Farmer's Wife 1930s Quilt Along: Equipment Suggestions

Welcome to the third preparation post for the 1930s Farmer's Wife Quilt Along.  The first was a two-parter about fabric choices- see here and here.  This post is about the sort of extra equipment you may want to considering addition to your usual supplies - quilt ruler, rotary cutter, thread etc.  I've compiled three lists for three different construction methods: foundation paper piecing, template piecing (hand sewn or machine) and English paper piecing. These are just my personal suggestions, they are not sponsored or affiliate based.  Keep an eye out on Periscope today too, I'm hoping to talk about some of this equipment in my first live interactive broadcast, as Periscope is related to twitter you'll find me on both as @verykb on there and I'll post on Twitter when I go live.  **Edited to add I did manage to record my first scope only to delete it accidentally straight after, I did mange to say hello to some familiar and new faces and I hope to have a better handle of it by Monday! ** If you have other suggestions about equipment and gadgets, please leave a comment at the end of this post to share!  

Foundation Paper Piecing:

I plan to foundation paper piece all my blocks and these are my essentials!

From left to right:

• Paper for printing patterns.  So far, each block has taken two sheets of paper for the foundation pattern pieces so that's going to be around 200 sheets of paper if you are making all the blocks.  You could use the excellent foundation paper by Carol Doak for CT publishing, or the vellum paper- I am a fan of both, but I am using very thin budget printer/copier paper. It is so thin, I need to feed the sheets individually into my laser printer so it doesn't get mashed up but it does the job and is easily available on eBay or in local shops.  
• Add-a-Quarter ruler.  I am a recent convert to these, you can see my review of one here.  It is a quilt ruler with a quarter-inch lip and helps to trim seams whilst foundation paper piecing.  I also use it for templates (see below).  It stays in place and I find it safer to use than a standard quilt ruler and I am less likely to slice my finger tips!  Available in online quilt shops, there's a variety of lengths etc. 
•  Elmer's Glue for glue basting seams.  There are some tricky seams to join in some of these blocks with many seam points to match up and glue basting is a great help.  Elmer's washable school glue isa USA phenomenon but I've bought it on Amazon UK and and I decant mine into tiny bottles (eBay) that crafters use for glueing gems- they come with a thin metal nozzle and aren't expensive. Tiny dots of glue are used on the seams and then the seam is heat set with the iron before sewing.  The seam will also open up relatively easily afterwards if you want to press open. Sharon Schamber is  is queen of glue basting and her daughter Cristy sell supplies.
• Sharp machine needles.  I like either Schmetz Microtex 70, especially for finer fabrics like lawn or Superior needles 80 which are titanium making them hardwearing and long lasting.  I keep my paper needles separate from my other needles.
• Hera Marker or blunt smooth blade butter knife  I use these to score and pre-crease the seam lines on the pattern pieces.  It makes it easier to flip the paper back and forth and helps when pre cutting your fabric for the different pieces.
• Revolving cutting mat.  This is a bit of a luxury  but I find it really handy.  Not everyone likes them and you need sufficient room for it to rotate.  I've just ordered a tiny Fiskars mat specifically for these little 6" blocks.   Amazon and eBay are good sources.

Templates

There are a few options with templates.  You may choose to print out the templates from the CD onto card or printer paper and cut them out with or without seam allowances but there are other options left to right:

• Sandpaper covered board. This is a homemade item.  I use a hard cover from an A4 notebook, a sheet of very fine sand paper and double sided tape to join the two together.  You then place your fabric right side down on the board, your template on top and the sand paper allows you to draw round the fabric without anything shifting.  Its a very handy basic bit of kit.
• Elmer's Glue.  See above!
• Sewline Pencil with ceramic lead.  I find these drawn on fabric without dragging.  Many people use standard soft pencils e.g a B lead. 
• Template plastic.  You may instead choose to trace your templates onto template plastic- I use a mix of bought template plastic and recycling notebook overs.
• Add-a-Quarter ruler  See above.  Especially useful for either adding quarter inch to fabric shapes that are drawn with no seam allowances.
• Revolving cutting mat.  See above.

