in the world of quilt making, there are numerous styles to choose from, and the choice is yours. in addition to style choices you also have shape choices. maybe you like squares rectangles, triangles, diamonds or even circles. on today's program you will learn how to use various tools to cut circles -- how to use a technique to create perfect applique circles -- and how to identify various quilt styles. >> funding for fons & porter's love of quilting is provided by: >> for over forty years, baby lock has been dedicated to the love of sewing by creating machines for quilting, sewing embroidery, and serging. baby lock... for the love of sewing; koala studios delivers sewing furniture custom built in america; >> american professional quilting systems... apqs offers a full line of hand-guided quilting machines made in america's heartland for america's artisans; >> reliable corporation... makers of reliable irons.

no spitting, no leaking... no kidding; sulky, makers of decorative threads, stabilizers, and books. sulky... express yourself; fabri-quilt.. the fabric of inspiration; omnigrid... providing quilters with specialty rulers and accessories for over twenty-five years; quilters club of america offering patterns and videos to the passionate quilter. welcome to love of quilting. you're watching the 2100 series, and we have an adorable contemporary quilt with us on the set today. let's take a look. this little number is called circles for paige. it was made by marianne haak. it's circles within circles, floating bubbles or balls, bouncing balls. it's adorable. it's happy. it really is. what's interesting about this quilt is the size is determined

by a width of fabric because that background is all one piece of white solid fabric. and then there are those lovely bouncing circles placed as she pleased. she did a random placing of those and randomly chose the izes of the circles as well. i think it's adorable. if you wanted to make a quilt like this there's no real rules about where the circles go, but you've got to start with circles. we're going to talk first about ways to get circles. i don't think anybody can just freehand a perfect circle. i think students in art school spend a year trying to actually freehand a perfect circle. i don't know that they ever achieve that. it's really difficult. templates and guides are helpful if you want to get circles. we have all kinds of ways to get those. once we talk about ways, the tools you can use, then we'll talk about how you take that to the next step to make applique circles. the art supply store is a great place for quilters. i remember doreen speckman always used to ask people

do you like office supplies, do you like art supplies. if you do you'll probably be a quilter. one of the things that most art stores will carry and a lot of quilting shops will carry too, because they know quilters like these templates is a circle template. you get various widths. they only can be so big because they're in 8 1/2 x 11 format. but for some of the circles on marianne haak's quilt, you can use this to draw your circle. that's one way to do it. we're going to put that there. if you didn't have one or a shop nearby to get one -- and you needed bigger circles -- you could just look around your house. there is a wonderful tip here. let's turn it over. it's a dinner plate. it's a salad plate. it's a pie plate. i like how you're thinking, mom. a cherry pie. i better not think about that. but a salad plate or a pie plate is a great circle size. i think marianne's -- some are like pie pans.

i have many a time when i've needed a specific size i'll take my ruler and go to the cupboard and i will measure if it matters. this quilt it doesn't matter what size the circles are. but you need various sizes and this is a great way to get one. so you can draw around that, cut it out with scissors. a coffee mug can certainly give you another size. if you're in the kitchen grab a few things. you might use them all. another nifty thing you may have in the house but you don't even know about it is a ruler. this is also from the art supply or quilt shop. this is an 18-inch see-through ruler. in addition to having 1/4-inch measurements -- inch, 1/2 inch, 1/4 inch, 1/8 inch -- it has a series of holes. i actually -- let me get it so the camera can see the right side. i'm going to pull some paper so you can see a little better. there's a series of holes here. the first one is at zero and then at 1/2 inch

1 inch, 1 1/2, all the way out here. this is actually a compass. you may have one in your toolkit and not really know it. if you wanted to make a pattern for a circle any inch even size -- up to the end of your ruler. up to 18 inches because 9 inches -- this is actually going to be the radius of the circle. what i like to do is take two automatic pencils the kind that has a retractable lead. i retract the lead mechanical on one. i'm going to move it over because i don't want to break the lead. then i pick my size of circle. let's go out here to 3. that's going to make a 6-inch circle. or i could go to 2 1/2 for a 5-inch circle. you'd be doing this on freezer paper. if you were making a template you would take freezer paper and do it that way. really, if you want to be able to make 1/2-inch sized circles get a drill and drill holes every 1/4 inch. you could have an even more flexible tool. that makes a great circle.

this you can put over in our used pile. there are a million ways to do anything. this way is one of my -- it's new to me and i am a big fan. there is this tool. is there a specific name for this tool? it's a circle cutter. it's a circle cutter. that's as technical as it gets on this. it looks like something you might find in the toolkit in the garage. it says engineering to me. definitely. what it is it's a rotary cutting blade. teensy-weensy like your rotary cutter. that just pulls off -- a little spike that goes into the very center of the circle -- i don't mean to interrupt but you have a retract. this is safety and then you open this thing out. it's very dangerous. don't let the kids get ahold of this. here is how you calibrate the size of your circle. it has your increments here and you can move it to however large -- you unscrew this and it slides.

we don't care what size we're making. we're just demonstrating. you put down your little spike. let me just make sure i have enough fabric here to cut the thing i want. you press down and spin. hold on. these are great things to do on camera. it takes a little practice. there's a bubble. it's okay. as long as the center spike stay where it needs to stay, it's okay. i did pretty well. with the scissors, we could cut that. i'm going to retract this back so it's safe. you can bring it all the way out to here, which would make a circle. this is about 5 inches, 4 1/2. you can make a pretty good sized circle. i'm going to put the little thing back on there. i would say for this particular project, we're going to be using fusible

web, and we're going to talk about that. i think this circle cutting tool is excellent for cutting that fusible web. we have yet another. our last method for cutting circles -- you have one other way to show. it's a really neat tool. sharon hultgren has come up with a lot great things but this is an easy circle cut. we'll put the name of it on our website, fonsandporter.com, for the 2100 series so you'll know all the stuff we're using. this was designed to cut your circle from a piece of folded fabric. so you go anywhere from 2 inches out to an 8-inch raw circle. a 10-inch. a 10-inch raw circle. thanks for noticing that. it's a good thing i'm here. i'm really glad you're here for lots of reasons. i'm never doing this show by myself. you don't have to. let's do the biggest one. you never want to waste too much fabric because, sure as you do that's the piece of fabric that you need to finish your quilt. so move it down a little bit. so i folded my fabric and made sure --

give yourself a little more room. i'm still helping you. you are still helping me. you've helped me from the moment you were born. thanks. way back in 19 -- '83. [ marianne laughs ] don't you dare. anyway... we're going to cut through this slot. we experimented with this a little bit. i'm going to use my regular sized rotary cutter -- 45. 45 for this. when you get to smaller ones you might want a smaller circle. you'll have to have one. you won't be able to get around a 2-inch finished circle -- with a big flat blade like that. so i'm going to just -- i can hear it crunching. it's extra special important to hold your template as still as possible because if it moves in any direction, you're going to get a funky circle. it's going to be more of an oval. then you have to get more fabric. you probably noticed the way this is designed is there's a starting place, so i was able to get the edge.

look, it's great. i was preparing myself for having to use a pair of scissors to cut a little more. so here is our perfect circle. look at that. you could press a little bit and i'm going to use the very same method to cut my fusible web, because for every circle on marianne haak's quilt, you're going to need not only your pretty fabric circle you also need the same size circle and fusible web. this is not paper-backed fusible web that we've used and windowed and all this. this is lightweight fusible web. so one side has little dots of glue on it and one side does not. i don't want to waste this either. there's different sized circles. that will do it. i'm going to cut another 10-inch circle. as we were practicing with this template, we talked to another quilter --

who happens to be visiting -- who happens to be visiting the set today. it's always great to talk to other quilters. it's a community. people share tips and swap secrets and techniques. we were using the smaller rotary cutter -- out here. she said, you know, i found that the 45 mm rotary cutter is better. sure enough, it was. so if you're having trouble with a template or a tool or you don't like a certain technique or something, talk to another quilter. they might be able to help you. so thank you, lynn. thanks, lynn. let's see how we did. oh it's another one! so for every circle on the quilt, you're going to need your fabric circle and your lightweight fusible web circle. this would take us a long time to sew on the show so we're going to move to something smaller. this is the biggest circle that marianne used and then we're going to go down probably as small as she used. the way you create this quilt is you make your circles first. you could cut out your panel you're using for your background

but you're going to make a whole bunch of circles and have them ready to place where you want. as you're going to see these are going to be finished edge circles. they're going to have a fold around the edge. we're using fusible web, but we're not using the method you've seen us do before possibly, where we're blanket stitching on what's truly a raw edge that's fused down. these make really nice circles. on a baby quilt that's going to get washed a lot -- it's a good method. now, very important... you put your fabric circle with the pretty side up. then this fusible web, you can feel the smooth side and the bumpy side. those bumps are actually -- adhesive -- that is activated by heat. so counter intuitively -- i think i'd like a pin. you're going to put the pretty side and the glue side together but we're not ironing. so don't put your iron on anything. i'm set up over here for a 1/4-inch seam. let's get that out of the way. i'm going to get rid of all these

things. so i'm going to drop my presser foot to get started. i'm using the edge of my presser foot for my 1/4 seam. this isn't patchwork. we're not going for that kind of accuracy but you want a smooth circle. i've also set my machine where as i -- with my needle down. also, like the minute i raise my foot off that pedal, the presser foot raises, which enables me to pivot. it's a great feature because when i touch my foot again and start giving it some gas that presser foot goes down. when you touch the pedal. when i give it some gas with my foot, then that presser foot goes back down and holds my fabric in place. should i keep going? you can sew a little bit more. whenever i sew anything at home or on the set, i want to keep going.

