Tips
As I teach classes and make my own quilt works, I have shared tips with students and friends. These seem to be very popular, so I would like to share some of these with you.
Favorite tools and notions:
Clover fine white marking pen, erases with water OR iron
Hand carved orangewood toothpick from VT Country Store online
Clover desktop needle threader
Dazor 3-diopter circline magnifying lamp
Fine grain sheet of sandpaper to stabilize fabric while tracing seam line
Clear transparency sheets for overlay material
Silk 100 weight thread from YLI in matching colors
Straw #11 needles
Gingher scissors, especially the 4"embroidery and 5" craft sizes
4 ½" Iris scissors (surgical) for fine paper cutting
Nylon cable ties to make bias stems
Tips:
When threading needles, hold over a piece of white paper to see the eye more easily. If this doesn’t work, use the desktop threader. Don’t stress over this!
Hide the tails of your thread when starting and stopping. Come up under the appliqué fabric only, on the marked sewing line, to bury the starting knot and tail between the layers. To finish a thread, take to the back side of the block, make a small stitch under the appliqué, draw the thread up until just a small loop remains and wrap the needle in the loop three times, pull to slide the knot to the surface of the fabric. Now, take another small stitch only through the background fabric and come back out about ¼" away. Snip thread here to hide between the layers. Make sure you have taken this stitch UNDER the appliqué, and not out in the open background area! This prevents unsightly shadowing through of threads when using a light background. This is definitely worth the effort to do all the time, for neat work and secure threads.
If you are using cotton thread and have trouble with twisting, fraying and knotting, try conditioning the thread with Thread Heaven. This is a silicon product that coats the thread and reduces static electricity and fraying. Pull thread through fabric slowly to prevent those twisting knots.
Shading fabric pieces- when you are looking for a particular section of the fabric for shading of a flower petal, for example, use a window template. This is the part of the freezer paper that is left after you cut out the template. I use my sharp paper scissors to cut the template out carefully. Insert the blades through the FP right on the line and cut. This way you have an intact window to slide over the fabric until the right shading appears. When you find it, drop the template back into the hole, and iron it on with a dry, hot iron.
When working with many layers of appliqué, position pieces that don’t cover each other in layers. Do all the "lowest" layer first. Pin in position, then thread baste. This step may seem tedious to some, but it is actually faster to thread baste than deal with pins that grab your thread, poke you and then fall out before you get the piece sewn. After the basted pieces are sewn, position the next "layer" and repeat until the block is finished.
To get nice crisp images onto the clear transparency overlay, I take them to the photocopy center and print the pattern onto the transparency. Have your self service center show you how to do this first, since they can melt inside the machine and cause a real mess. I buy boxes of 100 sheets from Staples. Make sure you get the right type for the machine you will be using. Laser type machines use a different material than inkjet printers. The inkjet transparencies cost about twice the price of the laser printer ones.
Practice cutting carefully. Very sharp paper cutting scissors, with short blades and longer handles are helpful here. (Iris 4 ½" straight blade surgery scissors) This may seem obvious, but not many stitchers are careful enough with this step. A roughly cut template will result in an awkward seam line, then a poor looking (and fitting) appliqué piece. Tracing, cutting and marking the templates accurately are as important as sewing an accurate ¼" seam when piecing. Take your time and do it well the first time to avoid frustration.
To keep your appliqué work clean, roll the piece from the backside to enclose the front fabric in the rolled up part. This keeps hand oils from being deposited onto the front of the fabric where they can attract dirt and show on your block.
Use a very light grip with your holding hand to save yourself a trip to the chiropractor. If you squeeze tightly all the time, you stress muscles all the way up your arm to your neck and center of your back. Take breaks at least every hour and stretch, roll your neck and walk around a bit. If your shoulders creep up around your ears, you are definitely too stressed! Relax; this is supposed to be fun!
Number pattern pieces before printing overlay so the numbers are transferred too.
After tracing each template onto freezer paper, place a small dot next to the pattern number to remind you that you already traced that piece.
Mark pattern number on template and on the area surrounding it on the freezer paper. If you need to use a window template, this helps match up template and opening quickly.
Place an arrow ↑ to indicate top of piece if there might be confusion.
For double pointed leaves (football shape), I put a dot on the end nearest the stem or attachment to another piece.