English Paper Piecing

Jo Avery of My Bear Paw is English Paper Piecing her blocks and using the templates to make her paper pieces.  You can see her first block here.  She'll be doing a number of guest posts for the quilt along and is posting her blocks on Instagram, she's @mybearpaw.  I've only included a couple of extras to help with English Paper piecing:

• Needles.  These are very much a personal choice but good quality needles make a huge difference.   For hand piecing, I use Jeana Kimball's Foxglove Cottage straw needles.  These are quite long and flexible and not really suitable for EPP but the sharps needles are sturdier.   You can find Foxglove Cottage needles at sewhot.co.uk.   Lots of people like Tulip Needles- available at Sewandquilt
• Sewline Glue Stick.  Glue basting instead of thread basting can speed up the preparation in English paper piecing and this is my favourite temporary glue.   I only use a little dash as the fabric can adhere to the paper quite firmly sometimes.  I've got a tutorial here on how I glue baste.

Whatever method you are planning to use for your blocks, I hope you find something of use here.  I've aimed to keep it low cost and faff free rather than buying lots of expensive kit.  Remember to check into the errata page before you start a block in case there's anything extra you need to watch out for, otherwise, I'll see you 14th September with the first guest blogger, meanwhile, here's a sneak peek at the quilt along schedule for September:

 14th September

Block 1 Addie : Wynn of Zakka Art

Block 2 Aimee : Me

21st September 

Block 3 Alice : Me

Block 4 Ann Charise of Charise creates

28th September

Block 5 Anne : Jo of A Life in Lists

Block 6 April : Me

English Paper Piecing Tips: Curves, Clam shells and Points

 I mentioned sharing some piecing tips from my Summer Medallion quilt (original pattern by Brigitte Giblin).  The centre star and curved scallops were all English paper pieced.  The star was a little tricky as it has a mix of slightly curved and straight edges. These were joined stitching from corner to corner following Brigitte's construction order diagrams.  

I prepped my paper pieces using Sewline glue stick- see here.  I needed to snip the bottom inner curve a little to give it room to stick down.  I did the same on the inner curves on the clam shells.

There was a trio of 2 clam shells and one shield shape for each section.  Here they are all pinned together in their groups of 3- paper clips are very useful for English paper piecing.

The outer scallops needed something extra than just hand sewing from point to point.  I tried this and I couldn't get the inner and outer curves to fit, one was always ending way out of line with the other.  I ended up stitching the top and bottom points of each curve I was piecing and then sewing the seam in between.

It sounds faffy but it saved a lot of time in the end as accuracy is really important in Engish Paper Piecing.

 A whole area of clam shells could be sewn like this but an appliqué technique is often used.  Mary at Molly Flanders has explored different techniques in depth- see here for more

Brit Quilt Swap- Summer Medallion

I have finished and sent my quilt and it is on its way to its new and lovely owner!  Here are some pics.   A hint on where it might be going and a glimpse at the backing fabric- a vintage print which I picked for the colour, the motifs are crazy clocks and timepieces.

This quilt was based on 'Mrs Vigor's Medallion' by Brigitte Giblin, from her beautiful and inspiring book, 'Feathering the Nest'.  It is a scaled down version of the centre motif. It was a journey of construction, starting with English paper piecing the centre star- tricky with its subtle curves, I will do a separate post on how I managed that and some tips in case you fancy doing the same.

The scallop style edge is also English paper pieced and added to the centre star.  This whole motif is appliquéd onto the background.

The outer triangle ring was foundation pieced and then appliquéd around the medallion.  The solid background fabric is Verdigris from Connecting Threads.  Penny sent me this along with some of their other solids.  They have a lovely feel, a smoother than Kona and their colours are incredible.  They don't ship internationally, but USA and Canadian quilters and no doubt familiar with their fabrics.

