricky] 'Cause we're
looking for these knots to be right in the middle of
the fabric, that's ideally. - [Bernie] Exactly. - [Ricky] All right. - You got it. Now it could also be the other way around where if this is the top of the fabric, your top thread is pulled to the bottom. That could mean two things, again, our top tension is set
at its default setting. This could mean that
there's too much tension on the bobbin case and
it's winning the battle. It could also mean that
maybe there's a bit of thread or debris caught in your tension disc and it's not giving
you the proper tension. So you can dig that out with a long pin or something like that. - Sure. - Now I want to stress that
when you're doing this, you also want to make sure
you're using the same thread, top and bottom, that's important. - Okay, all right. - Because you always
calibrate your machine with the same thread,
same color, top and bottom because dyes can make a
difference in the suppleness of the thread if there's such a word. - Okay, now I'm gonna ask the audience because I know how lazy I can be. Oh, I just got a bobbin thread in there and I just need to sew and I
need to change this color and it's not the same thread
so you just go ahead and sew anyway. (audience murmuring in agreement) That's what we do, that we're lazy. - Yup, and does it upset you, with the result that you're getting? - Sometimes, of course, sometimes. - Okay, so what we want to do here is I want to explain once this is calibrated so that you're getting
this really nice result. I want to explain what
might make a difference after calibration because
you're not always going to be sewing in the ideal situation
where you have the same thread top and bottom. So what may happen is, let's
say your machine quilting, you may decide to use
one of those really great 30 weight threads on top
and leave your regular piecing thread, your 50
weight on the bottom. - [Ricky] So we got in this
case, 50 weight on the bottom, 30 weight on the top. - [Bernie] Yup, so what's
going to happen here is, I'm sorry, what's gonna
happen is this heavier thread is gonna overpower the lightweight thread. The needle's gonna make a
bigger hole and this is going to raise up to the surface
so if you imagine my hand to be the fabric, the top
thread has now pulled that bottom thread up, even thought
the machine is calibrated. - [Ricky] We want it here. - [Bernie] You want it here. - [Ricky] But the heaviness
of the thread is going to be overpowering and stronger. - Right because this thread
isn't as supple as this so this pulls up into the hole really easy so now to make that adjustment, it's a very very simple thing. If you want to lower the knot, you lower the number
of your upper tension. - [Ricky] Lower the
knot, lower the number. - [Bernie] Lower the
knot, lower the number. If you want to raise the
knot, raise the number of your upper tension. - [Ricky] That's a good
way to think about it. - It's just extremely simple. - What about different colored threads? - Yes, that's-- - 'Cause sometimes we do that. - Absolutely. - Especially when we're machine quilting. - Absolutely. - Piecing, not so crazy
but machine quilting. - Yup, for sure. So here's an example where
I have two different colors of thread and what you'll likely see, I've used the light colored thread on top, the dark colored thread on
the bottom and you may see the little dot of bottom
thread coming through. So there's a couple
things you can do here. One, you could use a
smaller needle which creates a smaller hole which kind of
closes that up a little bit. That may not be the best,
but that's one solution. - [Ricky] It's a start. - It's a start, right. But the other thing you
may do is you may decide, well I'm gonna sacrifice
my balanced tension for a nicer looking result. So what you're concerned about
when you're machine quilting is the surface of your project,
you want that to look nice so what you may do then is
knowing what we just learned, lower the knot so that red
disappears down into the-- - [Ricky] Lower the knot,
lower the top tension. - Exactly, and not to the
point where you're getting those loops we talked about. - Right. - But just to the point
where that red thread here will disappear to a place
where you can live with it. - Just now we were talking
kind of about machine quilting which you don't want to
have a bad look on the back but you might make a slight
adjustment if you're using two different colors. - Yeah. - I'm gonna tell you one of the
things that I've always done when I'm doing decorative
surface stitching, my decorative stitches or embroidery, I do loosen my top tension
and let the bottom tension win because it makes the top so
much more beautiful to me. - You bet, some machines
even have a special, let's say hole in the position
finger of the bobbin case that you would put your thread
through that automatically pull that top thread down. And if you take a computerized
machine these days, you select a decorative stitch, you'll notice that the top
tension is automatically reduced. - Now tell us about the
quality of the stitch. You know when they get tilted. What can we do about that? - Let me see, I think you
