After Quilt Market Show

The Spring Quilt Market was in Portland, Oregon this year. Last Sunday Northcott hosted an After Quilt Market Show in Richmond, Virginia. Six of my reps were in attendance, along with two regional sales managers. Reps are representatives from quilt fabric manufacturers that show new fabric lines, and older lines that are staples to the buyers at the shops in their territory. A group of reps joining forces to have a show is a fairly new thing, and it is the first time it has been done in this area. 

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The main focus is to give the small quilt shop owners and buyers an opportunity to see lines from manufacturers whose reps don’t call upon them. It is a wonderful opportunity for them to see what is available and expand their inventory. 

KIm from Hoffman in the background

One of my reps, Larry, told me twice that his wife would be there. I have heard about Julie for twelve years. I decided to take this opportunity to meet her.  We talked for about fifteen to twenty minutes.

Sarah, from Sarah’s Thimble and I went up together. We normally see each other no more than once a year at the Tidewater Quilters Guild Vendor’s Day, so this gave us a chance to get to know each other better. We hit it off and enjoyed our time on the road together.

Shirley from Northcott and Sarah from Sarah's Thimble

The new items that stood out for me were minkie in chevron, both printed and embossed, and Jenny Beyer branching out into batiks with a group of blenders!!! That was quite a surprise!!

I had lunch with two small shop owners and their husbands. One of them has shopped with us. One purchased her shop last year and has taken it from one hundred bolts to four hundred. I think the other one said her shop is a house of 1,400 square feet including the kitchen. Neither of them knew all of the reps. I found it interesting that one owner didn’t intend to introduce herself and look over the lines from the ones she didn’t know. I tried to encourage her to do so, but she didn’t change her mind. A rep who lives further north, might come down as far as Virginia, and one who lives in the south, might come up as far as Virginia. Therefore a buyer from Maryland probably wouldn’t have a rep that lives in South Carolina. There were shop owners there from as far away as Maryland and Georgia. I knew all of the reps and one of the regional sales managers. I had heard about the other sales manager and met him while I was there.

I loved seeing all of my reps in one room. I had a great time.

Blocking the Parallelogram

This is my second effort for this lady. Both have been badly out of square. She told me the local needlework shop refused to touch the first one. I don't blame them.

Blocking ~
Before blocking the first time, the needlework was skewed 3" top to bottom on the left side and 3-1/2" on the right side.

Prior to Blocking
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When working with a project as out of whack as this one is, I mist it liberally with my plant mister, let it set for a while and repeat three to four times letting it absorb some moisture and relax before trying to persuade the canvas into a better shape. The goal is 90 degree angles at the corners and sides parallel to each other.

In preparation for blocking, I normally mist the front and back well with my plant mister and let the fibers relax for thirty minutes.Since this project will take more persuasion, I mist it three times, hoping it will absorb more moisture and relax further.

I then anchor the straightest edge along a straight line on my dressmakers board.  Place the T-pins so they are angled away from the needlework.

This one lines up with a straight line along both the top and bottom edges. It is greatly distorted towards the right in the top left and bottom right corners. Therefore it needs to move to the left. I smoothed the top edge with my clean hands and pinned it along a straight line.

Next I coax the needlework into something more closely resembling a square by working with it. Firmly brushing my hands over the face of the design. By tugging, not yanking, evenly and smoothly on the opposite side and particularly on the bottom left corner.

As the fabric shifts and straightens somewhat, I repin, working with it until I am satisfied that it has given me all it is capable of without forcing it into square.

After the first blocking, it was skewed 1-1/2" on the left about 1-3/4" on the right.

First Blocking

However the second blocking was disappointing. It resulted in almost no improvement 1-1/2" on the left and 1-1/4" on the right.

The canvas was worked with a wool tapestry yarn which recommends dry cleaning. With negligible improvement from the second blocking I made the difficult decision to dunk it, not soak, dunk it in water, let it relax for several minutes and then block it. Freed from the restrictive board, I expected it to distort, but how much? As it relaxed from the warm bath, it snapped back into it's original skew on the left of 3" and stayed at 1-1/2" on the right!