you work your way around. you can't be speedy gonzales here. you have to take your time. just a few stitches. should i stop? yeah. we'd go all the way around to where we started. i'm going to cut my thread. i don't need my pin anymore. here's what it looks like. a finished one, of course, looks like that. so the next step is to separate these. i'm going to snip. i'll give it to you. i'm going to snip the edges about every 1/2 inch or so, because ultimately we're turning this. we're going to turn this inside out. when you have a curved seam -- a lot of garment sewers will know this. in the armhole. in the armhole or -- if you've ever made a bag or some little sewing project where you have a curve an ipad case maybe, you want to clip around because it helps your curve lay flat. it spreads out the fullness of that extra fabric that's in the seam allowance and distributes it around in there.

i was almost too hasty and almost snipped my stitch. if you did, because this is going to be stitched down later it probably would not be the end of the world. so now i've got these two layers. i'm going to separate them so fusible is away from my pretty fabric. i'm going to take these scissors and make a snip and then make it bigger. oops, i didn't mean to do that. throwing stuff around again. now we're going to turn this. you'll remember the way we position this is that -- as we turn this and try to make it look pretty, it doesn't happen immediately. i'd be careful as you're turning that out that fusible you're using is lightweight. if you get too hasty turning, you could stick your fingernail through that. again, not a day destroying problem but you would like to keep your fusible all together.

you could use your stiletto to smooth it out. be careful with that. scissors would be even trickier. you get it nice and smooth. now it's ready to fuse down to hold it in place to your background fabric and then we're going to stitch it. let's show that little panel there. so on marianne's quilt i would have this piece of white fabric up on the design wall. i'd have all my circles. i'd have more than enough. i would play around with getting them where i wanted. i'd pin them down and take them to my iron and press them in place. you wouldn't want pins in that while sewing. she's using a fairly -- she's using about 45 inches -- it would be the full-width fabric. it says it's 44/45 but it could be 40, whatever. if you were nervous about using that big of a piece and handling that large piece of fabric you could work smaller. you could work with blocks essentially.

it would change the nature of the design of your quilt because they'd have to be in the quadrants. you'd have to arrange your circles within the blocks. it could be neat. it could be great. you could actually work with panels and fuse some of them and then sew the panels together and straddle that seam with another one. that's why it's so fun to make quilts because there's so many ways to do things. so we need to press. is our iron ready to go? we're just going to make life easy on ourselves and just press to a square fabric. so you'd read your instructions for your fusible web and get that nailed down. while you're doing that, i'm going to make some changes on my sewing machine because i want to switch to a blanket stitch. the instructions tell me about how long to hold this down. the best way to answer that question is to look at the instructions. a great tip that we have is when you have fusible, save the instructions

and make a little bag for the fusible itself, so you always have your instructions with your fusible. it will tell us how long to keep our iron on it and how to use that fusible. that was a tip from a viewer. long ago. i wish i remembered her name. what i did was fold a set of the instructions and stapled. you could stitch it and do this with fusible interfacing because all these products once you separate them from the instructions, they all look exactly alike. believe me... i have found out the bad way what a problem that can be. so i've changed my machine to a blanket stitch. if we were doing marianne's quilt, the other marianne -- she spells her name the same as me -- ever time i did this blanket stitching, i would have that whole fabric to go around. at this size i don't think it would be that hard. a full-size quilt, maybe more of a challenge. for a beginner it might be more of a challenge, but maybe not.

just take your time. so i positioned this. we'll see how i get going. i think my needle is out. i think i'm going to actually -- we'll see. the needle swings back and forth. i'm going to get in position. i know where on my presser foot i need to aim this pretty much. that's another thing to mention is that before you start tacking done your circles, do a practice circle. always when you're switching your stitches from 1/4 inch to a blanket to a straight stitch do a test before you start working on the actual piece. here again the setting i put on my machine that helped me with sewing that circle also helps me with my blanket stitch because i can only stitch a few stitches at one time. you just tell me, mary how much time i've got. we've got one finished and we should take a look at it.

i'm going to cut my thread. that's going to raise my presser foot. it enables me to really control my stitching. there's the one i started. here's one we've completed. you might decide to change the width of your blanket stitch, depending on the size of the circle you're sewing. when we started out today, i referred to marianne haak's quilt as an adorable contemporary quilt. we thought it would be fun to spend a couple of minutes talking about the terminology bouncing around the quilt world which is so exciting because we've got a lot of new people, maybe you're one of them that are taking up quilting and deciding what kind of quilt is this and that. let's start with traditional. before we talk about that, i want to say that this is our opinion. the wonderful thing about quilt making and art in general is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and different people define things differently. it's a human desire to put things into categories.

you might think one thing about what defines a traditional quilt. someone else might say no, that looks modern to me. if people are quilting it's good. we just need to terms so we can have a conversation. let's look at a wonderful quilt by liz porter who really knows how to make a great traditional quilt. it's an irish chain variation. she's used reproduction fabrics. it's a classic traditional quilt that looks very much like a quilt from the 1890s. one of the ways i've used to define for myself what a traditional quilt is, because i'm a traditional quilt maker -- most quilts i make are inspired from the past -- is that traditional quilts are quilts that could've been made before. maybe we're updating the technique, the method, the tools, but it's kind of -- it has a reference point in a quilt from the past. even the palette and the blocks, all of that, they look almost like they could be an antique quilt if you didn't know much about them.

if you're a real purist. then we have art quilts. art quilts are in a category of their own. art quilts are not meant to be used as bed covers; 99.9 percent of the time these quilts hang in galleries. caryl fallert's beautiful quilt, we have an example of that. midnight fantasy. midnight fantasy is something that could hang in an art gallery and be very much at home in a big corporate building downtown -- an installation. exactly. gorgeous, gorgeous art quilts made with lots of embroidery. embellishment. heavy quilting. they've never been made before. which brings us into a contemporary quilt, which we were talking about with marianne's quilt. that uses fabrics that are not reproduction fabrics. they're fabrics that have a new look. they're different. they're contemporary. it's a quilt that hasn't been made before. batiks are fabrics that weren't available to quilters. in the 1800s batiks weren't around. brights, juveniles. if those kinds of fabrics are being used in a quilt,

those could be considered contemporary quilts. then we have an exciting new modern quilt which is a whole new aesthetic new quilters are excited about. we have a couple examples. we have one by tony jacobson who's on our staff. that one is called pathways. it's linear. it is not block to block. there's lots of, we would say, open space, negative space blank space for quilting. we also have another staff quilt that is more modern, although there's lots of variations. this one is by jean nolte on our staff. it's called snow geese. there's lots of open space. there's straight quilting. there's a whole new aesthetic out there with modern quilters. i love what they're doing. they're actually affecting my quilts. as long as people are making quilts, whatever style they are, you might have a style you like better, a style you make more than the other styles but a quilt is three layers. it's a backing a batting, and a

top. we are happy there are all kinds of quilts to make and for us to teach you to make. so make a quilt today. exactly. grab a pencil... tips and other useful information coming up next. here's an idea from sandy terhell from afton, minnesota. so simple, so easy. she wanted to mark straight quilting lines on the quilt she was making for her granddaughter. no marker that she had really showed up well, so she cut strips of fabric, pinned them to the quilt and machine quilted right along the edge. unpinned them, no marks, no problem. speaking of straight lines betty kelly from crestline, ohio, says no matter how carefully she sews she seems to get her strip sets crooked so to solve the problem, she fastens a tape measure to her ironing board and presses the strip sets using the tape edge as a guide and no more crooked strip sets. she's blocking them as she goes. here's a big photograph from trae mcneill from muleshoe, texas. muleshoe!

