Quilting with Specialty Fabrics

Transcription

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2 Welcome to the Handi Quilter Education Webinar January 14, 2016 Quilting with Specialty Fabrics This Webinar is being recorded. You will find it on the Education tab at HandiQuilter.com While you re waiting for the Webinar to begin, make sure your computer speakers are on, so you will be able to hear us.

3 To find a Handi Quilter retailer near you to purchase fabric and Handi Quilter supplies go to:

4 Your presenters today are: Vicki Hoth Handi Quilter Studio Educator Marie Eldredge Handi Quilter Studio Educator Cheryl Duncan Handi Quilter Studio Educator 4

5 This Webinar is being recorded. You will find it on the Education tab at HandiQuilter.com/webinar

6 Fleece Painted fabrics Vintage Linens Silk Towels Plastic

7 Cuddle or plush fabric Vinyl Leather Printed fabric

8 Quilting on Burlap

9 Quilting on Burlap

10 Quilting on Towels

11 Quilting on Towels Stitch design in band of towel. Pin the hem of the towel to backing leader and take-up leader.

12 Quilting on Towels Make towels for any Holiday! Wouldn t these red towels look amazing with white hearts across the band for Valentines Day!

13 Quilting on Plastic Party Favors Shower Curtain

14 Quilting on Plastic

15 Quilting on Plastic Needle size: match with the thread size Thread: any thread you care to use Weight of plastic: any weight (shower curtains are great to use Tip: Plastic is unforgiving. If you make a mistake in stitching, the needle holes remain in the plastic.

16 Jennifer Day

17 Information courtesy of Jennifer Day Jennifer Quilts on an HQ Sweet Sixteen

18 Information courtesy of Jennifer Day What type of fabric does Jennifer use for her quilted portraits? Jennifer uses a photograph printed on fabric as the basis for her art. The fabric is either Belgian linen or cotton broadcloth. Where does she get it printed? Printable fabric is available at quilt stores at 8 ½ x 11 inch format or can be ordered as a 13 x 19 size that can be printed on home computers. She also orders rolls up to 44 wide from Jacquard Inkjet Fabrics. The large format must be printed at a professional print shop. What threads do you prefer? Jennifer prefers Gütermann Mara threads because it is a polyester thread with no sheen. There are 700 colors of threads in the line. This is important to Jennifer because she is looking for minute gradations in color to achieve a realist finished product.

19 Information courtesy of Jennifer Day What needles does Jennifer use? Sharps What does she do to prepare the fabric? There is no preparation. Just print the picture. What batting does she use? Jennifer says any batting will work because she uses 15 oz. canvas as a stabilizer to her thread painting. What backing does Jennifer use? Plain cotton fabric Does she block her quilts? Only if there is small rippling due to thread painting. How does she bind her quilts? French fold or facing? French fold

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21 Quilting on Leather Cathy Wiggins

22 Cathy uses two different methods to transfer designs on leather. 1. Templates Information courtesy of Cathy Wiggins Trace around templates using a marking tool. Tandy LEATHER

23 2. Use white transfer paper Draw design on template plastic Use a stylus to draw design Information courtesy of Cathy Wiggins

24 Information courtesy of Cathy Wiggins What thread does Cathy use? With the right leather, you can use the same needle/thread combination you use with a cotton top. What weight of leather does she use? You want leather weight of 2.0 oz. or less. What does Cathy prefer for batting? You can use the same batting you use for a cotton top. However, since leather can be stiff, you will need batting with body to better show off your quilting. Layering batting is useful. Tips from Cathy: Given the thickness of the leather and multiple layers of batting, you may need to raise your hopping foot. Quilting through leather causes friction and the needle will get hot. You need to slow down. Leather is going to stretch so you should stabilize the entire piece before doing any detail work.

