Learn how to use both beautiful sides of fabric…and MORE!
Firstly, learn how to use both beautiful sides of fabric, discover the nuances of value, choose focus and background fabrics!
It’s all about value.
From blog posts to YouTube videos, you can learn about more than 50 quilt patterns that use both beautiful sides of fabric. Discover the nuances of value and what to look for when auditioning and choosing fabrics for Karla’s patterns AND all your future quilt projects.
When you learn how to use both beautiful sides of fabric, it’s almost like doubling your stash!
In addition, find fun quilting tips and how-to techniques to help you complete your quilting projects quickly and easily. Also, Karla shares her favorite quilting tools, rulers and more. You’ll learn about some unusual ones, too!
A variety of topics.
As well as learning how to use both beautiful sides of fabric, you can learn how to choose color themes for quilts, how to do broderie perse, or how to chain-piece a block. Also find guides to purchasing fabric on Spoonflower, merchandise on RedBubble, and quilt patterns on Etsy.
Guild programs and classes.
Finally, you can learn about Karla’s classes and programs that teach quilters how to use both beautiful sides of fabric. Moreover, you’ll “meet” some quilt guilds along the way. When you see quilters’ progress on class projects, you get a good look at how different focus fabrics can create completely different quilts, even when the quilters use identical quilt patterns.
When you pin fabrics to your design wall, you can step back, get perspective, see how a fabric reads at a distance, and most importantly observe the values.
Granted most quilters don’t audition fabrics for four quilts all at the same time, but in this case, having four new designs waiting to be created made me realize how much more I like auditioning fabric on the wall rather than on the table or floor.
Plus, it’s much easier to take that black and white picture for observing value when the fabrics are in front of you! See The Tricky Traits of Value.
This past week was the kickoff of classes for Colorful Wings (click here for patterns) and I can’t wait to see the eleven finished quilts. In the meantime, my next post will give you sneak peek on how completely unique each of these winged-girls (and boy – yes, we had one boy) are!
A big thanks to all of the eleven students who took the challenge to #usebothsides!
Shop for Phoebee, Belle, and Lily from the Colorful Wings pattern series and Rose from the Colorful Petals series at www.etsy.com/shop/CreativeBeeStudios.
How do you audition your fabrics? Do you use a design wall? Please comment below.
Here are a few items you might want to add to your retreat list:
There are lots of lists out there suggesting what to pack for quilt retreats. Here are a couple of things I add to the basic lists – to update them or accommodate for my projects. Hope this will help you, too, be totally prepared for your next retreat.
Okay, so first, take all the normal sewing/quilting supplies (machine, fabric, thread, needles, scissors, seam ripper, etc.).
Then consider:
Chargers for phone, Ipad and Fitbit
Cords for all machines and laptop
Leather thimble or little stick-on dots for hand-work
Chain-cutter (mine is Barney purple)
Guild directory (for when you can’t remember that one lady’s name)
Pre-cuts guide (for shopping trip)
Pressing board
Silicone Pressing Sheet
Extra light bulb for machine
Basting glue
Pressing Spray
1/4 inch guide
Extra lighting
Water
You might want to throw in some clothes and soap and you’re good to go! Now check out thisOne Sweet Retreat to read about last year’s trip to Jonas Bluffs.
Please share your ideas for retreat lists and comment below.
Choosing fabrics for quilts isn’t hard, but it can be tricky.
Choosing fabrics for quilts involves auditioning the color, size of motif, and value of the fabrics. I have long thought I understood the value of fabric values. Value is what makes, say, a simple, two-color quilt have bold areas of light and dark. Value also makes those cool secondary patterns in your multi-color quilt design appear like magic.
Easy, right? I thought so. However, a few years ago (actually about 20 now), Blended Quilts became popular. I became mesmerized by blended quilts. I bought the books and studied them, reading about fabric choices and how to combine fabric values to work together, while not being too obvious. Turns out, I never did really “get” it. It was too hard for me to look past the floral motifs and colors. Thankfully, our guild had a program presenter who sold blended kits! Problem solved (for the moment).
Turns out, choosing fabrics for quilts based on value can be tricky!
For the record, I love all kinds of quilts.