she says, "i don't want to take my quilting gloves off every time i need to change a bobbin, unsew a seam, pick off a loose thread." so she cut the fingertips out of her gripper gloves. now she can do the fine-motion things without taking those gloves off. there's one more bit of advice. pat lyons from pocatello, idaho uses her black-and-white mode on her digital camera to determine the color value of her fabrics light, medium, and dark. thanks for sending those tips. if you want to send tips mail them to: p.o. box 171 winterset, ia 50273 or you can e-mail them by going to the tip section of our website fonsandporter.com. if we use one of your tips we'll give you a one-year free subscription to love of quilting magazine. great show, mom. thanks, mary. bye! >> additional quilting ideas from marianne and liz are available in fons & porter's love of quilting magazine. a one-year subscription contains 60 or more projects, easy to follow step-by-step instructions, and our tips, techniques and shortcuts.

in addition to the magazine, you'll get two dvds containing all 13 shows from the 2100 series and two additional booklets with extra projects, tips, and techniques. the cost is $29.97. to order call 866-729-9601 or visit our website fonsandporter.com/tvspecial. you can visit our web site for free quilt tips... sew easy quilting lessons... and slide shows of spectacular quilts... download free quilt patterns... see supply lists for tv projects... join our quilting community and more. log on to fonsandporter.com. >> funding for fons & porter's love of quilting is provided by: >> for over forty years, baby lock has been dedicated to the love of sewing by creating machines for quilting, sewing embroidery, and serging. baby lock... for the love of sewing; koala studios delivers sewing furniture custom built in america; >> american professional quilting systems... apqs offers a full line of hand-guided quilting machines

made in america's heartland for america's artisans; >> reliable corporation... makers of reliable irons. no spitting, no leaking... no kidding; sulky, makers of decorative threads, stabilizers, and books. sulky... express yourself; fabri-quilt... the fabric of inspiration; omnigrid... providing quilters with specialty rulers and accessories for over twenty-five years; quilters club of america offering patterns and videos to the passionate quilter.

hi, welcome back. i'm certainly glad you could join me today. you ready to do a fantastic little painting? tell you what let's start off and have them run all the colors across the screen that you need to paint along with me, and they'll come across in the same order as i have them on the palette. while they're doing that, let's go on up here. i've got my regular old 18 x 24 canvas and i've already covered it with a nice, thin even coat of the liquid white, so it's all ready to go. so let's get started. let's start with the old 2" brush today. like that big brush. i'm going to go right into a little touch

of the prussian blue, little prussian blue, i'm going to reach right up here and grab a touch of the black. so i've got prussian blue and black. and just tap them, tap the bristles right into the paint, like so. o.k., let's go up here. now then, let's make, let's make some happy little clouds today so we'll start off, just use little x's, little x's like so and lay in some sky area. just little criss-cross strokes. now we don't want to cover the whole canvas today, i want to leave some holes in the sky. sometimes it's a little easier to put a cloud in if you just leave an area open. just let it blend right on down and it's continually, continually mixing with the liquid white that's on the canvas, and it gets lighter and lighter and lighter as it works down. so let the canvas work for you. maybe right in here, whatever, wherever you want it. just let that blend right on down. like so. there.

see? and that easy, that easy, you have a happy little sky. there we go. just very lightly we'll just blend next, take out the brush strokes. and, while i have that going, same old dirty brush, i want to have a touch of phthalo blue this time, just a small amount, very small amount, little bit of black. so i have phthalo blue and black, and then a touch of phthalo green, just a touch, it's very strong, very strong. o.k., let's go right up here. i want to have some water in this painting today, so let's go ahead and just lay in some little water indications, start from the outside and pull inward. outside and pull inward, like so. o.k., then over here, we'll go in this direction. and i'm not sure exactly how much water we're going to have, so

we'll just do the whole thing and we'll leave water where we want it, the rest of it we'll just paint over. you can do anything here, so don't worry about it. all we're doing is laying color on the canvas at this point. there. o.k., and then very lightly, very lightly, here we'll just blend right across. o.k. let's wash our brush. and we wash our brush with odorless thinner, shake off the excess, and just beat the devil out of it. o.k. let's build a happy little cloud. we'll just use that same old brush. go right through the titanium white, i'm going to reach down here and grab least least little touch of the bright red, least little touch, doesn't take much. pull it, pull it firmly through there. get a lot of paint on it. o.k., let's go up here. now then, if we're going to have a little cloud maybe one lives right here. just use the corner of the brush and make little circular strokes.

see? just let that little cloud just come right off your brush. they live right here in the bristles, all you have to do is sort of shake them out. maybe right here, there's another little cloud that just floats around. see there? just as many or as few as you want. maybe there's another one, there wherever. wherever. o.k., maybe over in here there's another one, and in your painting, you sort of look at it and decide how many clouds you want in your world. put more or less or whatever, whatever makes you happy. painting should set you free, should make you very happy, should be relaxing, lot of fun, should be your good friend. o.k. let me grab a clean brush here, and i have several brushes going so i don't have to spend all my time washing them. i get too big a kick out of

washing the brushes. o.k. now i'm going to just blend the base of these. i don't want to blend the outside edges as yet. just sort of blend the base and don't overwork them. don't overwork them. just a little bit and leave them alone. and if you have a little paint on your brush you can just beat it, and that'll take off the excess paint without going through the entire cleaning procedure. there. o.k. beat the little devil there. lift it, lift it, big circular strokes, don't want to go straight up. if you do it'll look like it's raining up, and it'll sort of bother you if it's raining up. there. all right. o.k. see there? now very lightly, just over the entire sky. very lightly. look at that. did you ever believe you could make such fantastic clouds that easy? you can. you really can. there we go. o.k. all right. and i'll wash this brush a little,

give it a little shake, and then just beat the devil out of him too. let's build us a little mountain today. let's have some fun. i'm going to take some black, put a little prussian blue in it, and some crimson and maybe the least little touch of yellow ochre. so black, blue, little crimson, little yellow ochre. now if you want to check and see what color you've got, you have to sort of put a little white out here and test it because that just looks black to you. and that looks all right. the yellow ochre gives it just a little greenish hue. i'm going to cut off that little roll of paint and let's go right up here. maybe today we have a mountain that lives right here. and he comes around and down. now i'm pushing very firm, very firm. maybe there's a little bump, wherever you want a little bump, and just right on out.

see? really, really push that paint right into the fabric though. just really get in there and give it a good strong push. don't be afraid that you're going to hurt the canvas. get in there and really put it in. all right. all right. o.k. scrape off all the excess. scrape it quite firmly. all right. now we can take a large brush, be sure it's good and dry, and let's blend that. grab it and pull it, just grab it, give it a pull. and you can begin sort of laying out the highlights and shadows of your mountain. these brush strokes will show and you're not committed. you can see how all those brush strokes, so they give you an idea of how you want to lay it out, and you can change your mind, you can change

the whole mountain. and you can do this over and over and over til you get it the way you want it. and over here, maybe it comes down - goes right on out. see there? already, you can begin picking out shapes here, and you really haven't done anything. and we want to blend this so it just sort of comes right down to nothing down at the base, very soft. there we go. o.k. now, i thought today we'd do something a little bit different, so i'm going to take a little bit of titanium white on the knife, and up in here, i just want to put the indication of a little bit of color. this is titanium white, least little touch of the bright red in it, so it's got a slight pinkish hue, but not much. maybe right in here. no pressure. just a little touch here and there.

o.k. now then. i'm just going to take this same old brush. i'm going to go right into a little yellow ochre, reach up here and get a little sap green, and i'm just going to tap this right into it, so it's sort of a greenish color. it's yellow ochre, sap green, a little black in it, pick up a little of that cadmium yellow. tap to load it though, just tap firmly. o.k., let's go right up here. now maybe this is a soft grassy little mountain. got little grasses that grow right up the side of it. there. see? there they come. there they come. there. isn't that super? you can just see the sun shining out here and playing. and just sort of vary your colors back and forth, and a little indian yellow here and there. maybe

yes, right in there. see? but you can make all kinds of beautiful little effects, that easy. that easy. there we go. now maybe, maybe, tell you what, maybe there's sort of a hill right here that just leans over, like that. every once in a while you can touch a little bit of white, just pure white, and let it mix with that color. it'll make it look like the sun's really shining through there. there. see there? begins creating that feeling that it's bending over here. this is a super nice easy way to make a very effective little mountain. very effective. it's also an excellent way, oh, a lot of my friends down in like north carolina and etc. say, "we don't

have snow on our mountain." this is a super way of making a mountain that doesn't have snow like the big alaskan mountains that i paint so often. little darker on this side because this is the shadow side. maybe there's a touch running up through here. but all you're doing is just tapping. just very light tapping. o.k., we can take a little bit of that same mountain color and just define some of our edges here and there. see? there we go. wherever you want it, maybe there's a little bit right in here. but that easy, you have got one nice looking little mountain, and it's very easy to do. now with just a clean brush, nothing on it, just a clean dry brush, i just want to tap this to create the illusion of mist

