Janome Quilt Binder Set

I have tried out the Janome Quilt Binder Set recently, and I think this might be just the tool I need to get more of my sample quilts, as well as utility quilts bound up in a jiffy! I seem to stall out at the quilt binding stage, but with a little more practice, I'm going to get caught up.

 Now, there are a couple versions of this binding set for different machines. I had one that came with the existing inventory when we bought the shop. It was rather old and the packaging showed it. It's not a cheap tool, so I knew I'd have to play with it if I was going to prove that it was a worthwhile item. I set it aside and there it sat.

When I got it out finally, I discovered it was made for the bigger 7mm stitch width machines like the 6600P, MC7700, 11000, and the like. I didn't have any of those machines in the shop so I tried it on a smaller 7mm machine, the 4120. It fit that machine, but just barely. It was a little hard to maneuver.

But after just one test quilt, I went ahead and ordered the set that would fit on my 15000 and other Janome 8mm stitch width machines, like the 8900, 8200, 9400, etc.

Corners were easier than I expected. However, once I moved to a real quilt, I had trouble lining up the edges of the 1/2 inch binding to get it to stitch down perfectly, all in one pass. I do think trying to work under the small space of the 4120 was partly responsible.

I was able to stitch the entire binding down, including all four corners in 57 minutes! That didn't count for the final joining of ends, and I missed the binding in a few places, but overall, it's definitely worth doing it enough to perfect the technique!

I'll keep you posted on this tool and whether I think it's worth the investment.

Also I am happy to announce that the Ruler Work Upgrade is now available for the Janome 9400. The demand is great and it's getting into an out of stock item quickly. In fact, Janome is sending me a loaner machine so I can shoot videos of the ruler foot in action and it's been put on backorder! If you have the 9400 and want to do ruler work....talk to your dealer asap! Yes, it's totally worth it! The software update will make it impossible to clunk your ruler foot and your needle clamp together. Janome is the only machine on the market with such a foot and feature.

By the way, many of you have asked about the Glide thread that I use for so much of my quilting. I sell it online, but have yet to list it in as many colors as we actually have at Sew Simple of Lynchburg. But I an excited to share that we now carry the Angela Huffman Glide Thread Collection. Ten cones at a great price in a handy storage case. You can order it at Amy's Quilting Adventures.

How to Choose Quilting Designs

Whether you use a walking foot, free motion, free motion quilting with rulers, hand quilting, or a combination of more than one of these techniques when you quilt your quilt, there are a lot of factors that can come into play when choosing designs. This is why "How do I Quilt This?" type classes are so popular and why this question can cause even the most experienced quilter to cringe (especially if asked in an email without any photos!).

I divide quilting designs into 4 major types:

Overall Designs- These are designs that do not pay attention to the piecing. Similar to a pantograph used by a longarmer, these are great designs for utility, bed and comfort quilts.

Block and piecing designs- These are designs that are based on the piecing. Designs for blocks, squares, triangles, borders and sashing.

The piecing here determined the quilting.

Fills- These smaller designs are for filling in spaces between other types of quilting, adding texture and interest along the way, sometimes they are even used as larger design elements in the quilting.

The Celtic Square design used here is both a motif and a block and piecing design and is surrounded by dense fills to make it pop.

Motif Designs- These are the ones we love to see in fancier quilts; the scrolls, feathers, floral motifs and more that are major parts of the design of a quilt in of themselves.

Don't confuse the types of designs with the type of quilting. There are designs in any of these four categories that can be done with a variety of methods of quilting. Tiny fills are usually free motion, much of what I do with rulers could be classified as block and piecing designs, and large swaths of straight line quilting all the way across a quilt could be done several different ways, but would still be considered an overall design no matter the method used.

Sometimes the design chosen decides the method of quilting. For example, a tiny, curvy, dense design is not likely a good candidate for walking foot quilting.

There are other times that the type of quilting (hand quilting, walking foot, free motion) the quilter wants to do, will help the quilter choose designs that work better for those methods.

Sometimes a design works well for several types of quilting and the quilter will determine which method to use. I could do straight line square spiral design with a walking foot, but since I love using my rulers, and especially if it's a big quilt, I'd choose to use free motion ruler work. You might choose differently.

Someone might choose big stitch quilting to add interest to a quilt and do it by hand, while another quilter, maybe with less time to spare, would set her machine up with some monofilament thread in the top of the machine and use a "hand-look quilting" stitch. Can you guess which method I'd choose? Leave your guess in the comments below.

The four types are not overly segregated and mix and mingle quite often. While overall designs are usually loners, typically, motif and fill designs work together and are pretty much mutually necessary. Block and piecing designs are good mixers in a quilt, and I think are the unsung heroes of quilting.