Karla
My Grandma Emma Wichern’s lavender and white embroidered quilt is precious to me. Simple, clearly defined values. But I also love those wild “crazy-quilts” which practically shout in all dark values. Modern is fun, bright, and happy…or sometimes calming and simple. I have a passion to some degree for all types of quilts. But what really gets me excited about a quilt is when it is successfully splashed with all kinds of rich, colorful and different fabrics…and it works! Value is what makes the magic happen in those quilts.
To truly know the value of fabrics, you have to remove the color.
You can do this numerous ways, but the simplest trick for me is to take a picture of fabric choices or my blocks on my design wall with my phone and change the picture to black and white (mono or noir). Colors and motifs can fool you. For us quilters, fabrics aren’t just fabrics. They evoke emotion (usually happiness). I used to fall in love with a fabric, or line of fabrics, and be determined to use it because of my emotional connection. Consequently, I’ve made some quilts that turned out okay, but had the potential to be brilliant.
When choosing fabrics for quilts, remember that values change depending one their surroundings.
That’s the tricky part! A quilter once said, “My Light looks too dark when I use that light of Medium.” Okay, that was me who said that, but it’s true! And, it can be tricky.
Light. Medium. Dark.
The fact that my neat little piles of lights, mediums, and darks can change their values, depending on what is around, them was a “V8” moment for me!
Let’s look at this dragonfly quilt for an example.
Lilly’s background is made of scrappy, light neutrals with a couple of colorful accent strips. The background is light when compared to the dragonfly focus fabric. The flowers at the top of the quilt are made from the reverse side of focus fabric. The flowers “read” as a medium value. Clearly the dark value of the dragonfly is what you notice first. The flowers are secondary. The various background fabrics catch your eye last and allow your eyes to linger on them.
When you are just working on your background, those strips of color can look quite bold and may seem too dark to be part of the background. But when looking at those same fabrics in black/white WITH the focus fabric laying across them, they all fall into the light category and they work!
Even the colorful accent strips disappear in this black and white photo.
Phoebee is made with both sides of one focus fabric on a scrappy background. Choosing fabrics for this quilt is how I first learned the nuances of value. Using both beautiful sides of fabric taught me that lesson.
Notice that the boldness of Phoebee’s focus fabric allowed for a variety of values in the eclectic background. Phoebee is clearly the “buzz” of this quilt!
Next, lets look at Belle, the butterfly quilt.
Again, the RIGHT side of the butterfly focus fabric has a dark enough value that it can “handle” a lot from any background fabrics, including the accent strips. However, the REVERSE of the flowers made from the same background fabric are medium to light in value. Some of those flowers might have been lost if the value of the background fabrics were too similar.
In conclusion, choosing fabrics for these quilts might be a little out-of-the-box for some quilters, because they call for mixing so many colors of background fabrics. But if you follow this guideline it’s easy: If the value is right and you like the fabric, use it. It’s freeing to combine lots of “styles” of fabrics, like miniature prints, batiks, grunge and more! I encourage you to combine a variety of fabrics in your quilts. Remember, it can be fun choosing fabrics for quilts, when you take the guess work out of it.
It’s the combination of background fabrics that make these quilts sing!
Classes starting in September. Patterns available now.
After being inspired at quilt market (See Six Favorites from Quilt Market), I knew I wanted to mix lots of different fabric types to make a bee quilt. While I thought the shape of the bee would be “in the mix”, the background is actually where I used a variety of styles of fabrics:
chicken wire fabric from the 90’s, inherited from my mother-in-law, Pat, (love)
My Crystalia fabric became my bee. Her flowers I made from the “wrong” (such a harsh word) side of the same fabric.
I guess you could call the flower technique a “modern broderie perse” (thank you, Kelly). They are made with simple, fusible applique and are cut without fussing about the edges – in fact, I encourage letting background show through as it ties the two sides of the fabric together in the quilt.
In my classes and in my patterns, I point out that all reverse sides of fabric are not alike — audition your front AND back sides with your background fabrics.
The best way for me to describe a good reverse side is to say that it should “sing” just as much as the front, just with lesser value.
Phoebee
One thing I liked most about Phoebee was that she seemed to be getting her life and beauty from the flowers. Thanks to the hubby for her name–which in Greek actually is spelled with two “e’s” at the end and means “bright, pure”.
Next came Belle. She’s a French butterfly. Belle means “beautiful” (I NEVER got that about Beauty and the Beast – blush).
