Irina Shaar from Fiberchats asked me if she could interview me for her Fiberchats channel on YouTube. I said "Yes", and here's the result.
Irina mainly interviews knitting designers and people who hand dye knitting wool, but she's branching out and interviewing other fiber artists too now.
I hope you enjoy my interview!
Here's the link incase the embedded link above doesn't work for you:
I belong to Capital Quilters guild, and we have our exhibition coming up in August 2020. I was going to give a little talk about hanging sleeves at our next guild meeting, but New Zealand is now in a 4 week lock down for Corona Virus, so that isn't going to happen.
So I made a video instead, and here it is:
I use Jacqui Geering's method for making 4" deep hanging sleeves, and that's the method I demonstrate in my video. You can find the written instructions on Jaqui's blog here.
Some of the important things I cover in the video are:
- when and how to leave room for a hook in the centre of your quilt
- where to position the hanging sleeve on the back of the quilt
- how wide to cut the fabric for the sleeve (it's 8 1/2")
So I hope you find it useful. My regular cameraman was away, so I had to train another one. This video won't win any prizes, but apparently my audience prefer the rustic homemade style anyway!
Now it's time for the Peacock Party. What have you been up to? Feel free to link up a recent blog post and let us know what you've been up to.
Many people have asked me how I got the centre tight on the 8 pointed stars in my first video. So, I've made a third video explaining how I did it. This video also includes more demonstrations of me stitching, and the tailors' knot.
I learnt this trick for the centres from Willyne Hammerstein when I attended her class at the Australasian Quilt
Convention (AQC) in Melbourne in 2018.
This is Willyne Hammerstein's Moncarapacho quilt that was on display at AQC. Willyne hand pieced it all and hand quilted it too. This is hand piecing at its finest!
Even if you've studied my videos really closely, I'd still encourage you to attend a class with a hand piecing tutor if you can. I've attended 3 hand piecing classes, and I've learnt new tips from each of the tutors. There's nothing like sitting with an expert for a few hours or days.
The Lady Wigram quilt I hand pieced from the Bella Ruby pattern by Treehouse Textiles
There's one remaining area of hand piecing that I might cover yet - curved hand piecing. Most of us loathe curved piecing on the sewing machine, so I will show you how easy it can be when it's done by hand.
If you missed my earlier links to my hand piecing videos, here they are:
Hand Piecing 101 shows quilters how to hand piece. It also explains why we hand piece, the
options for transferring the stitching lines onto fabric, and the needles, pins and threads required.
Hand Piecing 102 shows how to make hand piecing templates from template
plastic. It explains how to get straight
edges on templates, which pens and scissors to use, and how to use the Simple
Seam Wheel.
It's so encouraging to hear that many of you are giving hand piecing a go after watching my videos. Thank you!
Well, I never expected that my video on hand piecing would be so popular! Thank you for all the positive feedback on my last post and my Hand Piecing 101 video.
I thought that most hand piecers purchased acrylic templates, but there clearly are a lot of people who make their own templates, and many of you wanted tips on how to make accurate templates.
So, my next video, Hand Piecing 102, is all about how to make your own hand piecing templates from template plastic.
You can watch it here:
Hand Piecing 102 explains how to get straight edges on templates, which pens and scissors to use, and how to use the Simple Seam Wheel by Jen Kingwell.
some hand piecing in progress - Jen Kingwell's Marshal Mystery quilt
the ring above turned into this - the purple centre isn't appliqued on yet.
Note that my block isn't perfect - there's a bit of extra fabric in there, but it will OK
As I mention in the video, my block doesn't sit perfectly flat, but it will be OK when I applique it onto the background. It's hand made so there's bound to be some imperfections. I can live with that and know for certain that it's better than I could have managed on my sewing machine.
Just like last time, if you have questions or comments, just leave a comment below or on the video, or send me an email via the box on the right hand side of my blog. Thanks for watching!
And yes, my next video will be about 8 or 10 pointed stars. I've got all the pieces ready and I just need to convince my cameraman that it's time to start filming!
Now it's time for the Peacock Party. This is where you get to share what you've been working on lately. Feel free to link up a recent blog post below:
A number of people have asked me about hand piecing recently so I made a video. It's just a little home movie - nothing flash - but I think it covers all you need to know.
It's interesting that when I grew up in the 1980's in New Zealand my mum taught me how to English Paper Piece with hexagons. It was a relaxing way to hand sew fabrics together.
But when I met Willyne Hammerstein from the Netherlands, she said that people in Europe grew up hand piecing, and they didn't understand why we insisted on wrapping fabric around papers (English Paper Piecing).
Now more and more of us who grew up English Paper Piecing are wanting to try hand piecing. We realise that English Paper Piecing large quilts is hard on our hands and we think hand piecing will be gentler. I've certainly enjoyed hand piecing the three large quilts I've made to date:
So, my little video will show you how I hand piece. The actual stitching starts at 10:30 if you want to jump ahead to the sewing part.
I hope you find it useful. If you have comments or questions just leave a comment below or on the video, or send me an email via the box on the right hand side of my blog.
Now it's time for the Peacock Party. What have you been up to this week? I've been glued to the Australian Open tennis on TV, but I have been doing quilting while I've been watching. Feel free to share a recent blog post below.
