Pinwheel Quilt in Coral and Linen

Size: 60”x72”

I’ve been achy-ache-achin’ to make a red and white quilt. I wanted it to look a bit old and vintage-y so I opted to use a linen/cotton blend in natural beige instead of white. And instead of a classic red I used a Kona cotton in “coral”—a little on the orange side, a little on the red side. You’ll notice (maybe you’ll notice, red is hard to photograph) two of the pinwheels are regular orange fabric. Just threw them in there because.

I swear on a stack of cookies that I can hardly make quilts where you gotta be so dang fussy about all the measurements. I read a pattern the other day that said to cut blocks 4 and 3/8” inches. 3/8” of an inch? What the heck. I am not making anything that has to be cut so precisely. So I opted to make a pinwheel quilt with just a bunch of 7” squares. This yielded a pinwheel block 12”.  I made a total of 30 Pinwheel blocks.

I found approximately 3, 452 tutorials out there on the world wide web on making pinwheels using the half-square triangle method. Or, HSQ method. So google it if you’re interested—or look at my Pinterest board on quilting know how. I had never heard of HSQs, but then again I am a lightweight quilter. I make one quilt a year, sometimes. (Although I really want to change that and quilt more. We shall see.) Below are some images of how to make half-square triangles. I’m gonna call them HSQs from now on so I sound legit.

I was so proud of myself as I made these triangles, easy peasy.  Notice I didn’t say fast—nothing is fast in quilting. I tried to keep track of my time and figure I spent about 13 hours making the quilt top—all those triangles and then sewing them all together into rows until finally, voila, pinwheel quilt top.

Making all those triangles enables you to also make a quilt with other patterns like diamonds or zig-zags.  But I stuck with pinwheels.

Once the top was pieced I layered it with the backing on the bottom, I use T-Pins to pull the bottom fabric nice and tight and pin into my carpet, as far as it will go through the carpet and pad.  Then the Warm & Natural 100% batting, then the pinwheels on top.  And then I used curved safety pins and pin like crazy. (I know other quilters just use temporary adhesive glue spray like 505, skipping the safety pins, and I’d like to try that next time. Leave me thoughts on this method in the comments.)

“Keep on pinning, keep on pinning.”

Now comes the real work—hooping the quilt in the Jumbo hoop for the quilting process. I had only ever quilted pillows in the embroidery hoop but I wanted to be able to say I did an entire quilt in the hoop. At least once. (In this image I am just laying out the hoop as I haven’t removed the safety pins yet.)

I digitized a bunch of ovals (9”x15” overall) to use as my embroidery design. They are just single stitched ovals—not triple stitched, not backstitched. You can purchase the design by clicking here. I created a design like this for two reasons—first, I wanted to use every inch of my oval shaped hoop so that I wouldn’t have to hoop the quilt any more times than necessary, and second, I wanted a design that could overlap with each subsequent hooping. In other words, I didn’t want to worry about matching up my quilting motif with the design of the quilt. That would’ve killed me and caused me to set the quilt on fire, burning it in effigy.

As you can see on the screen on my sewing/embroidery machine, the design only takes four minutes. However, hooping it took much longer than four minutes. I had no idea how to hoop something so large, awkward, and cumbersome.

So I went to the Facebook page for Bernina 830 users and asked the pros. One gal suggested using painting tape to hold the hoop in place while I used my two hands to slide the other half of the hoop underneath, securing it in place. Bingo! Worked like a dream. You do not use any stabilizer—the quilt ‘sandwich’ is stable enough to handle the stitches.

Once the top hoop is attached and tightened to the underneath hoop, simply lift up the painters tape so it’s out of the way of the needle. (The tape is now hooped in tightly so you can’t just pull it away.)

To embroider, I just left my tension at normal (I tried messing with it but saw zero difference) but threaded the bobbin as if I was sewing, NOT doing embroidery. Notice I’m using foot #44. When quilting all the way to the end of the quilt I noticed the regular embroidery foot ‘catching’ on the edge of the quilt top. I remember seeing a class at the local Bernina shop where they suggested foot #44 for this very project. And it was on sale for Labor Day. Giddy-up.

I used Isacord beige thread in the top and the bobbin.

It’s getting there…….

Thirty hoopings later and it was done! I spread the embroidery/quilting over 3 days. Probably 6 hours of work for this stage. Will I quilt a quilt in the hoop again? A small baby size for sure. This large lap size, nope. Once was enough. But I freely admit to being impatient. This design is called Quilting Ovals (click here).

Trim the excess batting and put this project away for another day.

Serge the ends to prepare for binding:

I like to serge quilt edges to hold all three layers together nice and flat. Makes the binding go on easier in my opinion.