I found Belle’s fabric, Estate Gardens by Andover at my local quilt shop, The Golden Needle. I used similar neutrals in her background, but stayed with different shades of gray (some reversed) for the accent strips. Her binding is made with the reverse side out.
Note: I like to mix all shades of neutrals – white whites, beiges, off-whites- and all types of fabrics like tiny prints with batiks and novelties.
Last but not least, meet Lily.
Lily is a sweet dragonfly made from Tree of Life fabric by Chong A Hwang for Timeless Treasures, also found at my local quilt shop. Her background accent strips are in aqua because a) that’s my favorite color and b) I wanted to connect her to the water locales dragonflies love.
Visit my Etsy page or The Golden Needle for patterns. If you are interested in weekend or evening classes, let me know in the comments below.
Next up is a review of value, very helpful for auditioning fabrics for Colorful Wings quilts! Don’t miss a post – sign up below for email notification! Thanks so much for following. Karla
When time and cuteness matter, this Lickety-Split Quilt Binding is the binding for you!
The Lickety-Split Quilt Binding technique for finishing quilts is helpful, time-saving, and attractive. By nature, it aids in a more perfect machine-attached binding for your quilts. Here’s how:
The binding is made by combining two differing strips to make the binding. One acts as an accent that appears next to the quilt. The accent looks like a flange or piping along the edge of the binding. And, here’s the best part, the accent doubles as a stitching guide. You’ll attach your binding to the back of the quilt, turn it to the front and stitch in the ditch of the accent and binding fabrics. When you use a bobbin thread that matches your backing, your finished product has a clean stitching line along the edge of your quilt backing.
I originally saw this idea years ago on Pinterest. This method produced a wider binding than is generally used these days. I’ve adapted the idea several times to product a variety of sizes, based on your needs. I don’t consider Lickety-Split Quilt Binding for all my quilts, but there is definitely a time and a place for it! I’ve used this technique of binding numerous times. It’s great for things like utility quilts, baby quilts (the ones which will be well-loved and get lots of use), seasonal quilts, table runners, etc. I’ve used it on several seasonal quilts, which see the light of day for about one month a year and therefore don’t need a hand-turned binding.
Here is the original pin for this binding technique. I wish I knew who Susie was because I’d like to personally thank her for this binding idea!
The best part about this binding technique is the tiny burst of interest you achieve with the accent fabric. This strip gives your needle a perfect nesting spot for stitching it down by machine.
Lickety-Split Quilt Binding finishes at either two and one/fourth inches or 2 inches. I like the smaller size for smaller art quilts, table runners, and wall hangings.
Binding technique for when time and cuteness matter.
Cutting Guide:
2 1/4 inch binding:
Main binding strip: 1 1/4″
Accent strip: 1 1/2″
2 inch binding:
Main binding strip: 1 1/8″
Accent strip: 1 3/8″
Simply cut your strips and sew them end to end and press like normal binding, but do it for both colors.
Then sew the two long strips together, press seam to the binding color.
With the seam facing down, align the edge of the binding along the edge of your quilt and stitch a 1/4 seam (or smaller than your final stitch seam), connecting the ends with your favorite method. Lastly turn your binding to the front of your quilt and stitch in the ditch between the two fabrics. I like to use a seam guide and move my needle to a comfortable spot.
Note: I have not used this method on show quilts or nicer quilts which call for a hand-turned binding. I did notice at our last guild show that one of the quilts in the winner’s circle (triangle) had a machine-attached binding, so it’ll be interesting to see where the quilting world goes with this!
What’s your favorite binding method for fast quilts? Tell me in the comments below. Sign up below for notifications and you’ll never miss a post.
Stay tuned for some exciting news from Creative Bee Studios!
Use pretty prairie points and just a couple of hand-stitches to hang your quilts.
The Prairie Point Hanging Method is as easy as 1, 2, 3…4 stitches!
1. Fold and press fabric squares diagonally, twice, just like you would when making prairie points.
2. Pin the raw edge of the prairie points (triangles) at the top edge of the back of your quilt, spaced evenly.
3. Baste across the top of the quilt by machine and make four stitches by hand (with doubled thread) on the points of each triangle, making sure you only stitch through the backing and batting.
It’s EASY, FAST, and PRETTY! Click here to see this quilt.
Prairie Points Hanging Method
Adjust the size and number of your squares based on the width of your quilt. For example:
Four 7-inch squares make prairie points for a 24-inch wide hanging.