down here at the base. i want it to be very soft. very misty. there. and just let it disappear right into nothing. there we go. o.k. see there? o.k. that was a lot of fun. i enjoy making little mountains like that. tell you what let's do. today, today, today, let's take the old fan brush and i'm going to mix up, let's see, we'll try some black, prussian blue, there's some van dyke brown, some alizarin crimson, little sap green, whatever you've got, just a good dark color here, good dark color. o.k. might as well mix up a pretty good pile of it. we're going to use that over and over. clean my knife off. now we'll use the fan brush. let's go right into that color, load a lot of color on the brush, both sides. see, the old brush is very full. there. o.k. now maybe

back here lives some happy little trees. all you've got to do is take and touch and just tap downward. these are little distant trees that are far, far away. there. see how easy those are? just tap it downward, like so. wherever you want it to go. there. that's the easiest nicest way to make a lot of little trees very fast. very fast. can't hardly go wrong. now if you get them too far apart, like that, they'll begin looking like fence posts. don't want that unless you want a fence back there. if you want a fence back there, that's the way to do it. fill them up a little more. if you want to make it look like this water goes back, let them get smaller as they go away from you. smaller, smaller, smaller. it'll give the illusion that they're further away. because your mind knows that as things

get further away from you they look smaller. see there? so you can create that that easy. you can do anything here. and we'll just throw some of that right here, we'll let that reflect right into the water. right into the water. see here? take the brush, grab it, and because the liquid white's on the canvas this paint will move. just pull it, straight down, straight down, straight down, straight down. and then come across, and that easy, you have instant reflections. you could take this same old brush, go right into a little bit of the yellow, just load it the same way, lot of color. o.k. now maybe there's some highlights on some of these trees, so all you've got to do is tap the edge here on some of them. don't do them all. just

some of them here. see, that makes it look like there's light playing through there and shining on those trees and really makes them sparkle. that easy. o.k. now maybe, maybe there's some land out there. let's take some brown, take some van dyke brown, little dark sienna on the knife, pull it out flat, cut across, and we'll load that little roll of paint. o.k., let's just go right up here and lay in some land. see? now once again, allow it to get bigger down this way, and it'll help create that illusion that it's going around the bend and going further and further away. boy that's nice. it's so pretty. o.k. i'll take a little touch of white, little white, little dark sienna, pull it out also very flat, cut across, and once again, we have our little roll of paint. it's so important you load that knife the correct way.

and that little roll of paint's right out on the edge of the knife, then very lightly, just grazing the canvas, sort of let it bounce along here and there just barely touch. don't kill all the dark. that dark's what makes it pretty. just sort of let that bounce along and look like little rocks and stones and all kinds of happy little things back there. and we can take our brush that has the yellow, fan brush, and we can go back in here and let's just pop in a few little grassy areas that live right out here on all this land that we made. just push upward with the brush. now if you have trouble making your paint stick, add a little touch of paint thinner or a little touch of the liquid white, either one. either one will thin the paint. o.k. maybe touch a little bit of the titanium white, and you can highlight some of those and make them really sparkle. just a little touch of titanium white right on there, like so. o.k.

now, let me find my other fan brush. here's one. take a little touch of the liquid white on the fan brush and go into titanium white. now i put the liquid white on there only, only to thin the titanium white, because, you remember our golden rule, a thin paint will stick to a thick paint, so this is a very firm paint up here. now thisinner paint will literally slide right over the top of it and you can do this without becoming a mud mixer, without all your color just mixing together. see, i'm just barely grazing the surface. now this thinner paint's going to grab and it's going to make it look like little sheen coming across there, little light playing on the water. see? there. just barely, barely grazing the canvas. it's very effective, and

you can do it. all right. now then, tell you what let's do here. let me find another old brush. i'm going to go right into van dyke brown, i'm just going to use this old 2" brush just tap the van dyke brown, reach up here and get a little touch of the dark sienna, just going to tap it, firmly. really get in there and bend that brush, tap it. o.k., let's go right here. maybe, right in here, maybe there's a happy little peninsula that lives here, so i'm putting in some dark, comes right out like so. maybe there's all kinds of little things that live back here in the background. there. start at the bottom and work up, and that way, it'll get lighter and lighter as you work up. you want these deep dark shadows down in here. i'm going to add a little touch of yellow ochre

right on that dirty brush, so it gets lighter and lighter and lighter as it moves up here. want it to get much lighter. there. o.k. see, already, you can make out all kinds of nice little forms in there, and they just sort of happen. there. o.k., now's the time you have to start making some big decisions. where are you going to go with this? if you're going to have a little peninsula of land here, where does it live? maybe, right there. what the heck! just drop it in wherever you want it. o.k., let's have a little reflection right here. there's a reflection. pull it straight down, and then very lightly, go across, very lightly. and that'll create a nice reflection. maybe right out through here'll be another

little peninsula of land. all we're doing now is laying in a base color. you could do this with a paint roller, could do it with your mop, anything. we're just laying in base color. all we're looking for is very basic shapes, nothing else. o.k. now then, go right into van dyke brown with the old knife, and maybe there's a nice stone that lives right out here, big old stone. a little beaver lives out here, and he's got to have a place to sit and watch and see what's happening, so we'll give him a little projection right there to sit on. and some land all i'm doing here is just laying this in with straight old van dyke brown, straight old van dyke brown. o.k. maybe there's another little stone here, wherever you want them. you

could have some stones and rocks and stuff maybe over here on the other side if you wanted them. who knows? maybe there's a big stone that lives here. these things just sort of grow wherever they're happy. there we go. we'll give him a little friend that lives there. pull a little bit of that down, see you pull that down, that'll end up being your reflection. little stone needs a reflection out here in the water. now these stones'll grow on you if you're not careful. they'll just get bigger and bigger til they turn into mountains. there's another one. o.k. now then, take and very lightly, pull that down same as before, need those reflections, and across. over here, same same. o.k. i'm going to go to the little knife. i'm going to go right into, oh

we've got some black, white, and a little bit of dark sienna. just want it to be sort of a grey, greyish brown color, like so. take the little knife, get that roll of paint right out on the edge of it. o.k. let's go right up in here, and let's just begin, light's coming from the left, so let's just begin laying in some little light things here. there we go. on the shadow side, i'm using a bluish grey color. just sort of pop them in. there we are. same thing over here on this stone, we don't want him left out. and these stones out here, they too, need some little highlights on them. there we go. there's another one. maybe the light's really hitting right in here and it's

got some bright spots on it. and all kinds of little things happening. then take our fan brush, put a little waterline right around it. this has a thinner paint on it, has a little liquid white and titanium white. see that thing's still under there. all right. i'm going to grab another fan brush. boy, i just have all kinds of fan brushes going. i'm going to go right into van dyke brown and dark sienna. just mix them right on the brush, both sides, fill it up. on the other side of the brush, i'm going to pull it through here, and just put white. so i have brown and white, a light and a dark side. o.k., let's go up here. now there's some trees that live over here, so touch, and just pull down. by double loading the brush, you can make both sides of the tree at one time, and you decide how many trees live here,

however many you want, just throw them in. maybe, maybe you can't see all of that one, he's somewhere hid back there. few little limbs here and there. o.k., and with the liner brush and a little brown paint on it you can go in here and put in the indication of a limb every so often, wherever you want them. there. o.k., let's use our little oval brush. i want to go right into a little touch of that same dark color we used back here, and just tap in the indication of a few little branches and limbs. don't cover up all that nice background that you made though. all you've got to do is just tap in a few things. then some highlight color on that. for that we'll use yellow and some green, and just tap in some nice leaves on these trees back here, just like

so. you see how easy those are to make? just throw them right in, just wherever you want them. o.k. go to the old 2" brush here. i want to put the indication of some little grassy areas. there they are. look at that. see? greens and yellows, yellow ochre, indian yellow, follow the lay of the land. every once in a while you can touch a little, little tiny bit of the bright red. see? there. but you can create plane after plane, layer after layer. pretty little things, wherever you want them. o.k. i'm going to use the fan brush and pop in a few that run right down here, right down

on the rocks and stuff, like that. let's have some fun here. i'm going to go right back into our brown, and maybe there lives, you know me, i like old big tree, right there, right there, just straight old van dyke brown, and with out liner brush, we'll put in an old limb here and there. just a big old strong limb, wherever you want them, like so. take a little bit of white and sparkle up the edge. make it nice and shiny here. o.k. and the old clock on the wall is telling me i've got to finish this one up, so let's

just put in a few little leaves, like so. a few little highlights on there, using a little yellow, little green, and you've got a beautiful little tree right here. hope you've enjoyed this painting. it'll certainly, certainly teach you how to do some fantastic things. from all of us here, happy painting, god bless.