As I serged the quilt I realized I was still dripping in sweat from my morning run. And that’s ok because if you make a quilt while still in your running shoes it means that anything you eat this winter (hot chocolate, cookies) while wrapped in your quilt will have a negative caloric value. Honest.

The ‘blank’ space where the hoopings couldn’t overlap bugged me so I free motion quilted in between those ‘blank’ spots. The Bernina stitch-regulator is awesome and I don’t use that ‘foot’ often enough. Shame on me. (Remember, I am a lightweight quilter.)

Now for the binding! I cut 8 2” strips and attached them on an angle.

My dang Simplicity bias tape maker broke, so I removed the metal part that folds the fabric strips and made bias tape the old fashioned way—my hands and the iron. (I guess I can’t call it bias tape because I didn’t cut it on the bias—just on the straight grain. Or is this the cross grain?) Click on any photo in this post to zoom in.

I attach the binding to the BACK side of the quilt first, as seen below. Then I wrap the binding around to the front and topstitch the binding down on the front. Again, a million tutorials out there on the web.

Throw in the wash to get that perfectly puckered look and also to wash out all the spray starch I used to stiffen the linen especially. My fabrics were all prewashed. I’ve heard that if your fabrics are pre-washed then only your batting shrinks, pulling in the fabrics along with the batting, creating a more puckery quilt. I have no idea if it’s true. I hate preshrinking the fabric and don’t think I’ll do it again. But I do love how crinkly it looks.

Aha! Here you can finally see the orange pinwheel.

Notice the topstitched binding? It’s not for everyone but I love it. I’m no purist. (Click on photo to zoom)

Used my Redwork alphabet in 1” size to add the date.

Back of quilt:

I see myself watching many episodes of Chopped or The Colbert Report this winter, wrapped in my pinwheel quilt, drinking calorie-free Hot Chocolate (hee hee).  I honestly can’t wait to make another quilt. So much fun.

Why does handmade cost so much?

I’ve seen lots of blog posts out there with this same title. So here’s my spin on things.

I get many, many emails from potential customers asking me for discounts. They tell me that they simply can’t afford my prices but they really want my stockings/pillows/etc. I’m not really sure what they are asking me for—having monogrammed stockings or pillows is not a necessity in life.  Buy the basic ones from Target as they are very inexpensive. I am truly flattered that they love my work but there just isn’t much I can do—I simply can’t (and won’t) work just to break even.  That’s not very business savvy according my business management professors in college . When customers ask for a discount I am tempted to ask them if they do that same thing at Macy’s—ask the clerk if they can have a discount if they buy more than one pair of pants. Yup, it sounds silly when it’s put that way. But I don’t say that—I simply reply with, “Price is firm”. Or better yet, I should advise them to buy my sewing pattern and make the stockings themselves!

1.  I live in the Unites States of America, not communist China. A living wage here is much higher.  Depending on the time of year, I also have 1-2 assistants. I pay them a decent wage as well. Like my cousin tells me, “We may be Mexican but we don’t work for beans!” Amen, cousin.

2. Self employment taxes are extraordinarily high. At least in my opinion they are high. Most home-based businesses pay their taxes on their individual returns which means that we are taxed by our household income (spouse’s income included) which can be around 10-30%.  To incorporate my business would mean to pay even higher taxes. Sigh. So being honest means I have to pay Uncle Sam.

3. Supplies (variable costs) for me include, first of all, fabric. Have you seen the price of cotton in the last few years sky rocket? I pay double for muslin and other cottons now compared to two years ago. I use a ton of linen—a ton. Linen is spun from flax seeds—not cheap. All of my fabrics are man made fibers—silk, linen, and cotton. I do not use any polyester fabrics. Ever. (*Shivers*) I want you to have the best and the best isn’t free. Add to this zippers, stabilizers, thread, etc.

3. Equipment (fixed costs). For my business‘handmade’ doesn’t mean that I am sitting by candlelight at night stitching stockings or pillows with a needle and thread. (For many businesses, that is handmade though, well, hopefully not the candle part) In my business I have to have professional software  which costs in the thousands, the best embroidery machine, the best sewing machine, a great camera with changeable lenses,  sometimes hiring a photographer when needed, and all of that costs mucho dinero. My embroidery machine cost more than a car—I’ll just leave it at that. Other fixed costs include Pay Pal fees, credit card fees, website hosting fees, webmaster fees, etsy fees, and on the list goes.