Four 16-inch squares work well for a 48-inch quilt and easily accommodates the largest requirements for our quilt show standards. Simply add more of the same size prairie points for a bed-size quilt.
Bella Piastrella with Prairie Points Hanging Method
TIP: For small wall hangings, use an even number of prairie points and you can hang your quilt from a single nail or hook instead of leveling it between two points.
How do you hang your quilts? Share in the comment box below.
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This quilt has a dark flange between the outer border and the binding. Bella Piastrella by Karla Kiefner
Adding a flange to your quilt can add interest, color, and contrast.
A flange is a small strip of fabric, folded in half and attached by basting to the edge of a border, section, or even the final edge of a quilt.
While a flange doesn’t add to the size of your quilt, it can provide a pop of color or a “stopper” if needed. It can be helpful when planning the design of a quilt to add a flange if you don’t want to add a border or if you want to accent a section of the quilt.
It can also be useful to add a flange to an existing pattern. I did so here
This small flange helps the eye connect from the binding to the interior blocks of the quilt. Allietare pattern by Bonnie Hunter.
on my Allietare (pattern by Bonnie Hunter), because I thought it needed just a touch of the aqua between my inner and outer borders to “connect” the interior of the quilt with the binding (also in the aqua fabric). Because a flange doesn’t change the dimensions of the quilt at all, I didn’t need to worry about re-figuring pattern directions for borders.
Most flanges I’ve used were solid or read as solid fabrics, but as you can see, this one is a batik which adds interest as well as color.
Making a flange is super easy:
*Cut two strips of fabric slightly longer than the length of your quilt or area you want to emphasize and cut two strips slightly longer than the width of the working area. The width of your flange strips can be anywhere from 3/4 inch to 2 inches, depending on how much fabric you want showing. (If you prefer to measure and cut the lengths precisely, you can. There is just no need to do so because the flange will not alter the size of your borders or blocks. Let’s assume the borders are already measured, pinned, and attached carefully to avoid wavy borders and excess fabric. See this post for more information of unruly borders.)
*Fold the strips lengthwise, wrong sides together and press.
*Align the edges of the flange with the edges of your quilt, border, or section. Pinning isn’t necessary, but may help keep the edges aligned. I usually just go unpinned for flange.
*Use a basting stitch and less than a 1/4 seam margin to attach the flange to the left and right sides. Trim excess from edges. In the same way, baste and trim the top and bottom flange onto your quilt.
*Continue with your quilt as you normally would. It’s that easy!
This quilt is an example of using a flange to “stop” the quilt prior to the binding. Without a flange, there wouldn’t be a defined edge. I didn’t want a completely dark binding to be in stark contrast with the borders, so the flange was just the right amount of stopper needed.
This quilt has a dark flange between the outer border and the binding. Bella Piastrella by Karla Kiefner
When my friend Nancy and I design a quilt or church banner together we often consider the use of flanges – they’re just fun to do!
What technique do you enjoy using in your quilts?
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This is my single best quilting tip for the paper-piecing technique.
There’s a reason I’m sharing my best tip. However you refer to it, paper piecing, foundation piecing, or foundation paper piecing, it gets me every time!
You may find this account a bit meladramatic…it certainly is tongue-in-cheek!
I suppose if I did paper piecing more often, I wouldn’t need to learn this every…single…time. But, I don’t. And, I do!
Let me start by saying that paper piecing is a very precise way to join fabrics. You will actually sew on the lines printed or drawn on paper. It’s quite a fantastic method for designs that call for perfection. I tend to not choose a lot of quilts that require the precision of paper piecing, so I usually need to do a refresher on the method when I do.
This is a partially completed project I inherited from my mother-in-law, Pat.
Since you sew by numbers, it’s the first and second pieces that are only a bit tricky.
Yes, I always have to start with a reminder of how to place the first piece (easy enough). But that’s not the tip!
Throughout my project (or at least the first ten sections), I have to remind myself of this one simple, yet crucial thing. Even though I try and try to guess the smallest (yet large-enough) piece of fabric to cover the next areas in numerical order, it eludes me.
Over and over, I try to out-think the pattern, certain that my piece of fabric will coverage every bit of the pattern piece, plus seams, all the way to the edge of the design without using a crazy amount of fabric. But alas, again and again, it falls short. It may be tiny, but even a tiny speck of uncovered paper, is obvious when the fabric is missing.