Overall Designs- Also called edge-to-edge designs. These are some of the easiest designs to begin with, but not all overall designs are simple. They can be large stippling, other larger meandering designs, or even feathers  as an overall design. You can get ideas for these types of designs by looking at quilts done by longarmers with pantographs. Some can even be quite complex, featuring horses, bears, flowers, stars, etc.

This design could be a filler , fit into a block, or made large as an overall design. You choose!

Block and Piecing Designs- This includes the tedious but many times necessary "Stitch in the Ditch" which can also be done with a walking foot without using FMQ. Once you have a good grasp of FMQ, doing stitch in  the ditch with the darning or free motion foot means no turning of the quilt as you stitch. Block and piecing designs can really enhance the piecing in a quilt.

Here's an easy sashing design.

Fills- Pebbles, smaller stipples, even closely spaced lines of stitching are in this category. Leah Day's site does a great job of categorizing and teaching many, many fills at the Free Motion Quilting Project. She's also produced three books of designs, one of which is From Daisy to Paisley: 50 Beginner Level Free Motion Quilting Designs. Keep in  mind that because of the scope of the project and the stitched samples, these designs are shown quite small. At the small size these are great for filling in around larger motif designs or in conjunction with block and piecing designs. It is up to you to decide at what size you want to quilt these for your quilt! Make them bigger and many can even be overall designs.

Motif Designs- Many of these designs benefit from good planning and marking. There's the classic feather wreath and all of its variations, feathered swags and borders. Some motifs are suitable for block and piecing designs too. Traditional whole cloth quilts are fabulous examples of motif designs coupled with fills. Two wonderful books by Karen McTavish (I have most of her books; they're great) The Secrets of Elemental Quilting  and Whitework Quilting: Creative Techniques for Designing Wholecloth and Adding Trapunto to Your Quilts give great examples of using motifs in quilts along with some great tips.

Some general tips for choosing designs:

Quilt Density: the denser the quilting, the stiffer the quilt. And of course, dense quilting takes longer and uses more thread. Save really dense quilting for wall quilts, fancy quilts, and yes, show quilts. No one wants to snuggle down with a stiff quilt, so for comfy quilts, choose an overall design or fairly simple block and piecing designs.

Abbie is happy I didn't quilt her quilt to death.

One of the big differences between what we can quilt with our domestic sewing machines versus those of the longarm machines has to do with our range of motion. We can only quilt in the space between our hands before we have to reposition our hands and quilt. Those using longarm machines, have a range of motion for stitching that is pretty much the range of their upper body motion. This means the designs we choose either have smaller shapes, well-planned changes of direction, or we have to be really good with our stops and starts when repositioning our hands. Usually, it's a mix of all three factors.

Many quilts benefit from "Stitch in the Ditch", stitching along piecing lines to stabilize the seams, keep things square and subdivide the quilt to keep shifting of batting and backing to a minimum. For the most part this type of quilting is done first and many choose to use a walking foot with the feed dogs up. But, again, once you become proficient at FMQ, doing it in free motion can be a lot faster with little or no rotation of the quilt needed.

Applique quilts can also benefit from stitching around the applique shapes. Ann Fahl's book, Dancing With Thread: Your Guide to Free-Motion Quilting, describes this type of quilting and regular stitch in the ditch quilting as stabilizing the quilt and recommends using clear monofilament for this type of stitching in case the stitches wiggle from one side of the seam or applique to the other.

This applique was carefully SID'd to make it pop.

Large motif designs with inadequate fills around them lose their impact. When properly surrounded with fills, motifs can really pop, making a faux trapunto effect. Couple motifs and small fills with a lofty batting and you've got some great dimension and texture. Larger areas of "white space" are prime real estate for motifs.

Much of this article came from a post I did years ago on "How to Free Motion Quilt: the Designs." You may want to see the line drawings there I did to show examples of various types of designs.

Stitching on the Swirly Bird: Free Motion Quilting Swirls

I'm trying to finish up some small projects and have been free motion quilting around this bird which was appliqued using the Artistic Edge cutter and then machine embroidered on a Janome MC14000.

It was my first attempt to digitize my own MEA design and it wasn't completely successful. Watch the video to see how I dealt with the excessive thickness of the satin stitches by adjusting the foot's height as I went.

Thanks so much for all the positive comments on my quilted window from my last post. I think it was a hit!

Quilting with Rulers: Stars and Diamonds

I'm working on my ruler work sampler and I'm putting diamonds into this star block. My mind keeps pulling up the chorus, "Lucy in the sky with diamonds...."

The great thing about putting diamonds into blocks this way is that it can be done without a bunch of starts and stops. I'm just about done with it, but I haven't decided if I want to go back in and put some fills into the diamonds and really make them pop.

