"tips and tutorials"

Toque Block Swap

Improvisational sewn toque quilt blocks in a snowy spruce tree

Have you heard about the Toque Block Swap?

It’s a fun, playful swap that came out of the Quilters’ Playcation Adventure Sewalong. I made a toque block one week and by the end of our weekly live I had committed to organizing a swap!

Anyone can sign up. You can make 1 block or you can make 20, it’s up to you. Mail your blocks to me, I will swap your blocks for the same number made by other participants and send them back to you. The tutorial to make the block is here, but feel free to individualize things however you like.

Sign up now, deadline for mailing blocks is January 10, so I hopefully receive them all by January 20, 2023. (So you can get through the holiday season without any sewing stress from this, and maybe even relieve some stress by playing.) Then my plan is to get all swapped blocks mailed out by the end of the month.

Sign up here.

Label Your Quilts!

The corners of three quilts, from the back, with hand written labels

Everyone has a different approach to labelling a quilt. Some don’t do it at all, others design and make embroidered labels. Some simply sign it with a marker, others screen print fabric and make it part of the back. Some just add a ‘signature’ bit of piecing or binding, others have custom labels made and sew them in. Truth be told, there is no right or wrong way to do it. What is most important is that you put your name to the work.

For one, be proud of the work you did. You made that! Put your name to it, on it, in it.

Secondly, give your quilt the history to live beyond you.

There are various schools of thought about what should be included on a quilt label. Here is what I think should be on it:

  • Your name

  • Date the quilt was made/finished

  • Material make up

Anything else is just gravy. And gravy is good, so I include other things. I like to name my quilts so that is always there. If there is a specific inspiration or starting point, then that gets included. If I used a pattern I acknowledge it. If it is a gift, I like to put the recipients name on there too (and wedding/birth date if it is for that.)

Your name and the date is important. This is the history part. Should your quilt live beyond you or be separated from you (by choice or not) there is a record of the maker. If your grandchildren uncover the quilt one day they will want to know! So will the historian, the neighbour, the treasure hunter, the buyer.

Material make-up is very useful information for care instructions. I work almost always with cotton, including cotton batting and thread, so this helps any recipients present and future know how to wash it and care for it. If I use something different, then I include that. You could get super detailed here and list the thread used, batting chosen, and even fabric lines. The level of detail here is personal, but at least include material make up.

I know that labelling is a pain. We are so excited to finish the quilt, to wash it, to cuddle with it that we very often skip this system. Including myself in that majority. But I always label a quilt before gifting it. And lately I’ve been feeling the guilt of not having all my quilts lately. Might be the Covid stress and fear of the unknown - what quilts will outlive me? The solo show I had recently forced me to label a bunch of quilts as I did not want them going out into the world with no record.

As for ways to make labels, there are as many ways as there are quilts. I’ve seen people screen print fabric and sew it into the back of the quilt, embroider and stitch on a label, write right on the back of the quilt, sign the front, get custom labels printed, and appliqué something. Myself, I’ve done fancy ones where I’ve used leftover fabric for framing before stitching it onto the back, printed ones with special papers, intricate traced designs, and plain writing on white fabric. The last one has been my go-to of late. I use scraps of white fabric and a Micron pen to write it. Every now and then I might decorate the label with fabric markers. Nothing fancy, easy, and gets the job done. Unobtrusive too. Most importantly, it is there.

One last thing, a little tip I learned years ago. If you are gifting a quilt that will be used in a public setting like a dorm or care home, undo the binding and write some info on the inside of the binding before stitching it back up. Labels that are stitched on can be removed if someone really wants to claim the quilt as their own. But having a signature hidden in the binding then ownership can always be proven.

Quilters' Playcation Adventure Sewalong 2022

The joys of insomnia. Seriously. When the brain won’t shut off at night I find it better to just get out of bed and let the thoughts out before I try to tuck myself back in. So there I was, one night over the holiday break with visions of quilt blocks swirling in my head. (Who even knows what sugarplums are anyway?) I got up, sketched them out, and developed the idea that was keeping me awake. Add a mug of warm, honeyed milk and I was able to return to bed with my creative burst satiated.

That’s how the Quilters’ Playcation Adventure Sewalong for 2022 began.

Each week in 2022 I am going to offer you a free block tutorial via a live event on Instagram. That's right. Me, live on Instagram, demoing a unique improv block, 52 times this year. Tune in each Tuesday at 10 am Mountain, or watch the replay when it works for you. Sew right along with me or just watch and hang out.