eating a new q we imagine a process of exactness. precise cutting and sewing that leads to symmetry. today's guest is a self-described hippy-quilter. a young hippy-quilter. her free motion designs are totally modern yet she uses tried and true quilting techniques. i'd like you to welcome tula pink to sewing with nancy. thanks for being with us tula. thanks for having me. nancy, i'm obsessed with pattern. everywhere i look i see the potential for a quilt design. for example, fields of soybeans and corn that i now see from my backyard inspired my quilt "beanstalks." growing up in los angeles the scenery was foreign to me resulting in a unique interpretation and a modern quilt design. "quilts from the house of tula pink" that's what's next on sewing with nancy. sewing with nancy, celebrating 30 years of sewing and quilting with nancy zieman is made possible by: baby lock, a complete line of sewing, quilting

and embroidery machines and sergers. baby lock, for the love of sewing. madeira, specializing in embroidery, quilting and special-effect threads because creativity is never black and white. koala studios, fine sewing furniture custom-built in america. clover, makers of sewing, knitting quilting and embroidery products for over 25 years. experience the clover difference. amazing designs and klassé needles. one of the greatest parts about quilting is choosing fabrics. tula you design fabric so you have a whole array of choices to put into your quilts. i do, i have a lot of bright choices. when we look at the stalks you said your inspiration was from fields. my surroundings, beanstalks, corn fields i live in the midwest, so i have a lot of that.

within each stalk you have lots of colors. yes, we start with the main color of the stalk, the stem which is the green and then we carry that into each what i like to call the blossom of the stalk. then each wedge here will contain five fabrics beginning with the green ending with a white background fabric and the three varying fabrics in between that create the color of the stalk. there are ten fabric prints used within this quilt plus the solids. you can see she has different configurations within each blossom unit. we're going to talk about those. yeah! so you're going to choose those five fabrics and cut them all the same. yes, they'll all be cut exactly the same. then, when we start to make our blossoms and rearrange them is when the organic quality starts to come in. we're going to start by cutting a 1-1/2" strip

a 2-1/2" strip a 3-1/2" strip. i think they get the idea. yeah, and it's just goes right on through to a 5-1/2" strip. so, a 1-1/2" strip a 2-1/2" strip, a 3-1/2" strip a 4-1/2" strip and a 5-1/2" strip. then you're going to have five fabrics cut in those configurations and stacked. then you're going to use one strip one size from each color. correct. to make a strip set. each strip set will contain one of each size. you said that much better than i did. i'm going to hand you some of the strips. this looks like a 2-1/2" strip to me. then this fun little print here you go. that's a 3-1/2" strip. here's a 4-1/2" strip then a 1" strip. it doesn't have to be in this order i'm handing them to you so you have one of each size.

right, and each strip set, just like this is going to contain one of each size beginning with the green ending with the background and these in the middle can switch around any way we want. now you're going to sew these five fabrics together. the fabric is 40" or 42" wide so you'll have a lengthy strip set. here we have some options. if you want to put those to the side, tula i'll lay out two of the options that you've created. notice it's the same width but a 1" to a 5-1/2" really gives a different look. it really makes each blossom have its own personality. now the personality also comes with the cutting of the wedges. on sewing with nancy in the past we've cut wedges using rulers and been precise. we'll kind of throw all of that out the window. yeah, and this will either drive you crazy or make you really happy!

so we start with our strip set-- as opposed to standard quilting where you want to straighten that edge out what we want to do is create an angled edge. then from here, you want to start making your wedges by creating opposing angles. i'm not measuring anything here. yes, i couldn't believe that when i first saw that. "i want to measure this!" [ laughs ] because what we're going to do is eventually trim them down. all we're creating here are our wedges. so what's happened by creating opposing trapezoid shapes when we put all the wide ends together you'll see that this piece is on the outside here and on the inside here. you'll find out that you'll be cutting several strip sets doing some mix and match. do the same with the white the cream colored background. correct. just cut wedges and be very cavalier about it. yeah, and the more cavalier you are about it

the better really it turns out. when i designed this quilt i made two versions one where i was really rigid and one where i was very free-form with the whole thing and they turned out exactly the same. so... hence, be free-form, very organic. then you're going to put them together. yeah. you're always putting a short end to a wide end. what i like to do is actually place all the ones that have the green at the wide end because this is where our stem is going to go. these are identical. we have some other ones. what do you say we mix it up a little bit? you mentioned you like to have at least a 1" width at the bottom. i like to have at least a 1" width at the bottom. i like to keep it under 4" at the wide end. every once in a while one will expand outside that measurement. there we go. you can start to see how this is creating-- by having this really strong red piece here

and having it move around it's creating a different look on each one. when sewing this together you can see how this is starting to build. it is almost straight. it really evens itself out as you go. surprisingly. you showed me yesterday that sometimes-- i guess that's the wrong color. if you accidentally sew a wide end to a wide end you can see right there, it's already starting to turn. so how we combat that is by sewing a narrow end to a narrow end here. then it's starting to even itself back out again but creating a really interesting, nice curve. which is going to show up in the sample quilt quite a bit. sure, then you're going to sew these wedges together. tula recommends sewing one by one, not in pairs. here you can see i'm just meeting these edges together. sewing a traditional 1/4" seam allowance. just keep stitching and stitching. more often than not, i won't even pin them because i am going to be trimming

those side edges down. speaking of the side edges here you go. this is a mini one. i like to start with wherever the narrower end is to even it up because i don't have much green here to connect with the stem. i want to start there. again, i'm not really measuring i'm not lining anything up. i'm just creating a nice even edge that i can measure off of to get the width of my column. so i'll line it up here. 14 inches is the width of our column. when i go to sew my columns together they'll be perfectly sewn together. the two columns are connected with the stem. you can see that there are two separate beanstalks that we have here. great fabrics, fun configuration. organic, but with a purpose.

absolutely. tula's houndstooth quilt design takes what is a traditional design woven into fabric and super-sizes it into a pieced quilt top ideal for a masculine or urban-chic decor. creat it with just two high-contrast fabrics or gradate the fabric colors for subtle drama. the fabric in this quilt is dynamite but you can make it simple. yes. which we're going to do, just with two fabrics. we'll show you later how tula combined six or more fabrics together. but it's the houndtooth that's the showcase. yeah, and this the pattern is the real pop. that's the power of the quilt. the fabrics just need to be high contrast. they can really be anything. what is more high contrast than black and white? we're going to create strips sets for this piece here.

we're cutting a 2-1/2" strip out of our light and our dark as well as a 3-1/2" strip out of our light and our dark. you want the 3-1/2" strips on the outside and your 2-1/2" strips on the inside alternating light to dark, and light to dark. like a normal strip set, you'd sew the pieces together and we have that already done. our life is in samples! tula, let's just look to the back of this because it's important to talk about pressing. yeah, and when i'm using extreme lights and extreme darks, like i am here i really like to press the seams open because i don't want any of that black showing up on the white side. as well as when i'm cutting into 6-1/2" squares i'm going to get a nicer, more even cut if i'm not going over bulky seams. in long seams, it's easy to do that pressing. there's one size of block

that you're going to need for the strip set as well as for the squares. it's simple. it's one size block for the entire quilt. i like to use a 6-1/2" ruler because then i don't have to guess at the angles. i can line up my top corner and my bottom corner right on my center seam. i know it's in the middle. just cut along that edge. we're at a really awkward angle for cutting. yeah, so i'm not going to cut all the way around. i won't promote bad rotary habits! i might do that at home in private but i won't do it here in public. after you've cut the strip sets into 6-1/2" squares on point you'll cut 6-1/2" squares of the same fabric but you don't have to do it on point. right, right. these are just going to be straight, even cuts. then we're going to do a layout. this is where the magic happens. i love that you can create something so powerful and graphic

with just three simple blocks three simple piece sizes. the only rule to laying this out is that each row is either light squares or dark squares. i'll do the solids how's that? okay sounds good. in every row that has a light square you're going to put your light corner of your triangle in the upper corner. it doesn't necessarily make that much of a difference which corner it's in as long as it's consistent the whole way through. sure. now that we have a row of dark squares i'm going to switch, and put my dark corner in the upper lefthand corner. we're alternating, obviously like tiles on the floor. yep, it's just a big checker board. now you can kind of see what's happening. the third row is the charm. the third row is where the magic happens. now you're starting to see here's your first big houndstooth.

