Sewing Secrets From the Biggest Names in Craft: Part 1
Time to spill a few beans on sewing secrets! Shortcuts, cheating and the odd make-do are within the realms of some of the craft-world’s biggest names, apparently. Kind of comforting, really! Some hitherto-secret admissions follow…
Amy Garro’s Sewing Secrets
1. I sew over pins. Religiously. Okay, so I’ve gotten a little better at this one, but still!
2. I iron. I don’t press. Screw pressing.
3. None of this quilting from the centre out business. I quilt almost every project right to left. It’s weird, I know, but the middle is the hardest part! If I start on one side and work in, then I’m practiced by the time I get to the middle. Then, I flip the quilt and work from the middle out to the other side, so I’m still saving an easy section for last.
4. I wash my quilts on hot. With bleach. Not every time, but my kids – they puke. And you know what? All my quilts still look great!
4. I kind of like basting. And I prefer safety pins over spray. Don’t throw rocks at me.
5. I’m not crazy about Aurifil. There, I said it. Now you can throw rocks at me. (Except … don’t!)
6. Also Warm and White (or Natural)? Not into them. Wonky Log Cabins? Eh. I don’t like them.
7. I love quilted feathers. Even if they look traditional.
8. I dislike most Denyse Schmidt fabrics. And Kaffe Fassett ones. Except for shot cottons. There. Now you can all really hate me.
Find out more about Amy Garro:
Amy is a quiltmaker, designer, author and blogger.
Website: www.13spools.com
Molli Sparkles’ Sewing Secrets
1. I love the entire quilt process, but the sewing part is at the bottom of that love.
2. I don’t like animals. On my quilt. Helping with my quilt. In the fabric of my quilt. Unicorns are not an animal, and are therefore exempt.
3. I haven’t purchased any Cotton + Steel yet, and I probably won’t.
4. I don’t wash any of my fabrics until the quilt is finished and then they all get a bath together! Sometimes, not even then.
5. I want to take on a blog sponsor(s), but I’m afraid of what my readers will think.
6. Batiks are always welcome in my house. I think people who write them off completely are close-minded and have bigger quilty issues.
7. I like the idea of quilt police. I bet they’d be smokin’ hot and have big … um … seam rippers.
8. I’ll proudly use my gender to open quilty doors of opportunity. However, I expect my talent alone to keep the doors flung wide open.
9. I really enjoy trimming HSTs. Over, and over, and over again.
10. Mini quilts. Meh.
Find out more about Molli Sparkles:
Website: mollisparkles.com
Natashia Curtin’s Sewing Secrets
1. My biggest, hugest, massive sewing secret: I suck at machine sewing! Margaret the Magnificent Mother-in-Law does all my machine sewing for me. I handle the design, patterns and hand stitching. I asked Marg to teach me machine sewing once, and after a little silence she said, ‘Let’s just both stick to what we’re good at’.
2. If you asked me to make a traditional block like Flopping Geese (or whatever it’s called), not only would I not know how to, I wouldn’t know what it looks like. (Add extra ‘tisk, tisk’ points for not really caring that I don’t know either! Please don’t bother sending me letters.)
3. I think some designer fabric looks like the 1970s got plastered, then came back home to vomit.
4. DMC metallic threads can cause potty mouth, and should not be used in the presence of children.
5. I have been known to take stitching to parent-teacher information nights. And sit in the front row. Stitching.
6. I have killed four irons, and my fifth is feeling vulnerable. Apparently they die when you drop them, and you can’t try to catch them when they’re falling.
7. I can’t STAND realistically pictorial themed fabric. Extra 20 points of distaste for horses, Australiana and tractors.
8. So. Over. The. Birds. (Seriously, there ARE other animals out there.)
9. If it has a metallic print, I will buy it. Don’t believe me? My stash is on to wardrobe number 2.
10. Every now and then, after 13 years of appliqué, I STILL manage to iron the fusible web to the front of the fabric.
Find out more about Natashia Curtin:
Website: smeedesigns.com
Check out Natashia’s beautiful Four Seasons Quilt!
Bronwyn Hayes’ Sewing Secrets
1. Top of the list of sewing secrets is my arsenal of creative quilt tools. I have a variety of Textas in all colours, a glue stick and my all-time favourite for many fixes – Whiteout. You know how you fix coffee stains on jumpers or your favourite blouse by colouring them in with a matching coloured Texta? Or colouring over those ghastly bits of grey hair with Texta? This also works really well for quilts! Seams don’t quite match up? Out with the matching coloured Texta and, hey presto – perfect (looking) seams! (This is also a great tip for creating perfect satin stitches.)
2. Whiteout! I can’t tell you how handy this is. Must be the dispenser with the pointy tip, though, so you can get creative with tracing appliqué shapes onto black fabric. I don’t know how many embroidery designs (on white backgrounds) have had the Whiteout fix. Once everything’s quilted – perfect!
3. Coffee: if I can’t sew up a large quilt before lunch, it usually means I’ve not had enough coffee. This also counts as my aerobic exercise.
4. Hexies and English paper piecing: I’m sorry, but these rate right up there with childbirth and colonoscopy. I’ve been proudly shown hexies that, when sewn together, created a rather large shopping bag. Each hexie in the bag was no larger than your thumbnail. I took the woman who had created this marvel of ingenuity to one side and asked her, politely, if what she really needed was a colonoscopy.
5. 1/4in seams are another nightmare. Who has the time to unpick and do it all again? My seams are usually ‘about’ 1/4in or so – but after all, what were rotary cutters made for? Trimming! And don’t forget that gorgeous array of Textas – they come in handy here when the seams don’t match.
6. Top of my list of pet peeves are those women in the Where Women Create books. Honestly, do they get top interior designers in when they hear they are going to be featured in that series? My creative space is the dining-room table. And believe me, there is no painted wooden “Inspiration” or “Create” words tacked neatly to my walls – just lots of bits of paper with reminders and addresses stuck there with sticky tape. Just like you have that TV program The Real Housewives of Melbourne, I think I’ll write a book on the ‘Real Where Women Create’ and show all those creative dining-room tables!
7. Stash! And then there are those stunningly beautiful photos of their stash: all neatly colour coordinated on beautiful whitewashed shelves or perfectly painted dressers in a shade of aqua or melon to show off the colours of their fabrics. I once met a woman who proudly showed me her stash, filed in row upon row of plastic boxes, each box stacked neatly side by side on shelves lining the length and breadth of her sewing room. Each piece of fabric had been folded neatly inside the boxes, colour coordinated and labelled with a number, for cross-referencing. But best thing of all were her inventory books. Each page in the book was lined down one side with a snippet from each fabric, its number (which matched the number on the fabric) and where it could be found. There was also a short piece of description next to each snippet stating when it was purchased, where it was purchased and possible uses for it. My answer to chronically neat stash? Colonoscopy!
8. Someone once said, “Asking a seamstress to mend is like asking Michaelangelo to paint your garage”. If my garage could even partly resemble the Sistine Chapel, I’d be eternally grateful, but I definitely agree with the mending part.
9. Finally, there’s really no secret to it that I run my rotary cutter blades until they can cut no longer, I use my fabric scissors to cut my toenails and I have an identity crisis every time I see the number of quilts other people have made in the time it takes me to drink yet another cup of coffee.