This qualifies as an improv adventure in my books because I have no clue what it is all going to end up like! Sure, I've sketched out a couple of dozen blocks, but there is no specific plan for a quilt here. We're just going to sew and sew and sew and see what we come up with. You can make all the blocks, some, none, or even your favourite one over and over again. Then, in January 2023 we will get together and put them all together. Each quilt will be unique. Each quilt will be awesome. Each quilt will be full of fun.

I am actually making each block twice. Once in a group of solids, once in prints. I wanted to be able to share the possibilities of fabric changing and supporting the design. Not to mention, encourage everyone to play with their fabric choices too. This way I can make one block to build the tutorial then make another live to show how it comes together.

This middle of the night idea is taking off. Using the hashtags #qpadventuresewalong and #quiltersplaycation people are sharing their blocks. So much fabric play and twists on the designs. The excitement is there and it thrills me that is getting people to play. Think of me as the guide on this adventure, but you are going to make it work for you in the way that gets you going.

Rest

Truth be told, I’m not very good at rest. I want to be, I try to be, but it’s hard. I’ve come to realize that this is because I would generally consider rest as sitting on my butt and doing nothing. Stop me if this sounds familiar though, you can’t sit and do nothing until everything is done. Everything is never done, right? Which means you never rest.

We thus need a new definition of rest.

At one time in life (when I was younger) I was a competitive athlete. Back then rest meant two things. One, just like above, rest was simply not doing the training. Two, within a workout there was active rest. So not the hard training pieces, but the easy strokes in between the hard sets. As a professional quilter I see the benefit of the latter. As a parent I realize the former is impossible. So that has led to me understanding that I need two unique forms of rest.

Active Rest

When you are working on deadlines and contracts quilting can feel like a chore, let alone actual work for some. Quite often the quilting becomes hard and full of drudgery. What once gave us joy and energy drags us down. It’s one thing to be pushing to meet a deadline like a wedding or show entry. This is why I am a big fan of Active Rest.

This is about, in many respects, mindless sewing and play. It’s the sewing that doesn’t challenge you or push your creativity. It might be creative action though. So maybe sewing snippets of fabrics in pairs, making HSTs, aligning strips, binding a quilt, stippling a quilt. The kind of sewing that allows you to catch your breath after a hard run. That’s why it is called Active Rest. You are still doing something but giving yourself the opportunity to slow down, gather thoughts, and be mindless for a little while. Because creativity begets creativity your juices will eventually start flowing again and you will be ready for the next challenge.

Escape to Rest

While running away to the beach or the mountains is many, many people’s idea of escape (myself included) we can’t do it that often. That’s why we need to find daily or weekly moments of escape. For me, this often includes long walks in the forests not far from home, a ski trip for the day, or maybe camping in the summer. It might be a hot bath, curling up with a great book, or binging a new show. My best advice when on a physical escape like this is to lean in to it. So no stitching while watching TV, no podcasts on your walk, leaving the sewing at home on a trip out of town. Let escape truly be a mental break.

Don’t want to give up your creative pursuits, even for a moment? Then switch it up! Escape to Rest also means exploring other creative interests. Trying crochet, taking a watercolour class, learning embroidery, even reading a fashion magazine. Your muscles and brain are still working, but in a different way. This alternate firing of brain cells gives your quilting brain a rest, your conscious mind an escape, but you are still pursuing creativity. It can be both relaxing and liberating.

In truth, this is what Morning Make has been for me over the last two years, on the months I am not sewing, that is. Trying weaving and embroidery and painting and poetry is an Escape to Rest for my creative brain.

The last few years have been rough for everyone. Indeed, rough is an understatement. While there were long periods of time where we were home, languishing, we weren’t still resting. Doomscrolling, cleaning, stressing, eating, teaching our kids, working on the dining room table - all of it added up to HARD WORK. Watching Tiger King at the end of the day just didn’t quite give us our energy back.

Resting is not easy.. I don’t want to be roped in to the mess of toxic positivity either when I say rest is important. Rest is a choice. It’s taken me a long, long time to see that and thus make it priority. I thought not having to drive my kids all evening was going to be the rest I needed. Nope, not even close. I puttered and wandered and zoned out but I did not rest. Since choosing to make rest an important part of my life I can feel myself catch my breath a little quicker, like I am getting in shape. The more I rest the better I feel when I am doing the hard stuff.

Full confession: I just spent the weekend in the mountains with my husband, just my husband. I brought crafty things to do and read but, in the end, read a thriller, took 5 baths in 48 hours, ate room service, and walked in a snowy forest. Now that’s an Escape to Rest! Then I came home ready to sew!