it takes three rows to actually complete the shape. then from here on out you'll just keep seeing it all the way down. you can imagine a quilt totally of these two fabrics. as i said, urban-chic. it really has that look, but you can also add more. yeah, and it's great for a man's quilt, too. i know we all struggle with what to do in that situation. this is a great one, because it's graphic, it's bold. here's some more bold colors where you can see in the far corner we have the high contrast and then you incorporated another color. yes, and you can see i have two darks. this one is a little bit darker than this piece so i paired this piece with my lightest light. let's just raise this so everyone can see how on an angle, you integrated the colors. yes, i go from a really, really light pale green

all the way through this chartreuse color all the way to a really green-green with a slightly blue dot in it. it's charming how the colors work together but yet you could make it very simplistic with high contrast fabrics and enjoy the process as well. it's a simple, not too high-thinking quilt. we like that. have you ever fallen asleep in one direction and woken up in another? disorienting isn't it? underneath this quilt you will always know which way is up. it's a unique technique that tula and i would like to share with you. as we look at this full-size quilt it's impressive. it's big. it's a big statement. the big appliqués, they're kind of appliqués-- they're the arrows stating the obvious. i just want to hold up the opposite end.

you have a warm side and a cool side. right. you used scraps. yes, this was all scraps from quilts that i've made over, i don't know how many years. it was a great way to use them up. tula is a prolific quilt-maker. you'd think someone her age wouldn't be as prolific but you make how many quilts a year? about 45 to 55. that's a lot of big quilts so you have a fair number of scraps. yes. since you design fabric, you can combine your scraps and your love of fabric into this whichever-way-is-up quilt. when i'm making the pieces for the actual appliquéd portion i like to cut these with a pinked edge rotary cutter just because it will reduce the amount of stringing that happens later on through washings. again, this is something that i'm not going to measure a whole lot of. i'm just going to create pieces that i can use.

sometimes i'll focus in on a color. you can see half of this is more purple half is more pink. maybe i'll cut it in half so i can use this piece over here and this piece over here. until i have enough pieces that i feel like i can really cover an area. the area that we're going to cover is going to have a paperbacked fusible web or a webbing applied to the fabric. we're not doing an arrow today. right, we're doing a heart because it's much more manageable on this table. yes. this can be applied to all kinds of shapes but when you're choosing a shape you really want to choose a shape that's really recognizable that's very simple because the more edges you have, the more complicated the edges the harder it's going to be to see when we cover it in a bunch of scraps. sure. simple shapes work best. so, on the paper side you draw your shape. we wanted this symmetrical so it's the way you do a heart.

the fusible side is the other side. we've done this, oh, 129 times on sewing with nancy, i think! we're going to fuse it to the right side of the fabric which we've already done. follow the instructions how long to press in one spot. then just peel off the paper. you can kind of see the glistening portion of it. that will become our outline the edge that we follow that shiny side. it's a little difficult to see in this situation but when you're eyes are right on it you can see it pretty well. we start by really just following that edge with our scraps. i'll fill it in with you. you just want to make sure that every portion is covered. i doesn't matter where they are. some of these pieces will overlap. where you have two fabrics overlapping each other

you're not going to have any fusible there so that's why we need to also stitch it down. let's do this. i like to go in pieces like this, and press as i go. we can save that paper covering so if your iron goes over the wrong area you can just simply do that. i think that's pretty self-explanatory. after you've covered your whole area here you see a close-up at the machine where i'm stitching around the edges just to tack it down. here's the example for a pillow top that tula has done. tula, as an ending let's look at the raw edges. there was more stitching. there was more stitching and the quilting. the quilting is really what holds it down. i like a heavy stitching on my quilts. you have a wood grain on the arrow and then a swirl here. right, and since this quilt

is so definitively divided into two halves we did one stippling here, one here and then alternated the stippling on that side. very charming, and a great way to use up scraps. absolutely. during today's nancy's corner segment you'll again realize that the world is very small but it's oh, so connected. i'd like to introduce you to ken wing. ken works with a woman's cooperative in india where scraps of silk are turned into fiber yarn. yarns that we can use for embellishment. welcome to sewing with nancy, ken. thanks for having me, nancy. i was intrigued when i first saw your beautiful fiber yarns but then more intrigued when i learned the story behind it. right, it's an interesting story. it all starts here.

it does. it starts with silk sari remnants and selvage from the factory floors of india that are donated to a women's co-op. they turn them into beautiful hanks of fiber. yes, exactly. what they do... is they sew them together end to end all the waste and selvage and they make a beautiful silk yarn out of silk waste. you had this great photo of a gal sewing these together and just making nothing into something. exactly, something useful and beautiful out of nothing. giving the women some income, a purpose. and a sense of self-reliance. basically, they're subsistence farmers. it's a cluster of villages and the women work only during the harvest which is about two months a year. so we thought it would be nice

to give them something to do all year round. we get the benefits of scraps that would be thrown away turned into great embellishments. we'll show you the embellishment ideas and you can kind of get the idea in just a few minutes. but then, there's more than just the fabrics and the selvages leftover. there's fiber as another option. there is fiber leftover, as well. wow, pretty. but that would be a little hard to work with for most of us. it would be in this state. but what the ladies do in this case is they separate it into color stories and hand spin it into soft, silk yarn. i love the texture. a lot of texture a lot of color. it's a drop spindle, drop spinning. here's an image of that being done. they can do it practically anywhere. exactly. sit and create the beautiful yarns. when i first saw your baskets of fibers i just stopped and admired them

because they're so pretty to look at. thank you. the options of working with them are quite fun. they are. this is a great looking scarf. this is done with any water-soluble stabilizer. it's very colorful. it's got a lot of movement. they put the fibers on the water-soluble stabilizers twist them around. right, and because they're continuous strands of silk you kind of just swirl them around and then you can zigzag sew it onto the paper and rinse the paper away. that's what you have left. charming. a great shawl, really a wonderful accent piece. right. then this one is woven. yeah, it's woven. it's done with the same water-soluble stabilizer. the strips are pressed out and woven.

the color! my goodness. there's no color like silk. no, there certainly isn't! i can feel kind of where they're coming together where the seams are met. and then on the back you can see more readily where the stitching is. it's random stitching on the water-soluble stabilizer. then couching is a great option. couching is also a great option. this is with the spun yarn. right, the spun recycled silk sari yarn it's just couched down onto this pillow. you can zigzag over it with matching thread colors or you could use clear threads. it has many, many options. what time of year are these yarns made? is there a certain time? they're made all year. they make them all year round. it requires about 250 woman. so we help about 250 woman with this project.

it always amazes me the community of sewing and quilting. as i mentioned it makes the world small and connected. i love to connect the dots on sewing with nancy to see where things i've used are made from recycled materials that help someone, perhaps have greater self-esteem or improve their self-esteem. here's a small other option that can be made. a little clutch or handbag. your art program where you have worked together. we can find out more about your yarns. the company you work together with is? the company is leilani arts. we will be featuring those on our website. if you go to our sewing with nancy website which is: nancyzieman.com you'll find all things sewing with nancy on that site. under nancy's corner click on ken wing and you'll find a direct link to that area. ken, thank you so much

for being our guest on sewing with nancy. thank you, nancy i appreciate it. also, thank you for joining us. next time we'll be back for our second program of "quilts from the house of tula pink." bye for now. tula pink has written a fully-illustrated book entitled "quilts from the house of tula pink" that serves as the reference for this two-part series. it's $16.99 plus shipping and handling. to order the book, call 1-800-336-8373 or visit our website at: sewingwithnancy.com/2610 order item number w1582 "quilts from the house of tula pink." credit card orders only. to pay by check or money order call on the screen for details. visit nancy's website at nancyzieman.com to see additional episodes nancy's blog, and more. sewing with nancy, celebrating 30 years of sewing and quilting with nancy zieman has been brought to you by: baby lock

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>> martha: one of the main joys of sewing is that you get exactly what you want. i rarely find the right suit or dress on a store rack no matter how expensive. a simple pattern and some machine embroidery can transform fabric into an outfit with pizzazz that fits perfectly. ruffles add sweet charm, whether you stitch them to heirloom clothing, contemporary styles, or even kitchen towels. hand embroidery lends elegance anywhere you put it. welcome to my sewing room. let's explore the wonderful possibilities of embellishing. i'm glad you're here with me today. >> female announcer: funding for martha's sewing room is made possible by:

and sew beautiful magazine. [whimsical classical music] ♪ ♪ >> martha: machine stitching can absolutely take a very simple outfit and just add that touch of elegance that makes it a true designer. i love what this suit has. you can see the face-- the binding has--by the way, this is not machine embroidery. this is simply a scallop off of your sewing machine. the beautiful scallop comes down the front of these elegantly covered buttons. then look at the ruffle, how pretty and how tailored. it has the beautiful scallop around the ruffle. i cannot wait to show you this skirt. it is so cute. now, using the circular attachment, which means that your regular sewing machine will sew in a circle

we have done the circular stitching on the big circle, then done circular stitching on a small circle, cut it out with pinking shears, and put a little button. and three of these really, really designer-touch circles come down the skirt. let's see how easy it is to make this. the circular attachment--which my friend will show you in just a minute--first of all it might be a good idea just to practice to get-- and this is a beautiful little scallop stitch. all right, after you practice and get the size you want, you can make the small one like we used on the skirt. then with pinking shears simply cut around it. okay, now i'm gonna have to make the bigger scallop for the ruffle. this is a really easy, fun ruffle to make. i marked the center point. i'm going to stitch around exactly how big the sleeve bottom will be then my beautiful little scallopy stitch. and then i need to go ahead and stitch the outside too so i'm gonna use my circular attachment three times there. then i cut out the outside cut out the inside.