can see that right here but if you look at this,
you may see these stitches are slightly angled and
that is a common complaint. - [Ricky] Yeah as if
they were just kind of, have you ever seen that? Have you ever stitched and
noticed that your stitches-- - [Audience] Yeah. - Yeah, see they're out
there excited about that. Fix it for us. - Fix it, all right. If you look closely at
how that knot is formed, if you look at this sideways
and you see that thread is actually kind of twisted like this so it can't help but have
that little angle to it. You can cure that by using a
little finer thread sometimes or a finer needle because when
that needle hole is smaller, you can see that it will
push this thread over and make that appear to be
more straight as it comes up. - Can you understand that? - [Audience] Yeah. - And we're talking minuscule stuff but we quilters, we start
seeing those things, don't we? Absolutely. - And these aren't really machine issues, these are just things
you can correct yourself without having to run into a
shop or something like that. - Okay, needles. - Needles, yes, very very important. It's the least expensive
thing you're going to use. Shelly's little friend, Goose,
he always gets in the way. - What's his name? - I think she calls him
Goose, as the long story. - Okay, Goose has caused
trouble on the set as of today. - Causes trouble all the time. This is my hand whittled
wooden needle but it's fairly accurate, you can see the
scarf is quite evident and the groove in front of
the needle and hopefully everybody knows that
there's a long groove runs from the eye up the blade
to the shank of the needle. And why that is there,
I'm gonna say this first, the needle has two very
distinct relationships. One of those relationships is
that of the size or diameter of the needle with the
thickness of the thread and that's important to know. So how the sizing works, I'm only familiar with the metric version of
that so a size 100 needle is one millimeter in
diameter so a size 80 is 0.8 of a millimeter and I can
wrap my brain around that. - I can wrap my brain
around that too, yup. - Now that groove is there
to accommodate this thread. See how that lays in the groove? - [Ricky] Absolutely. - [Bernie] So as this needle
is going into your fabric, it's not meant to
interfere with that thread. It lays far enough in the
groove it doesn't interfere and then what happens is,
as this needle comes back out of your fabric, the
back thread here is pinched between the fabric and the
needle and it forms a loop. And then that hook that
goes around your bobbin, comes and grabs that loop,
takes that top thread around your bobbin, your
take up lever pulls it up and it forms the knot. If you have an imbalance in
the thickness of your thread to the size of your needle, what happens is, as
the needle goes down in or into the fabric like
this, you can see that loop forming above the fabric,
that's thread that should be in the loop in the back. - I see. - But it's now missing from that loop. So now you have a
smaller loop in the back. - [Ricky] Missed stitches? - Missed stitches, breaking
thread, shredded thread. - [Ricky] That's amazing. - So simple things, but
they make a big difference. - Right, so there's no magic
bullet for this size needle, what size do you quilt with? It always has to do with the
thread that you're choosing. - It's determined by your
thread, that's right. - Now would you say that
sharps, I mean, I use sharps all the time, but that's just
because that's what I like. In quilting, is that
the right choice for me? Or are there other options. - I would say that's the right choice and also often a size up
because if you do machine, if you do free motion
quilting, when you're pulling that quilt toward you,
often what's happening, is you're pulling the
needle away from the hook. - Yes. - So again, that distance
from the hook to the needle is increased and then you
skip stitches, break thread. So if you bump your needle up one size, that's often a way to
prevent that from happening. - Okay, so listen, that was not sewing 101 that was a Master's
degree that you just got. (audience laughing) Okay? (clapping) Absolutely, thank you for that
Bernie, thank you so much. Now we are not done
because when we come back, we're gonna see some of the
wonderful, innovative products that Shelly and Bernie
have brought to the table and I think you're gonna love
this so don't go anywhere. (audience clapping) (upbeat music) (audience clapping) - Welcome back, I'm here
with Bernie and Shelly. You have kind of a story
that we have to tell to lead into why we're gonna talk
about what you designed, okay? And this is something
that's like ooph, yeah. So tell your story. - Well, I've been quilting for many years and I slipped and fell and
hit my forehead on the cement and it knocked me out. - It did more than that. - Well, it did, I was hurt
and I injured my brain. And so when I was starting to recover and could actually get
down to my sewing machine and start sewing, I realized
that I could not put my blocks together without them going
upside down and sideways and so I decided I needed
to create a way that I knew exactly where my pieces went