25 Needles for leather quilting Ball point What needles does Cathy prefer? Some leathers are softer than others and for the very soft, you re going to want to use a leather needle or Sharp. If you use a Universal needle it may cause a tear running from needle hole to needle hole. Sharp point Do not use on leather Information courtesy of Cathy Wiggins

26 Cathie use 80/20 batting and cotton fabric for the backing fabric Information courtesy of Cathy Wiggins

27 Information courtesy of Cathy Wiggins

28 Quilting on Silk Margaret Solomon Gunn

29 Quilting on Silk

30 Quilting on Silk Information courtesy of Margaret Solomon Gunn Tips: 1. Stabilizing: When piecing silk, stabilize the fabric with a fusible tricot knit interfacing such as Pellon FusiKnit. 2. Starch: Starch helps to stabilize the silk fabric and will wash out after. 3. Marking: Margaret uses wash-out blue pen such as Clover or Marvy or an air erase pen if quilting within 24 hours. She finds that fine tipped markers can be tricky in marking because it tends to snag the silk. 4. Needles: Sharp size 18 with 40 wt thread or match up needle with appropriate size of thread. 5. Thread: what ever your heart desires! 6. Batting: One layer of Cotton/Poly and one layer of wool 7. Binding: Interface the silk binding if you are not cutting it on the bias. 8. Applique: Margaret prefers to turn under the edges using freezer paper templates. 9. To test silk for colorfast place in hot water before piecing. 10. Blocking: Place in bathtub to wash away markings. Do not dry in dryer. 11. If colors run: Soak in bathtub with ¼ cup Dawn dishwashing soap and hot, hot, hot water for hours.

31 Quilting on Silk

32 Quilting on Fleece

33 Quilting on Fleece Information courtesy of Angela Walters Making a quilt out of fleece adds a special touch, it seems to make it softer and oh-so-warm! When quilting this quilt, I didn t use a different needle or thread, I just used the same stuff I normally do. Some quilters prefer to not use batting when making a quilt out of fleece, but I think that batting adds stability to a quilt. This is especially the case when using cotton for the top and fleece for the back. When loading a quilt with fleece backing on a longarm, make sure that you don t tighten it too much. The stretchiness of the fleece will distort the quilt top once you take it off of the longarm. Trust me, I speak from personal experience!!

34 Quilting on Cuddle or plush fabrics

35 Quilting on Cuddle or plush fabrics

36 Quilting on Cuddle or plush fabrics Tips for quilting on Cuddle Fabrics If you are sewing a blanket with Cuddle and cotton, keep the heat on low even if ironing on the cotton side to prevent any damage to the Cuddle fabric. Too much heat can ruin any dots or other embossing on the fabric. Prewash any fabrics being sewn with Cuddle Fabrics. Cuddle fabric will not shrink, so does not need to be prewashed, but always prewash all other fabrics being used in the project to prevent any shrinking problems with your finished project. Pay attention to the nap of Cuddle Fabric. Make sure the nap is laying the direction you want before cutting or quilting. Quilting stitches tend to disappear in the plush fabric. If you are hoping to make a colorful quilted statement on the back, you want to consider a different fabric for the back. Cuddle Fabric hides bad tension issues because of the plushness of the fabric. But.. who wants bad tension? You can quilt Cuddle Fabric with batting or without. Batting does help give more structure or body to the quilt. Use a walking foot if you are quilting on domestic machine, and use lots of pins to keep the fabrics stable.

37 Quilting on Cuddle or plush fabrics How do I get the plush fabric to stop pulling through the stitching holes? Good question! When using a dark plush backing and a light colored quilting thread and it tends to pulls some of the plush forward to the top, there are a few changes you could make. Make a new decision on thread color. Match thread color to the back fabric. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn t. Choose to change color of plush fabric. Try changing to a smaller needle. Try using polyester thread such as Glide or Magnifico.

38 Quilting on Cuddle or plush fabrics Which way do I load the stretchy fabric? Some quilters load the plush fabric so that the selvage is perpendicular to the poles. This means to pin the cut edge (crosswise-grain edges) of the backing fabric to the top and back poles. Other quilters load the plush fabric so that you pin to the selvage. With this technique you need to be careful when advancing the quilt. Release the backing pole ratchet and lessen the tension of the fabric so that when you advance the take-up pole the plush fabric will not stretch.

