Monday’s Melange #2

Posted by Nadine

I’m back in my Bookmarks folder today to bring you another Melange on this happy Monday. I think I’ll spend some more time in the quilting section:

Embroidery Font Shop—This is a great source for pre-digitized fonts for all your embroidery projects. I have a few fonts available in my Bernina software, but when I need more, I know where to go. Great pictures, a fast loading site and delivery by download makes purchasing easy!

Electric Quilt Software–I’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating (especially since I keep forgetting about it myself!). If you have Electric Quilt Software already, it’s worth a monthly trip back to the site to grab the free fabrics of the month. These are palettes of fabrics that you can import into Electric Quilt to use on your quilts when you’re designing. And something new I just found: EQ6 Show, an add-on slideshow viewer for your projects! There’s also an EQ5 version of the viewer. Much more awaits at the site, including free Block of the Month Clubs, and it doesn’t seem like you even need EQ for those! Continue reading →

Monday’s Melange

Posted by Nadine

I was digging around in my browser bookmarks the other day, and thinking how badly they need to be organized. I have hundreds (maybe thousands??) of bookmarks, some of which probably date back to the beginning of my serious Internet usage more than 10 years ago. I’ve been carting these bookmarks around from computer to computer, and from browser to browser for all these years. After all, if whatever it is was important enough to bookmark once, it must be important to save it, right? Well, maybe. Yes, I’m just as much of a packrat on the computer as I am in the rest of my cluttered life. Inside my Firefox Bookmarks folder, I even have folder of Internet Explorer Bookmarks from the time of my great sickness back when I thought IE was the only browser in existence. (Psst! Get Firefox!)

I’ve decided to plow through a few of these sites weekly with the intent to cull and organize, so that hopefully when I open my bookmarks folder, it doesn’t look like this—Eeeewww:

And guess what? I’m going to share a few with you every week as Monday’s Melange! This week, I’ll start with some (related to) quilting links, since that is my “thing,” but obviously not all of my bookmarks pertain to quilting, since I do have a life outside my studio (an unfortunate fact, sometimes!). As I’m sure that my readers have that kind of “life outside the quilting” thing going on too, I figure that there might be something of interest in the “non-quilting” bookmarks, even for quilters.

Without further ado, here is the Melange on this happy Monday:

San Francisco Stitch Company—Okay, this is not a bookmark from years ago, this is a very recent addition, like from just yesterday. Their machine embroidery designs are really beautiful and got my creativity totally spinning off the map, and the design packs are downloadable and reasonably priced, too. I found this machine embroidery design company via Irene at Sunimp. She’s made a beautiful quilt (top?) with some embroidered medallions from San Francisco Stitch Company. Love her blog, too!

Treadleart—Heh, I’m already seeing that this bookmark exercise will probably cost some $$ as I rediscover things I’d forgotten about! Treadleart is a fine example. They carry Shisha mirrors (the page includes a great explanation of the different types of mirrors), made popular in the quilting world by Ted Storm, as far as I know. Treadleart also has Tidy Totes which you can buy already made up in various fabrics, or they have the kits including the pattern and kit refills to make your own. I’ve always wanted one of these, but I’ve never run across the pattern anywhere, and maybe now I’ll just buy one ready-made. Lots of other cool stuff awaits at Treadleart, but my only complaint would be a lack of a shopping cart system for online shopping. I could put on my Web developer hat and fix that for them… Continue reading →

Essential Tools for Beginning Quilters

Posted by Nadine

Want to start quilting? When I started quilting in around 1990, I had no idea that it would take over my life like it has, so I wanted to buy as few expensive quilting supplies as possible to get started. The goal is to strike the balance between usability, quality and expense. Looking back, I’m not sure I bought the right things, but there wasn’t anyone around to tell me what the bare minimum really was. If you’re in that situation (or want to be in that situation, Heaven help you), here’s a list of essentials to get started:

A sewing machine. If you don’t have one, maybe you can borrow one from a friend or relative. Do make sure that it has been serviced recently, and that you can set it to sew an accurate 1/4″ seam.
A rotary cutter. When you choose a rotary cutter, try not to go for the cheapest thing just to get by. The medium 45mm size is the best choice and there are many choices available now that have ergonomic handles as well. If quilting doesn’t turn out to be your “thing,” rotary cutters are always handy to have around for paper trimming and other crafty tasks.
A ruler for rotary cutting. There are so many different types and sizes of rulers around these days that it’s really hard to know which one to choose. I started with a 6″ x 12″ Omnigrid ruler and it’s still the size I use the most on a daily basis. That being said, if you don’t have much experience you have with fabrics and don’t know much about grainlines and such, you might consider purchasing the 6″ x 24″ size since it’s sometimes harder for beginners to cut strips perfectly with the 6″ x 12″ size since the fabric must be folded more times to fit the ruler. Omnigrid rulers are marked in yellow and black, and I’ve never really had any issues seeing the markings when cutting fabrics. Other choices abound, and when shopping, consider testing the visibility of different rulers against various fabrics.
A mat to use with the rotary cutter and the ruler. Look for a “self-healing” mat made to work with rotary cutters. Choose a mat that’s bigger than your ruler, and keep in mind that when it’s time to cut borders for your quilt, a smaller mat may make the task more difficult. I started out with a 12″ x 18″ mat, and that was okay until I started making bigger quilts and then things got hairy and I decided to purchase a 24″ x 36″ mat. Gridlines on the mat are not necessary (in fact, I often recommend that beginners turn gridded mats over so that the gridlines are not there to confuse them) but most mats do come with one side marked with a grid. I’ve always used green mats and only ever had visibility issues when using a fabric that’s very similar in color to the mat. There’s nothing to be done about that really, because no matter what color your mat is, at some point you’ll be using a fabric that same color. Good lighting is the solution to that one.

Continue reading →

Copyright law and the quilter

Posted by Nadine

I’ve been mulling over the issues of copyright as it relates to quilting in my mind lately. In recent years, there have been some pretty loud rumblings in the quilt world about this issue, as more and more quilters, artists, designers and companies become aware of the law. To me, most of the interpretation of copyright law has been pretty self explanatory and logical really, at least for my purposes. It’s the oft repeated “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” thing. When you purchase a quilt pattern or book you’ve purchased the right to make that project for personal use, or as gifts. Selling the project is generally not allowed, though in some cases, designers have expressly granted permission to make a certain number of projects to sell (sometimes up to ten) for profit at craft fairs and shows.

All that being said, I really feel that if I have made a quilt from a pattern in a book, and I want to sell that quilt, I should be able give credit to the designer and price the work accordingly, taking into account only the time and materials I put into the project. In other words, I would be charging for my time and materials, not for the originality of the design itself. If I sell a quilt that is my own design, I would charge for my time, the materials, and for the originality of the design as well. I would happily grant that privilege to anyone who purchased one of my patterns as well. That is not what the law says, though, so that’s not what we are allowed to do.

Recently I’ve seen more and more questions and issues about showing quilts made from commercial copyrighted patterns. This is where it gets sticky and mean sometimes, I think, Continue reading →

Free quilt patterns galore!

Posted by Nadine

I was surfing the web today (feeling a bit ill, so not doing much else really) and found this absolutely wonderful site: FreeQuilt.com. It’s a collection of links to other quilting and sewing sites around the Internet with free patterns for download. In other words, mega legwork already done by someone else, and nothing to do but click and enjoy! I love all the cat quilts that can be found there, but I’d already found another that isn’t listed there: Cats in the Attic at Pam Bono Designs (you have to register there to download the pattern). This one might even make good placemats, if you just make the four blocks singly instead of putting them together into one quilt.

So now I’ve got ideas for more quilts! This is what happens when your body doesn’t feel like doing much, I guess. Your brain and creativity start up, and then you’re in trouble when you do feel better!

Quiltfest at Patchcom in Schönaich

Posted by Nadine

Yesterday I visited the Quiltfest at Birgit Klein’s Patchcom shop in Schönaich, just a few towns over from where I live in Gerlingen. It was the 6th Annual Quiltfest, and a wonderful visit it was! There were lovely quilts on display, demos and small workshops on fabric flowers, small bags and other great techniques, sewing machines for sale, and of course, FABRIC on sale as well. Birgit asked me to bring the Stars In My Hand quilt to show, so it had a nice day out of it’s sack where it normally lives right now between shows.

If you couldn’t make it to the Quiltfest, or don’t live near Stuttgart, check out the Patchcom website, where you can see pictures from the 2005 Quiltfest, download a pattern for Mrs. Patchcom by Ula Lenz, and of course, order luscious fabrics and supplies online. The Patchcom Quiltfest is definitely on my show calendar for next year.