I was inspired to adapt the ruler work technique from long arm quilters and use it on my home machine to guide my free motion quilting, and I've learned a bunch from looking at the work of professional long arm quilters.

They quilt a lot more quilts as it's their job and have so many great designs that not only look great, but also reduce the number of stops and starts for more efficient quilting. I am in awe of how they can figure out how to quilt large complex areas with several designs with a great plan that allows them to use one start and one stop.

I am getting better at it, but it seems as if I get halfway done with an area and then find a way I could have stitched it more efficiently! Sometimes I'll finish up an area and after I've cut my threads to move to a new area, I find a way I could have kept going. Then again, since my quilting times come in tiny little sessions with frequent interruptions, I'm not sure it matters for me to do it more continuously.

How about you? Do you look for was to stitch more continuously or do you not mind frequent starts and stops?

Go Slow

When you've left your kids twice during the summer and then birthed a new baby in the form of a Craftsy class, the quilting slows down for some important things.

Like this beautiful, creative, crafty, free-spirited girl of mine. We've been sitting down to watch a Craftsy class on crochet together, Crochet Basics and Beyond. She's been crocheting for a while, but not following patterns and not really wanting me to teach her more than a few basic stitches. She likes free form crochet. After going through enough yarn to wrap around our house a few billion times, much of which ended up looking like a shag rug went through a shredder, she's now delighted to follow a class together. Even more so when she realized the instructor was the author of her favorite crochet book, Teach Yourself Visually Crocheting, Kim Werker. My daughter is so worth going slow for.

But I have gotten some quilting in between answering emails and questions/discussions in my class, doing some promoting of the class, trying to get some other work done, and more.

This quilt is worth going slow for too. It's a nice sampler quilt that I challenged myself to piece. See, I'm really all about the quilting and have always thought I was a pretty poor piecer. But I took my time and got it put together quite well.
 

Now I'm using it to showcase a wide variety of ruler work designs. I'm using a light turquiose thread to show the quilting better, which of course means any little bobbles show. It reminds me of watching gymnastics: "Oh! A little bobble there. That's going to cost her." Nevermind the girl may have done a triple handspring with a 180 twist on the beam, a little bobble shows.

For me, it's not the quilt police or even show judges that I'm worried about. It's my own perfectionistic tendencies and inner mean-girl. But I'm getting better at shutting up my own worst critic. I planned to take a picture of this area below to show you why you should go slow when you start stitching with rulers.

Once I got the camera out, I could hardly see the spot that I wanted to show you. It really wasn't that bad at all. I'll get to the tip in a moment, but let me just point out the bigger thing here and that is if you see some quilting as you stitch that you don't like, step away from the quilt for a moment. Spread it on a bed or take a picture (not with the macro lens!) and then decide if it's something that really needs fixing.

What I wanted to point out is that it always pays to start out slow when free motion quilting, especially when doing ruler work. There are some side-to-side forces on the fabric sandwich and while you're using your needle down function (I hope you are!) everything is secure. But the minute that needle goes up, if there's tension in the wrong direction, the quilt can shoot off from where you wanted those first stitches to go. So take it very slow until that first stitch is in and the quilt is under your full control.

This part above definitely needs fixing! I got a little careless and stitched right into the frame of my curved crosshatching. But it was easily fixed.

Another block down, but what will I do to finish out that sashing design? It's reminiscent of the frame border I teach in my class, but in a much smaller scale. It's done with the BFF from the Quilted Pineapple (See her ad for templates in the right sidebar), but I don't want to treat it like that design. I'll quilt somewhere else while I think about it.

Speaking of going slow, if you're new to ruler work, don't feel like you've got to run out and buy a ton of new rulers. You can learn the technique and explore a lot of designs with just a straight ruler and a curve or two. There's plenty of time to add to your ruler collection. Of course, if you want to buy a bunch, I'm hoping you'll visit some of my sponsors or wait another week or two for my shop opening. I definitely didn't go slow when ordering rulers and templates for my online shop. If I think too hard about how much I have spent, my heart starts to race!

Available Now! Quilting with Rulers on a Home Machine

I'm so excited to tell you that my Craftsy class, Quilting with Rulers on a Home Machine, is now available! It is the direct result of nearly 6 months of hard work plus the indirect result of several years of quilting, experimenting, and blogging.

There was a lot of sample making, step outs (projects that were partially done to move the teaching process along), a whole extra set of pieces made for rehearsal purposes, and a ton of writing and re-writing.

Some cross hatching variations in triangles. The ruler on the left was used for some of them, but the other ruler is for a completely different design, a dahlia.

There were tears and doubts too. Could I actually do this? Keep in mind that while my Youtube videos have well received, the only part of me on screen had been my hands.