39 Quilting on Vintage Kelly Cline

40 Quilting on Vintage What size needles does Kelly use? Kelly uses ballpoint needles, size 14 or 16 for fine fabric. She says that because the vintage linen are so fragile the ballpoint spreads the fibers instead of piercing the fibers like a sharp needle would. What threads does she use? Glide/poly threads; She winds her own bobbins, but says you could use the Fil-Tec or Bottom Line pre-wound bobbins. What batting? Kelly uses two layers of batting. One layer 80/20 and one layer wool to give the trapunto look. What fabrics does Kelly use behind the vintage piece? Silk, satin, or shiny costume-like fabrics How does she clean the vintage pieces? She uses Retro Clean to clean stains and for mold/mildew she uses 1 part ammonia (or more) and 5 parts water. She says DO NOT USE BLEACH!!

41 Quilting on Vintage What does Kelly use to mark her quilts? Kelly uses a blue washable marker. She only places registration dots on her quilt. What backing fabric does she use? Her question back to me was, What is the end use? Other tips from Kelly: If you are quilting your vintage piece on a long arm frame, use the frame to help square up the quilt. Kelly says she starches the vintage piece to fix wonky edges. Kelly says she sets her stitch length to a short stitch length such as 16 SPI.

42 Quilting on Vintage Kelly says, The layering of this piece is backing, a layer of wool batting, satin and linen. I always like something special to show through the cutwork. I usually don t mark on my linens, but I had to for this pattern. I created a grid of 1/2 squares with a purple air erase pen.

43 Quilting on Vintage This gives you an idea of scale. After I took it off the frame, I used a curved scissor to trim as close to the stitch line, on the back, as possible.

44 Quilting on Vintage The linen is only 6 x 12 Quilted on an HQ Fusion

45 Quilting on Vinyl Kimmy Brunner Kimmy quilts on an HQ Avante and an HQ Infinity Information courtesy of Kimmy Brunner

46 Quilting on Vinyl Some things to keep in mind Vinyl can be found for a very low price if you look in the remnant section at stores. I recently bought quite a large piece for less than $9.00 and got more than enough vinyl for 2 large wall hangings and several pillow covers. However, remember that cheap isn t always good; make sure the vinyl is sturdy enough to do what you want it to do. Needle holes will not close up like they do when you re working with fabric. For this reason, make sure you know where you re going to stitch before you hit the gas as you won t be able to invisibly remove stitches. I do not make any changes to my machine when working with vinyl or leather. Over the years I have used my Avante to quilt numerous specialty fabrics and have found that a normal size 20 needle will slip right through the vinyl/leather and create beautiful stitches. It s just like quilting fabric, is not difficult at all, and is super fun. You load it the same way, tension it the same way, quilt it the same way, but you get spectacular results! When choosing batting, I like to use something that s got enough oomph to provide good support. Remember, these types of fabric are heavier than cotton fabric, so you need to use something that can hold it s own. I like an 80/20 or 70/30 blend.

47 Quilting on Vinyl Think about using your thread as a partner to help you make a bold impact on your bold fabric choice. Fine threads will be great for background work, but for your design work you ll want to choose something that will stand out and say hello. I chose to use primarily Glide threads on this piece, as they really hold their own against the show-off vinyl.

48 Quilting on Vinyl If you d like to add some embroidery work to your vinyl but your embroidery machine can t handle the thicker fabric, remember that you can always stitch out your design on chiffon and applique it into place using your longarm. On this piece, I stitched the pumpkin out on a big square of chiffon, used my chalk to figure out how big I wanted the pumpkin medallion to be

49 Quilting on Vinyl and just stitched it into place using my Avante and a couple of circle templates. Yay!

50 Quilting on Vinyl A little bit of purple thread to contrast with the orange pumpkin makes it stand out even more. The soft chiffon contrasts nicely with the shiny vinyl, and makes it all more interesting. Contrast is always your friend when it comes to design work, especially when working with specialty fabrics.

51 Quilting on Vinyl Chalk works great to mark vinyl. Easy on, easy off. I marked this quilt with a combination of plain white chalkboard chalk and a pearl grey marking pencil. Marks were quickly and easily removed with a slightly damp cloth.