and so that it was easier for me because I couldn't stop quilting. - Right, now did you say, "Hey Bernie, this is the situation." How did this work? - I did, I knew that I needed to have, we call this a blueprint of the block, it was the base that I didn't know. - Okay, so a blueprint is what, Bernie? - [Bernie] Well, like the name implies, it's an actual blueprint
for the block and it's a way that Shelly or anybody
can lay out their colors. You'll see it's in gray
scale, darks and lights and very clearly shows where
your darks and lights go. And Shelly goes as far as
to add pressing arrows, pressing directions so that
as she's sewing this together and pressing, it's very
easy for her to tell which way it's supposed to be pressed. And then the piece that's
been sewn goes back on here. It kind of lives on the block
builder until it's finished. - And I'm gonna say that
these patterns you can get in books, in patterns, and many
times they do have the arrow directions, I know my books
do, which way do you press and all that so you don't
have to think about it. And so mine, of course, everything is neat and tidy with you. I would probably just draw
it out and then just kind of, okay this is dark, this is
dark, something like that. - People come up with it
on EQ or quilting software, you might take a photocopy of a pattern and come up with your own way of doing it. - Okay, this is the block builder. - [Bernie] We call this
the block builder base and you can take the actually blueprint and Shelly always puts
top on top so she knows. - [Alex] Okay. - [Bernie] And then this piece
will lay back on top of this and you can see it shows through and why we like this idea
is because as you lay your pieces on, they kind of
stay with the block builder. - [Alex] It's a portable
design wall you guys. - [Bernie] It's a portable
design wall, yeah. - [Alex] So you can take it straight over to your sewing machine and
work and you don't have to think about it, it's all there. - [Bernie] Yup. - I love that. Okay so then what do we do? You're working on a block over here. Tell me some considerations. - I am and the reason
that I put the word top at the top of the block is that I am often working with these little
prints that have an obvious direction and so for
example, the little rose or the little tulips in
this flower and the birds and then this pinwheel in the center, they are all directional
prints and I want to keep all of these in the right direction. It helps me, I think it
brings a calm to the block and especially when you
think about all of my quilts that do have a lot of
pieces in them and a lot of different fabrics, I want
one calm thing in there and that to be the-- - The direction. - The direction of the print. - So you have these
beautifully pieced triangles and sashing and all that. They're perfectly flat and wonderful. We know how to do that now. - [Shelly] Yes. - [Alex] So I would just start
like put this here maybe? - [Shelly] Yeah, so I lay my
pieces out, I would take these, after I've done my half square triangles, I lay them out in position
where they're going to be when I'm sewing the block. - [Alex] And my guess knowing you Shelly, you would trim these all perfectly, right? - [Shelly] I would and you're so right and these blocks are actually cut bigger so that I can trim them down. - [Alex] Yeah, how many
of you guys do that? Go up an eight of an
inch and then trim down? Yeah, right? - And this makes me
happy when you have these nice little cuts like that. - [Alex] I think that
makes everybody happy. (laughing) And so then here we have our sashing. - [Shelly] Yeah then I
put my little sashing, now I do want to point one thing out, when you're doing precision piecing, this block is starting from the center, going to the outside. So we pieced the nine patch and, one thing I didn't point out
is that you want to measure. This block in the center I want to measure and make sure it's the size
that it's supposed to be when you're done. If it's not, then it
throws off the whole block. So after you piece, measure. - [Alex] Okay, and repeat, right? - So once I have that laid
out, all the pieces cut, then following the pattern, I begin to sew my pieces
together, two, two, two, two, two, all the way around
and then I will start to add the sides and sew them together. - [Alex] So Shelly you just kind of like, oh boy, you've opened a
new can of worms for me because I would never in million years have considered this directional. - [Shelly] It's directional. - [Alex] I see that. - [Shelly] If you put this one, see, you wouldn't even notice it, but yeah. - [Alex] Let's put it
back so people can see. That would make you out of your mind. - [Shelly] Well it would. (laughing) I have to admit. - So Bernie, this is really great stuff and I know you're always
working on new products to make Shelly's life, our lives, easier. These block builders are, how are they available to get them? - They are available in two packs and they're available in six packs and I do believe that our
manufacter's gonna also send them out in bulk because maybe not
everybody wants a six pack. Typically, Shelly might