i've got to cut a little slit in this, so i can attach it. and then it is--has a little binding on the bottom. and then we're ready to put it on the bottom of that sleeve. i am so happy to have as my guest today my very dear friend and business colleague june mellinger. june is director of education for brother international. june, thank you for being here and welcome to the show. >> thank you so much, martha. you know, i love that blouse too, and, you know, right on the back of the blouse is a cute little touch as well. i didn't even notice it. >> martha: oh, june. >> isn't that cute? so, you know, your look is there coming and going. >> martha: how cute. >> isn't that sweet? >> martha: oh, this is sweet and elegant. >> definitely. >> martha: show us how to do this. >> well, it's really very easy. >> martha: and we like easy. >> oh, we love easy. got to be easy, because, you know what? if it's not easy, people don't want to do it. so here again, we just simply did a test, if you will, on a larger piece of fabric. and then we can put that type of a look on the fabric itself

of the skirt. and then if we wanted to have a three-dimensional embellishment, we simply did a smaller one, surrounded the edge with a pinking scissor cut, and we anchored it with a cute little button. and again, i love to use my accessories not only to accessorize and make something but also as a tool to make the job easier and better. so this circular sewing attachment can also be a tool to make a great ruffle. and what do i mean by that? well, the tool itself makes those perfectly concentric circles, and again, with that decorative hemming stitch around the middle. so it's perfectly distanced from the edge. you don't have to worry about whether or not you turn the machine at just the right distance. and then when i'm done creating this big circle here, then i simply take the circle and cut the slit in it, as you said, so that now i have a larger piece that kind of ruffles as i hold it.

you can see that. and i then attached it with-- to the skirt--to the edge of the sleeve very easily, and then i put some self-covered-- matching binding to it. let me show you how easy it is. we simply attached the circular attachment to the bed of the machine, and i anchored it in the center with this handy little pin device. and there is a ruler tool on there, so that i can move so that my circle can be shorter or wider. it's very easy to move along. >> martha: just slip it out. >> just slip it along. >> martha: wow. >> i can also attach different types of feet, so i can run cording through the foot and have a circle with a corded finish to it, or i could even put some ribbon, or i could even add some embroidery floss and make a fringe. but i simply selected a decorative stitch, any decorative stitch or a straight stitch whatever you'd like. i've selected that stitch, and then i just simply

start this machine. we'll work with both the start and stop button or your foot controller. so i have my foot controller attached. and i'm just sitting here, no hands. >> martha: look, ma, no hands. [laughs] >> and it's going to sew a perfectly formed circle for me. i don't have to worry whether or not--you know, years ago, i was on this show many years ago, where we did this technique in a wooden hoop. and while it got the job done, you still had to hold very closely to be sure that it hugged the edge of the wooden hoop. now we've automated that and look at how easy and fun that is, so i hope we got some great ideas. >> martha: i think it's so pretty too, and this is with your regular sewing-- this is not machine embroidery. >> no, no, no. this is just your regular sewing machine. >> martha: you can choose any stitches you want. >> any stitch that you would like. and some machines even have a tool in it that let you make your own stitch. but i can also combine them, so i can make another circle and i simply just cut the thread here. let's just pick another circle for your viewers. and i'm going to move this slide it along

just before we end. so that you can see, i've picked another stitch. [machine dings] and there we go. so we're just about done and while we're finishing up it's still sewing. >> martha: that is absolutely fascinating and i absolutely love what you've done with this fabulous trick on this gorgeous blouse. >> yep. >> martha: and now june has some sewing inspirations to share with you. june, these are fascinating things you've brought. what do we have here on the back of this wonderful shirt? >> well, you know, lettering is everywhere. i was coming into tuscaloosa today, and i actually saw some cars that had monogrammed windshields. i said, "okay, i'm not too far off with this." >> martha: big "a" for alabama i'm sure. >> oh, they had that too but, of course. but, you know, this is just a normal bowling shirt. we have them for business, and we have our business name on the front, and i said "you know what? what's really cool is to put something on the back." you get so many compliments

about seeing your monogramming or adding some embellishments with the arc of flowers with machine embroidery to the back. now, here's a plain look just some embroidery, and then it's a cute little potpourri. >> martha: it's a potpourri. what a wonderful present. >> but it's a nice-- very, very nice present. >> martha: you could also hang it on a hanger in your closet. >> yep, over a hanger. and again, we added the lettering, and now it becomes something special. another little potpourri. >> martha: potpourri bag. >> exactly. >> martha: such a fun way to use our embroidery machines. >> exactly. now here's kind of a reserve of this, if you will. >> martha: love it. >> we embroidered the whole background, and we left the center areas for the letters h-i-s open, and now the nubby of the towel pokes through. so that look is really cool too. >> martha: just wonderful. >> doesn't it look great? >> martha: yes, yes. >> now, we, at our company we were introducing cyrillic alphabet, and we went, "what the heck are we gonna do with the cyrillic alphabet?" but we said, "why not take those letters and make them into graphics?" and that's exactly what we did. this is some "h" and "p"s,

and that's normally the normal letters we use, but then below that, we have the cyrillic alphabet. >> martha: wonderful napkins. you can put your own initials, of course. >> of course, you could. >> martha: oh, how fascinating. >> but that looks like a great graphic, so isn't that very pretty? i just love that look. it's very--stands out. >> martha: very interesting. >> and then below this beautiful, beautiful lettering and this is a cute cover for a pillow, because you simply have the plain, flat piece of fabric with your lettering in the middle, and then we just tied it onto the pillow. and you can change it out, because if barbara doesn't come, you can change it to a "j" for "june" when i come over. >> martha: [laughs] and do you know what i love about this type of pillow with the removable cover? you can have also one for each season. >> oh, yeah. >> martha: and don't have to have 320 pillows in order to have one for every season. >> that's right, one for every season. >> martha: and as you said if barbara doesn't come, you can change it to an "m." june, these are absolutely fascinating ways to use and enjoy machine embroidery and how much fun we're having with machine embroidery. and now june has a sew quick, sew easy idea to share with you.

june, love that towel, and i think you used your circular attachment again. >> i sure did. >> martha: we love that. >> because, you know, that circular attachment, it does sew great circles, but it also is a great tool. so this towel, what a quick gift. you know, we all have to practice, so why not put our practice pieces to work? so if we practice and make some great circles with concentric decorative stitches going around the circle, if you will, why not take that piece of practice fabric that we worked with and make it into a beautiful attachment for a guest towel. what a great gift when you're going to visit someone's house. let me show you how quickly you can do something like this. again, the circular attachment lets you sew concentric circles perfectly, and it also lets you sew straight stitches. so the straight stitch gives me the guideline for cutting. then when i'm done cutting this,

i can also add some pretty bias trim to the edge. that way, that ruffle has a pretty edge to it. and here's that great bias trim that was attached to both the outer edge and the inner edge, and i also finished the piece that i cut down the center. and then i simply attached it to the towel, and now i have that really, really pretty ruffled towel. >> martha: i love it. let me see this attachment one more time. let's just see. >> well, the ruffled attach-- you know, it's so great. all i have to do is simply attach my fabric. i have a great pin there in the center for anchoring. i can pull the fabric along the ruler, so i can make the circle as wide as i would like. i have some heavier stabilizer to the bottom of the linen so that i'm sure that the fabric doesn't kind of ruffle and distort as i'm sewing,

and i'm sitting here without doing anything, and it's sewing a perfect circle. i can also use the fringe attachment and the cording attachment, so that i could feed some really pretty decorative cords through there as well. sometimes people will combine not only a decorative stitch but even lettering, so if they wanted to put a star and then the name "martha" and then another star, it would be a pretty look along the edge. so that ruffling, this circle attachment does make ruffles and it makes just wonderful looks. and a lot of times, people will take these circles that they have created, and they'll cut them in quarters and apply them to the corners of a quilt. all different kinds of looks. doesn't always have to be a circle. it can be cut and made into different things. >> martha: well, i just think your idea of the guest towel that is so easy. i just love towels. and it's so much fun to make beautiful towels for your own bathrooms and plus for-- and wouldn't it be pretty with a monogram right above that? >> oh, it would be perfect with a monogram right above it.