Prior to Third Blocking

I put a sheet of food wrap down on my board to prevent the cardboard from soaking up the water. Looking at it, I have very little hope of achieving my goal. I simply analyzed it for several minutes.

I found the half way point along the bottom edge and worked to line it up as much as possible with the mid-way along the top edge. This time I'm taking off the gloves and fighting dirty. I can't afford to let the wool shrink as it dries out of shape. Soooo....it's time to teach it who is boss.  As I deliberately drag my hand over the surface to move it in the direction it needs to shift, I remember the customer who was concerned over my finger oils on a needlework project I touched when she asked for my advice. I manipulated it, I pinned it, I looked at it critically. The right side was the next one willing to cooperated to some extent. I pinned it in a straight line using a ruler to see how far off the bottom corner was now. Only 1/4" ! Okay, the first little success.

I continued dragging my hands over it, sometimes both at the same time, molding it as I would a clay sculpture. Pinned, the bottom had always been fairly straight, only 1" off. I ignored it and concentrated on the left side, which was showing some improvement. Unpinned it and worked it again. Pinned, critiqued it, unpinned the right side and tweaked. Pinned one final time. It takes the entire container of T-pins.

Part Way through Placing T-Pins on Third and Final Blocking.
Compare this photo to the first one to see the change in shape. Huge!

It is no more than 3/8" off and that is only the highly warped top left and bottom right corners. I am satisfied. I worked with it an hour and a half this session.


I anchored it to the board every inch all of the way around the canvas and let it sit for three days to make absolutely certain it was thoroughly dry before I unpinned it and started working with it for construction. Peeling up the food wrap, I found that a small amount of water did leak through around three of the T-pins.

Checking it with my large square, it is 5/8" off along the top left and bottom right sides, 3/8" off on the bottom and 3/16" off on the top. Considering it started this journey at 3-1/2" off on the sides, I am satisfied. It is now possible to create a pillow cover with it.

Needlework Parallelogram

My next Show and Tell will be the blocking of this piece of needlework, followed by the construction of a throw pillow.

The top edge of the worked cream border is lying along a straight line. Remembering a math class, I dubbed it "the needlework parallelogram". It's off 3" top to bottom on the left edge and 3'1/2" along the right edge! This is going to be a challenge.

Mainsail Cover

It's spring and my husband's thoughts are turning to boat maintenance. He can spend hours at the marina happily working on our little sailboat. Recently he brought home the mainsail cover for modification. It looks nice, however I am not impressed with the shape or construction.

I'll spare you a discussion on the shape and only discuss the fastening here. The person who made it used small pieces of velcro which she sewed on so that the wrong side of the fabric faced itself, think of an upside down U with a piece of velcro on both inside surfaces of the opening.

 It would have been stronger if she had positioned the velcro so that the cover overlapped when the velcro was fastened, turning the U into a closed O. For some strange reason the mainsail doesn't collapse in the perfect folds shown in a manufacturers brochure. I doubt if they ever do in real life conditions. Imagine lining up 2" long pieces of velcro placed every twelve inches in a variety of weather conditions. We spent last year budging the sail cover into place because it doesn't fit well and we didn't trust to stay closed in strong winds.

We decided to use ties to keep the cover in place. Our choice was 1" wide woven polyester. The product is known as strapping, webbing and belting depending upon the manufacturer.

I made the mistake of waiting until Saturday night when the cover was home, discussing where we wanted the strapping and how long the pieces were to be and doing a little math, rather than guesstimating and purchasing 18 yards at work. I realized it was a mistake when I called around on Sunday morning and discovered the shop where I work has by FAR the best price of any place I checked. The next best price was West Marine. I headed there on Sunday morning, procured it and spent a few hours adding straps of increasing length to the edges of the sail cover.