Until I finally GIVE.
One must SUBMIT, I’ve learned, to paper piecing. One must be humbled to the Paper Piecing process and the excruciating fact that…tThere WILL BE wasted fabric! It is the nature of this beautiful beast.
Finally, here is my best tip for Paper Piecing:
Think big.
No, think BIG, really.
Now think really, really BIG!
Karla kiefner
Paper piecing is much more fun when you do!
In conclusion, that’s it! That’s all I’ve got. For me, that’s all it takes to make paper-piecing a fun way to spend an afternoon or MORE!
Hmmm, wonder if I should use paper piecing for one of my friend’s Round Robin borders? Read the post about our guild Round Robin Challenge, “It’ll Be Fun,They Said” (click here) and stay tuned for updates on the challenge!
Find out what happens when I join a quilt guild Round Robin challenge:
Let’s do a Round Robin! It’ll be fun…wait, that was ME saying that!
Now here I sit with the dreaded pizza box–which, by the way, makes me hungry for pizza every time I see it–and I have a feeling of dread.
What’s inside and why did I think this would be a good idea?
I’ve participated in a Round Robin before. You know how it goes, everyone starts with a certain size block and each block has borders added by a different quilter and at the next guild meeting the blocks with borders get passed on to the next quilter until you get a completed wall hanging quilt top made with your original block. It was lots of fun in 2008! So what’s the difference? Why am I so afraid of ruining each of my four other friend’s quilts?
Round Robin 2008 with Cindy Spaeth and Mary Lou Rutherford
Well, let’s see what’s different here? Nine years ago there were only three of us in our group. I didn’t know the other ladies too well, so maybe there was some safety in that.
I was fairly new in the guild. There it is…I was a newbie! I had no fear! I didn’t realize what could go wrong- I didn’t know all the “rules” and I certainly didn’t concern myself with design knowledge. If I liked it, I did it. That was it. And even though I say I like to fight the establishment and throw the rules out the window, I do respect other people’s need for rules and order.
THAT’S what scares me! Can I do creative, yet disciplined work that will pass muster with these awesome quilters?
I guess that why they call it a challenge! Time will tell and you will know in about four months!
My block and fabric offerings for the Round Robin Challenge.
Stay tuned. In the meantime, I think I’ll call Dominoes.
Tell me what challenges you like to do. Sign up to follow my posts and I’ll send you an email when a new post goes live. Please share on Facebook and Twitter and pin on your Pinterest boards! Thanks for your friendship and for following me.
Quick tip for dealing with too much quilt top fabric:
Riddle me this:
When does a quilter have too much fabric?
(**see answer below)
Dream Pillow Trapunto
QUICK TIP:
Use your fingertips to walk the fabric smooth when basting a wavy top for quilting.
Each time I load a quilt onto my Handiquilter Avante frame, I take specific steps to assure the quilt is square. With every advance of the quilt, I continue to watch carefully to make sure that the quilt ends up as square as possible.
The one thing I’ve learned from my own quilts and observed in customers’ quilts, that I can measure, cut, and sew as carefully as possible and still, sometimes, there will be an abundance of quilt top fabric for the space it is to occupy (to keep it a squared quilt) . It can be a challenge to baste wavy edges. Over time and many quilts, I developed a trick to make easy work of easing in that extra fabric when basting the edges:
*Start closest to you and stitch away from you (towards the top of the quilt).
*While one hand is moving the machine up the edge of your quilt top, use your pointer and index fingers of the other hand to gently “walk” behind the foot, following it up the side of the quilt top. As your fingers “walk”, use your fingertips or nails to gently tug the fabric back towards you.
*If the amount of extra fabric is excessive, I like to spritz the quilt top with Best Press, help it dry thoroughly with a warm hair dryer, and then stitch it while walking the fabric. The Best Press gives the fabric a slight stiffness and seems to shrink it slightly, making the easing process easier.
Oklahoma! by Karla Kiefner Oklahoma Backroads Pattern by Bonnie Hunter
**ANSWER TO THE RIDDLE: When there is more fabric than space when quilting the top–and that’s the ONLY time a quilter has too much fabric!
How do you handle “sticky situations” when quilting?
Next came Belle. She’s a French butterfly. Belle means “beautiful” (I NEVER got that about Beauty and the Beast – blush).