I hand quilted- do not look closely, this is not my best skill.   I tried machine quilting but it was not going to sit well on such a lot of hand piecing.  I bound it with a lovely scrap that Marit sent me, perfect colours and print and added a scrap of Chloe's closet check to make up the length.

I loved making this,  It was a struggle at times but a new way of working.  I can't do sustained handwork as it is hard on the hands and arms but enjoy spells of it.  I was sewing this off and on all through the summer and it has been a summer of change.  I love it but I don't tend to cling to what I have make for swaps as I make them with the recipient clearly in my mind.  The selfish part was choosing this pattern- I was desperate to make this from Feathering the Nest from the moment I  saw it.  I think I have ticked enough boxes with colours and prints to tickle my partner's fancy.   It has been sent with a pile of goodies, I wish it safe transit.  And I wonder what I will receive in this swap too, hmm, curious...

English Paper Piecing: Prepping

In between dizziness and watching the Olympics I have been working on a couple of English paper piecing projects whilst cheering on gymnasts, cyclists, rowers and the like.  A huge thankyou to all the supportive emails I got about labyrinthitis. I am not as spinny as last week but still hopeless on transport so I think recovery will be a gradual progress, and an extra big thankyou to Fiona for her very helpful email.  EPP is the perfect holiday project, easy to transport, compact and good to do sitting anywhere.  Graph  paper and custom shapes are available for free here but despite my often thrifty ways I would recommend Paper Pieces over that, great quality paper, reusable and mine arrived from USA in under a week.  Check out the discount code at Katy's blog- still useable until the end of August.

Buying Brigitte Giblin's book changed the way I view EPP.  I am working on a Medallion for my Brit Quilt partner and Tessellations II for me.  I thought I would share some of my prep for cutting and sticking- I use glue rather than basting to get my shapes ready and the only glue I would recommend is Sewline- fantastic stuff!  Brigitte captivated me with her fussy cuts.  I love fussy cutting, even though it is wasteful is is waste worth having!  To fussy cut the squares I used washi tape to create a viewing window on my quilt ruler.

For the triangles, diamonds and hexagons, I drew cutting templates on template plastic the size of the shapes plus 1/2" seam allowance.  I know this is generous but Brigitte recommends increasing seam allowance as the side lengths increase.  These shapes have 2 1/2" finished side length and a larger SA makes them easier to work with.  I use a Sewline fabric pencil to draw round the template, it is softer with a lot less drag than a standard pencil and can be removed from the fabric too.  Then I rotary or scissor cut the shapes.  The clear grid templates allow for fussy cutting too.

For the gluing stage, I work my way anti clockwise around the shapes and stick to that on all the shapes which makes them fit together better as the dog ears snuggle up and behave.   It doesn't matter if you go clockwise or anticlockwise but once you pick a direction, stay the same for all your shapes.  I start with a mini cross in the centre of the paper just to hold it in place on the fabric.

Then, I run the glue pen along about 2/3rds of the way along one side,

 And using a long pin to tuck the fabric over and allow for a bit of room for the stitches, I press the fabric down.  If you fold the fabric round the paper too tightly you will end up stitching through the paper itself which will blunt your needle, that pin adds a little ease.

The next stripe of glue goes right along an edge including over the fabric at one corner.  Use the pin again to get a neat corner and fold.

And repeat until the shape is complete. The dog ears are flapping away and I find the other shapes interlock and sit on them so they act like little shelves and are rather helpful!

I bought a new cutting mat for this project as my previous one was shredded and blunting my rotary cutters.  Following a recommendation on Instagram from Christina I plumped for an Omnigrid and was amazed at the difference in cutting- marks actually healed and my blades don't immediately loose their sharpness.

I am going for a change in colours with the Tessellation's Quilt away from my usual colour palettes.

 So far the centre rosette is complete and I have cut out the fabric for the next stage.  It is a slow grower, but very satisfying.

You can find more English paper piecing help here with Katy in her Hexy MF quilt-a-long for Fat Quarterly, here with Lynne and here with Florence.  All are well worth a visit for help, tips and inspiration.