I used the same chain piecing technique employed by quilters to finish the ends of the webbing. Each is folded over once and stitched into place with three lines of stitching (forward, reverse, forward). Then a liquid to keep the ends from fraying.

Each piece of strapping is sewn onto the doubled hem of the cover with a sturdy X boxed in with a square.
We have yet to try it out. I'll add pictures when we do. I am expecting a big improvement in the ease with which we secure the mainsail (at least for this wimp).

Here is the kitten picture. He is incapable of staying away from anything with strings attached.

My Orchids

A few weeks ago I gave away an orchid. 

Going to a new home with a new bloom spike and fertilizer

A previous blooming

It was the first orchid for the girl it went to, so I decided she could use some guidance. I certainly would have appreciated it with my first orchid.  I wrote down all of the bits of knowledge that I have gleaned over the past few years and organized it alphabetically by subject.

I am told without pictures the paper was seven pages when printed and I've added to it since! So I know more than I realized, which is always a nice surprise.

Putting my orchid page together took much MUCH longer than I would have guessed. hmmm...I really should illustrate this term. Look through all of my pictures. Well guess what? I've never taken a picture of a node or a crown or a _____. Out comes the camera. Download to laptop. hmmm...Adjust lighting. Download. Oh good, that worked! PhotoShop. Upload to blog. Caption.

Click on the tab at top to be taken to my orchid page and left click on the pictures for a larger image.

Overcoming Little Dilemmas for Blog Pictures

My work table is in front of a window, which gives a nice bright light for working, however the placement causes all pictures to be back lit and dark. So for photo sessions, I close the curtains and turn on my work light which casts a bright reflections; usually on the ruler. Then I adjust positioning of the project, ruler and lamp to minimize the affect. And since the work table is the right height for cutting it’s too high for good pictures, so I bring in a dining room chair to stand on so I can look down on my subject for the picture. I regret that the project isn't nicely squares to the edge of the picture in the tutorials. Perhaps I should put everything on the floor. I used to be a photographer for my college yearbook, but I’m not a pro. I take the best snapshots for you that I can and then I tweak them - lighten, sharpen, crop, label.

Back lit even though the curtains are closed, cropped

Lighting tweaked, cropped

If I want to write a post or a tutorial on something I am not currently working on, I rummage through my fabric, threads, notions, tools for what I need. For the Binding Tutorial pictures my favorite rotary cutter was at work, so I dug out my old fav and put a nice fresh blade in it. 

Taking a series of illustrative pictures is a very slow process. Do one or if you're lucky two things, stop, take a picture, do one more thing, stop, picture time...repeat...repeat. 

Every little phase of creating a tutorial is time consuming. 

I really do hope that when you read a blog with articles and illustrations that you feel is well done and helpful, that you will take the time to encourage the writer by leaving a comment. Sometimes bloggers feel as though they are talking to a vacuum  where no one listens, no one cares, no one is helped along their personal path because of what they read in the writers blog.

My Two Cents,

Shilo

Chair Slings x 3

My latest sewing project is three sets of director's chair slings. Each set is three slings; two for the seat and one for the back. Plus one sling with "bais" tape for a large wooden deck chair. I say "bias" because the person who wanted them cut the strips and folded them appropriately; however they weren't cut on the bias.

Handing them to me already made was done looking to save me time. It did, however they weren't folded evenly and the strips were too short and needed to be sewn end to end. It took me 30 minutes just to cut off all of the long dangling threads!

I also needed to rip out the bias tape on both ends of the original sling which held a sheet of thin foam to pad the wooden boards and make it more comfortable.

I'm so proud of my sewing machine. It chugged through most of the multiple layers with no problem, only balking at the very thickest part. It did go through a portion of it, which consisted of two layers of grill cover, eight layers of plain weave cotton home dec fabric, and one layer of thin foam! Yikes!

This is a picture of the original director's chair slings.

Here are the new ones

And here is my absolutely necessary teenage kitten helper.