>> martha: oh, june, thank you so much for sharing these wonderful ideas with us today. it has been a pleasure having you here with me today. and now we have an idea for you that we are calling and sew on... i'm so happy to have as my guest today kari mecca. kari is the owner and designer of kari me away. she's the author of four books a frequent contributor to sew beautiful magazine and a teacher at the martha pullen school of art fashion in huntsville. kari, welcome to the show. >> thanks for having me, martha. >> martha: i can't wait to see that cute dress. >> we're gonna sassafras our skirts, and by that, i mean, we're going to make wavy tiers in a skirt. and what i've done is, i have a basic square-yoke dress, and i'm gonna show you how to cut your pattern piece in wavy lines and then how to make a flounce for a ruffle

at the bottom, so... >> martha: how cute. oh, me. >> with a square-yoke pattern, you would have a basic block with the armholes cut out for your skirt. and i would suggest folding it to get creases for your 1/4s and then i just drew wavy lines. you see the red? and i just cut on those lines. now, the bottom tier is a flounce, and we need to flare that. so let's show you how we do that. we're gonna take--this is our basic piece for our number 4 our flounce. and i've drawn lines every 2 to 3 inches. and then we're just simply going to cut on those lines and spread, and it makes a flounce. so once you have all of your pieces cut--and i used a different print for each tier. so there's actually five prints in this fabric: four tiers in our skirt and then one for our yoke. this is our top two tiers. and we're just simply going to

take, and we're gonna start at the edge. and we're just gonna match our edges. don't worry about the waves or the wavy lines. we're going to just simply match our edges and pin. now, it's not gonna lay flat but that's okay. see it how it puckers when you sew? but as long as your edges match, we're just gonna sew our seam. press it flat, and when you open it up, it'll lay flat. now, our next tier, we're gonna add some trim to, so we're gonna put some rickrack on it. so actually, i have stay-stitched the top edge of our tier, and i turned it under along that stay-stitch line. then i'm going to glue-baste rickrack right behind that wavy edge. and can you see, it's a finished edge. we want half of the peaks showing. and then we're just simply going to lay that on our first two tiers. see how nice that seam turned out?

then we're just going to lay this on top and then just topstitch it down. and actually, seaming it this way, you know it's gonna match perfectly. very easy to fit. quick and easy thing to do. now, once you've finished those three tiers, you're actually going to lay your pieces together. see all those pretty waves? you're gonna lay them right sides together. here's our armholes. and we're just going to sew our side seam. now, we've got one long skirt, front and back all together. and from there, we're gonna attach our flounce. now, the flounce can be a little tricky. now, i really curved this edge so i only spread these pieces maybe 1/2 inch, and then when i got over to this edge, you know, i can't help myself, because i want to see what it's gonna turn out like. this will have gentle gathers. this will be very flared. but you do need to put right sides together and we'll seam this into

one piece, and then i actually attached this, you know, you pull this out flat. here, let me show you. and we're gonna sew that to the bottom of, but can you see how a little gather versus a lot of gather or a lot of curl in my flounce? and i actually sewed these with entredeux between, so i'm gonna put my entredeux on my third tier, the bottom of my skirt piece. and i'll straight stitch and then roll and whip fold that down, and then do the same thing, and this is actually my flounce. and then we're actually going to just hem it, and our dress will be finished. it's--and then i add maybe some rickrack and trims to all those seams some buttons, some sequins and you'll have a very sassy frassy dress. >> martha: sassy, frassy dress. kari, i love it. thank you so very much. and now i have some hand embroidery to share with you.

i'm so pleased to have as my guest today my very dear friend gloria mckinnon from australia. she is an internationally known teacher and author of 16 books for 18 years, a presenter of a weekly needlework segment on the today show in australia. she is the editor of many australian quilting and embroidery magazines and a contributor to sew beautiful magazine. gloria, welcome to the show. >> thank you, martha. and thank you for inviting me. today i want to share a flower that we make with silk ribbon. and i always refer to this one as joan's flower, because joan loves making these flowers. >> martha: one of your students? >> she's one of my students, and she really enjoys them. i love them also, but she just puts them on everything. and if we look at this one here that i've completed on my work page here, that we can see the completed one, but we start out-- there's a lot of time, unfortunately, needed to get to that stage with that one. so we've got a yard,

one whole yard, of ribbon. now, this one is 13-millimeter ribbon. you can make them in 7. you can make them in 4. you can also make them in a 2-millimeter ribbon, which is-- >> martha: ooh! >> i know, but you don't do that very often; joan does, but i don't do that very often. but if you--i'll just show how we do it on here. and you just have to slowly do it, just sit and take your time. i wouldn't normally use this green. all right, i'm going to show it for you. so i would start here. now, you need to do it so that each triangle that we're doing on here is going to be the width of the ribbon, so that means if you were working on a different width, you would just lay--so if i lay this down flat here on the table for the moment and then just turn this back around on itself here, just for the minute, that we can see that each triangle on there, or each pyramid, is the width of the ribbon, of the ribbon that you're working on so that why it's important. okay, so now the other thing that's really important is that

i work over the edge of the ribbon, and this was a flower that we used to use using a bias and then also just a straight piece of fabric when we're doing baltimore album quilts. so it isn't new. i mean, it's just something that's been around for a long time. people who do baltimore album quilts are very familiar with it, but we like to use it in ribbon. now, this is the important part. if we look here, my needle now is below. it's underneath the ribbon. i have to make sure now that i come over the ribbon, and then i'm going to do another little gathering stitch up to here. and i'm just eyeballing to make sure that i've got that right width spacing there. and then i'm going to go over. now, i've always said that a good teacher doesn't show you the wrong way to do something, but i actually am going to show you just so that you know what i mean that would be wrong. if you look now, my needle is on the top of my work. if i were to continue and then do down there, that would be wrong.

it truly would not pull up the way we want. so i have to make sure that i go over. that's what i mean by "over." or if you want to say "under." so my thread is on the top. now i'm going to take my thread in underneath. now i'm back to doing it correctly from there. and so then i angled across. and it doesn't sound like much but it really is very, very important. okay, so we continue along. we do that entire yard of that. and that yard--and you'd use a matching thread. you wouldn't use the green. i just wanted to make sure that you could see. that yard, then you-- oh, i should show you. sorry, back to here. i should show you how we start to pull it up. that would be very helpful. it would make a big difference. hold the thread. don't pull the ribbon quickly. you know, just sort of pull it up to about that so that we've got-- and you can see why i certainly wouldn't use green, 'cause that's all i can see when i look at this. so that amount that i had that was sort of that long, now is only that long, so that-- >> martha: do you wait and pull

it all at the end? >> no, as you go. i do about 4 inches at a time. and then i would end up with that. and then i turn this piece underneath and stitch that down. here, you just catch that then. and again, i'd be using a matching thread. and then we would start to roll it. >> martha: okay. >> and i don't spend a lot of time on the center, because if the center doesn't work quite like i want, then that's when i put a really big bunch of beads in there for the center. and then you just think that's a really pretty flower. and so i would be working from the back, and so i would just continue to roll. and each time on the back, i would be stitching this. see, i'm just rolling now, so that you can see. maybe if i went through to the back of that, it would be helpful. we go there with that one. and so i would continue to roll. but each time, i would be catching it. rolling. look at that. already, see, without even catching the back of it, it's--i mean, self-praise is no recommendation

but this starting to look good. >> martha: it looks beautiful. >> i'm very happy with this. >> martha: show us that beautiful flower. >> and so if we just look at it even sitting there, then that becomes that, because i've anchored it on the back. and, yeah, see, that wasn't a good center, a lot of beads there. but isn't that pretty? >> martha: it is beautiful. whether it was a good center or not, the beads are beautiful. gloria, thank you so much. >> thank you, martha. >> martha: and now i'd like to share a piece from my vintage collection with you. this dress is an absolute masterpiece, and i don't have many dresses that are for the older girl. they're kind of hard to find. this dress has a beautiful gallooning, when it has two sides that are finished on the laces. this is a swiss lace. gallooning for the collar, and then beautiful mitered lace. and as you can see in the middle, we have miters more of the gallooning that runs down, and on the little midi section, two pieces of lace.

let me hold the skirt out for you to see. more beautiful lacework coming down, coming out from the gallooning. and then there are--it's-- let me hold it for you. there's a fancy band: lace, lace, lace, lace. and a pretty ruffle, which really has three rows of lace on it. the unusual thing about this ruffle is, there are three rows of lace edging, which have been stitched together to make this ruffle on the bottom of the front. the dress is just as beautiful on the back, which is so often true. the laces run across the dress and then more of the same treatment that comes down. a lot of love went into this dress, and i would absolutely love to know who made it, but i bet it was by someone who loved someone a lot. thank you so much for joining me in my sewing room today. i hope you've had a good time. and you know what? i would like to invite you to come back next time. >> announcer: to receive a newsletter written personally by martha with sewing tips and a great recipe visit our website.

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