52 Quilting on Vinyl When I m planning the more intricate parts of my design, I first draw out my area on paper so I can do the fine tuning with paper and pencil. For the little batty border, I created an area on paper that was exactly the same size and shape as the area on my quilt, and figured out how my bats should look and where the marks needed to be so I could easily recreate the design when stitching.

53 Quilting on Vinyl then, using the paper design as a guide, I marked my vinyl

54 Quilting on Vinyl and then I stitched my design! Because the marks on the paper were correct, the marks on my quilt were also correct and I could stitch fearlessly knowing that my design would be right the first time. (remember, those needle holes don t close up so you definitely want to stitch once and done. In this case, time spent planning the design and making sure it s perfect is time well spent.)

55 Quilting on Vinyl I then enhanced my base design with colored threads to create additional drama. The vinyl itself is so dramatic that I like to really go overboard in making sure that my quilting is equal to the task of living on this quilt. If you re going to use a fabric with this much personality, you can t go all namby-pamby on the quilting!

56 Quilting on Vinyl Pay attention to the details when working with specialty fabrics. They matter. A lot. A quilt made from vinyl is a quilt that s meant to be looked at, and looked at closely, so you should be willing to take your time with the little things. For example, if you look at the photo on the left, you ll see that I ve got a bit of a raggedy edge to that green backfill. I stitched the little border in the ditch (SID) with black thread and filled it with green stippling. The edge of the stippling is uneven and it shows big time. In the photo on the right, I came back in with my green thread and did green SID atop the black SID to clean up that ragged line. See how crisp the edge looks now? That s what I mean when I say pay attention to the details

57 Quilting on Vinyl Dramatic design work plus dramatic fabric makes for a really fun project!

58 Quilting on Vinyl Give yourself permission to have some fun. Our machines can handle these fabrics so easily, it s a shame not to try out something new and crazy! Information courtesy of Kimmy Brunner

59 Quilting on Painted Fabrics Helen Godden

60 Quilting on Painted Fabrics Information courtesy of Helen Godden Helen Godden Dye colors a surface but is still transparent as it sinks into the fibers. Paint actually covers the surface, sitting on top of the fabric so it adds weight and stiffness and like a plastic layer of appliqué on top of the fabric. Then I want to stitch thru it.

61 Quilting on Painted Fabrics When the needle goes thru just fabric, the hole created gradually closes back over and self heals as the threads move a little. On a painted surface, the hole made by every stitch will STAY as a hole. The painted fabric will not self heal. This fact that the needle hole does not disappear means a few things. 1. You need a sharp needle that is the right size for the thread you chose but also not so big that it leaves craters. Hopefully your thread will fill the hole created. 2. Each stitch does not bed down into the fabric as in normal quilting. The paint layer means the stitch will stay as a straight stitch on top of the surface and look different to normal quilting. You may think your tension is out but it is just the look of a stitch over paint.

62 Quilting on Painted Fabrics Helen quilts on an HQ Sweet Sixteen 3. If after some quilting you have a desire to unpick.don T. The black holes will still be there even if you overpaint or rub the fabric or iron it or..holes are Holes. 4. Chose paint that the manufacturer says on the label is suitable for fabric. I have used some of my Jo Sonja stash at times for color variation. It paints on fine and looks great. Once heavily quilted and over time, the plastic nature of Jo Sonja paint is such that a lot of stitching actually perforates the fabric, as the fabric is now acting like plastic and it can actually rip and split the fabric. You could try some fabric media mixed in the paint to help but it is still not ideal for fabric. I prefer Lumiere or Neopaque by Jacquard.

63 Quilting on Painted Fabrics Helen Godden

64 Quilting on Painted Fabrics Helen Godden

65 Quilting on Painted Fabrics Helen Godden

66 Quilting on Painted Fabrics Helen Godden

67 To find a Handi Quilter retailer near you to purchase fabric and Handi Quilter supplies go to:

68 Thanks for joining us today. Can you remember all of this? You don t have to. A copy of this webinar will be on the HandiQuilter.com website under the Education tab. Just click on Webinars. The next Education Webinar will be offered February 11, :00 p.m. Eastern Time 12:00 p.m. Central Time 11:00 a.m. Mountain Time 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time