4. Tender loving care, oh and lots of time. On the stockings pictured below—I digitized every one of those names unique to that order. The snowflakes are my own creation as well—digitized by yours truly. Every individual stocking starts out with me at my computer. The name is typed out in the customer’s choice of  font, I manually space the letters to get the best look—some letters further apart, some overlapping until it is visually pleasing. The snowflakes are then added in, again one by one, spaced to look pleasing all the while remembering that it must all fall within a 7” wide strip of fabric. Okay, too much information, back to being general about things. Notice each of the snowflakes is in a different position, all relative to the name—all hand done. Then the real work at the machines begins. I won’t even try to explain that part!

Do you see the zipper installed in the below image? Exactly, you can hardly see it because I’m good at what I do. Quality, quality, quality. (Shameless bragging, sorry.)

5. The final step is packaging, which my amazing husband does for me. He prints the labels, weighs each package, calculates the postage, buys my shipping supplies, etc. What a great guy! He could easily say to me, “I just worked 10 hours today counting beans, do your own work lady!” But he spends hours a week at night helping my our small business.

6. Unique. I often get emails from clients, “I’ve never seen anything like this before!”. And that’s why handmade costs more than crap made. You are paying an artist. She has a unique talent that she’s willing to share that with you for a very modest price.

Please value that talent.

On Being Honest

I have had my photos stolen twice in the last month. Let me rephrase that: I have simply caught two others stealing my photos. Who knows how many other small businesses are out their using my photos and claiming my work as their own.

When I was a college student I heard this phrase:

I have been asked what I mean by my word of honor. I will tell you. Place me behind prison walls - walls of stone ever so high, ever so thick, reaching ever so far into the ground - there is the possibility that in some way or another I may escape; but stand me on the floor and draw a chalk line around me and have me give my word of honor never to cross it. Can I get out of the circle? No. Never! I'd die first!
Karl G. Maeser.

Every time I walked into the Maeser building for my horrible sleep-inducing Philosophy class on the campus of Brigham Young University, I thought about these words and used them to measure my integrity. College was hard for me. Dang hard. I never got great grades and probably could never get into graduate school if I even wanted to (which I don’t). But I was proud to say that every ounce of lousy homework and testing I turned in was my own. Even when I would leave the testing center crying because I got another D on a test, at least it was my D. Yes, I did graduate.

So imagine how I felt today when I found a competitor who had stolen my Christmas stockings photos. My heart was racing and my fingers shaking so hard I couldn’t type a reply to her.  This competitor stole 12-16 of my photos, rubbed out my watermark, and posted my work as her own.

Here’s an example:

My photo with original watermark:

And after what I am sure was hours of using the ‘clone stamp’ tool in Photoshop, here is a screen shot of that same photo on her Facebook business page that she claimed as her own:

Notice there is no sign of my watermark left across my mantle. I zoomed way in on this photo—no scarring was left from her Photoshop attempts. This is where the dishonesty just blows my mind.

What is my integrity worth? It’s priceless. Without my integrity I have nothing and am nothing. If I can’t be trusted, there is no point to much else. I can be lazy, sarcastic, eat too many carbs, and be judgmental, but I am an honest person. I could list a bunch of dumb things like how when I get home from Macey’s Grocery Store I find out I wasn’t charged for the milk in the bottom of the shopping cart and how it angers me that I have to return to the store to pay for that milk, even though it was their mistake. It annoys me, but I do it. Because it’s the right thing to do.

We need a return to honesty, to integrity, to virtue, to all the values that make a civilization tick.

I wish the folks that steal from me could see me……..picking out my fabrics for hours at a time, online and in stores, to find the perfect combination….. I wish they could see me digitizing fonts at my computer, sampling them in satin stitch and filled stitches on several types of linen and canvas to find the perfect combo, often having to redraw each letter from scratch because the stitch angles are all wrong…. I wish they could see the dishes piled high in my house and my sticky floors because instead of cleaning, I am sewing my fingers to the bone to fill my orders. I wish they could see me awake at 2am because my mind has finally come up with the perfect way to interface the stockings that will give them structure and yet not make them stiff….. I wish they could see me dragging my knuckles across my arms at night because of chronic pain in my arms that no doctor (neurologist, chiropracter, orthopedics) can figure out. I wish they could see me emailing each customer countless times to ensure that they get the perfect font for their special Christmas stockings.I wish they could see me with my Nikon camera, set up my tripod, fiddle with the aperture, the shutter speed, deciding whether to shoot in RAW mode or just a vivid .jpg, open my mini blinds, attach the bounce flash, take the photos, then spend loads of time editing them in Photoshop only to spend even more time writing the listings for etsy to sell the stockings.

In other words, I wish they could see me work like a dog for my little business instead of stealing it all from me with just a few hours of crooked Photoshop time for them. Maybe then they would think twice about stealing from another small business.

But until then I’ll keep adding ugly watermarks to my photos.