work on half a dozen to 10 at a time. - [Alex] Okay. - [Bernie] We have three
different sizes for nine inches, 12 inches, 15 inches. - And one of the things
that I don't think we said, but we were talking about it at break, you always make it a little bit bigger. - Yes. - Okay, explain that. - Much easier to lay out your pieces, this blueprint is not meant
to be the finished size of the block, it's just
meant to be for placement. So always make it bigger than your block and then it's easier to see
underneath what's going on. - Perfect, perfect. - Well I love that. I especially love the fact
that you can move it around without it sliding off. - Oh, I love that. - I mean, I use a cardboard
box or something like that. (Alex swooshing) And the wind comes along or
I just, it all slides off. - Hey there was a story when
you were in her sewing space. (laughing) - Yeah, I was going out to the barbeque and on her ironing board, she had three of these laying with, just completely filled
with individual pieces and I knocked them off
and they all hit the floor and I was able to, by just
looking at the block builder, put them all back in and
escape totally unscathed. - But you know what, you're safe. If you bring her a latte every
morning, there is no worries. - He's very safe. - You guys, this is Shelly's book. This is the "Easy Precision Piecing" and I think you mentioned that earlier but I wanted to remind you about that. And look what Bernie's got,
"You and Your Sewing Machine" and I don't know, if you don't
see this in your suitcase when you leave, you might
want to look in mine 'cause I'm gonna want that. (laughing) - Well this has been a lot
of information and you know, I have to tell you, I attempt
when I piece to do well but this is gonna shape
me up a little bit, right? - Oh, precision, I mean
it's really amazing. Have you enjoyed everything they brought-- (clapping drowns out Ricky) I mean, it's methodical and
I know it's those little details that take you from,
"Oh I got it together" to where I really have it together
and I look at these quilts, and I go-- - They're beautiful. - You really got it together. So, thank you so much for
sharing your day with us. - And we do have an after set, we've talked about the
perfect business partner but what about the perfect marriage? - Yeah, how'd that happen? - How'd that happen? - We'll do that after the credits so if you wanna stick around. But, in the end, we always
know it's a new day... - [Everybody] Every day. (clapping) (upbeat music) - [Alex] Join us for the after
set right after the credits) (upbeat music) (gentle music) - So today on the show, we've
talked about the marriage between preparation and precision but now we're gonna talk
about your marriage. Okay, who wants to go first? - I'll go first, I used
to own some sewing machine dealerships and I had opened
one in a particular location and I was working all the
hours by myself at this time. One day, they came through
with Shelly who was teaching classes in the store
and they introduced us. - And I was teaching at the
store and so I was carrying my sewing machine with me and
I saw that Bernie was selling Bernina sewing machines which
isn't the machine that I had, at the time, and so I
looked at him and I said, "So why are you selling those Berninas?" And he took a look at
my machine and he says, "Okay, what we're gonna do is,
we're gonna have a stitch off and we're gonna put your
machine up on the table and the Bernina of equal value and
we're gonna have a sew off." And so I, during the entire class, I just knew I was gonna
show him a thing or two. (laughing) - [Ricky] That's right, who is this guy. - Yeah. - And I heard her teaching and I thought, "Wow, this person knows
what they're talking about." And I needed to have part time help so when she came back out,
we had our little stitch off. - I lost. (laughing) But did I? I'm not sure that I really
did because in the end, I walked away with a new Bernina but one thing that Bernie
did is he said to me, "You know, I'll take your
machine as a trade in." Because he knew how much I
needed to have this Bernina now and I said, "Well you know
what, rather than pay me, "why don't you just go
ahead and keep track "of how much I've earned." - [Alex] Nice. - [Shelly] And once I've
earned enough to own my new Bernina, then you can start paying me. - And that was about 23 years ago, she's just about finished. (laughing) - So you guys lived
on, you lived on a boat for how many years? - At the time, I lived on a sailboat, I lived on that for 19 years. - [Alex] Wow. - [Bernie] And then Shelly
for five of those years. - [Ricky] And I know we
didn't really clearly state that throughout the show
but you guys are from Canada and you recently just moved
to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. - Yes, we lived out in the Vancouver area and about a week or so ago,
we packed up a big U-Haul and moved on out and then left
the boxes and came down here. - Here's to 23 or more. - Thank you. - Congratulations. - Thank you. - Thank you for the information, thank you for your imagination
and engineering skills. - Thank you for having us, thank you. (gentle music)