It was so far out of my comfort zone, but you don't grow unless you push beyond what you've already done. So I pushed myself and I am really proud of the result. It feels strange to say it, but I'm proud of my work. Those who know me, know that I'm kind of self-deprecating (sometimes to an unhealthy level- but I'm working on it) so this is a big deal. I had a lot of encouragement from my husband and kids, some friends (especially the quilty ones), from the entire Craftsy team, and most of all, from my blog readers.

You may not realize it, but all Craftsy classes are shot over a very quick two and a half days after a lot of prep work done at home and via Skype, phone, and email. Then it goes through an extensive editing process. I didn't even get to see my class myself until a few days ago. I've decided that my biggest mistake was that I didn't smile enough.

You blog readers are especially important to this class. Over the last several years you have encouraged me with your complementary comments, your interest in my techniques, and your friendship. You've challenged me with your questions, helping me to become a better teacher. Without a decent blog following, I doubt there would even be a class.

So to thank you for your wonderful support, encouragement, and friendship, I am giving you a link that will take $10 off of my class, Quilting with Rulers on a Home Machine. Feel free to share the link with your friends. You have to use the link just above to get the discount. If you go directly through Craftsy, their regular price will apply.

In the class, I teach about the importance of the ruler foot, discuss and show various types of rulers, and demonstrate several different ways of using rulers to guide your free motion quilting (this class applies to sewing machines and sit down long arm machines). I show samples, quilt on camera, and share variations of the designs. It's pretty thorough, but I feel like there's still so much I want to share of this technique!

You can see this video trailer in better quality on the Craftsy site!

Don't forget that through Craftsy's wonderful platform, you can ask me questions and I will answer them as well as other students may chime in, and you can post projects that you have done using the technique. Your class never expires and you can watch it as often as you like.

Free Motion Ruler Work: Midnight Snowflakes

I am having a great time with my new Janome 8200 and quilting with rulers. This machine is so quiet, plus the visibility and ability to work behind the foot with standard 1/4 inch thick rulers is so much improved over my 6600.

Not that the Janome 6600 isn't a great machine, it's only when it came to ruler work behind the foot that I had any issues. In fact, the 6600 is no longer mine. It sold yesterday at the shop. I showed it the day before to a young mother and I hope it was her husband who returned the next day and bought it for his wife. I didn't get her name, but I gave her my card so I'd love to hear from her. (I want to let her know that there are some customized settings on the machine that I should have returned to the defaults before it sold.)
 

Isn't this a cool batik to free motion quilt?

I'm working feverishly on a sample quilt for the Top Anchor Quiting Tools both at the Lancaster AQS show in less than two weeks. All of these snow days have slowed my quilting down. The kids have been having plenty of fun; sledding and drinking hot chocolate. I've been doing more laundry than ever since giving up cloth diapers a few years ago.

The batik motifs are based on 8 points and most of the rulers I'm using are based on 6 points, so it doesn't line up well, but I think it's still pretty! You can see the anchor post in the middle of this design.

For the ruler work motifs on this quilt, I'm using Yenmet Metallic thread. It's a blend of turquoise blue thread and silver metallic. It's working beautifully! I'm using a 90/14 universal needle in the machine and Glide thread in the bobbin. I did take the tension off of auto so I could use a very low tension on the top.

I'll work on getting a few in process shots soon, maybe even a video if I can get the kids to be quiet long enough.

What have you been quilting on? Are you doing any ruler work? Anybody else longing for spring like I am?

DIY Sewing Table: Updated & Improved

My handy husband worked this weekend to get my sewing table adapted for my new, bigger machine. It's turned out well, and I've been dying to tell you about the new method we used.

Back in October of 2014, he created a sewing table for my 6600 out of an old dining room table someone was getting rid of. If you haven't read it before, check it out now, I'll wait. How to Make a Sewing Machine Table: Great for Machine Quilting. There's some great tips and variations given in the comments too.

That post is my second all-time most popular post! Second only to my "How to Free Motion Quilt: The Basic Motion and Tension" post. I think it may also be my most popular pin on Pinterest. So I want to make sure to share this update.

When my hubby created my sewing table, he had a huge advantage in that the Janome 6600 was a flat-bed machine. That is, there's no free arm and it can be set into a table by cutting out a rectangle with rounded corners and building the support underneath. Nothing has changed regarding the support; make sure the machine is secure and the table is solidly built.

Marking the table for the insert.

But the new machine has a much more elaborate foot print with its free arm. We could have set it in the table without exposing the free arm and the hole would be more rectangular, but the sides of the removable machine base curved so it wouldn't be level.

Here, the router bit has been lowered to cut the initial opening. Then it was raised to 1/4 inch to inset the insert.

Since working at Sew Simple, I realized I could use the same acrylic inserts in my table as the fancy sewing machine cabinets they sell. Even better, once the outer dimension of the insert was cut, I could replace the insert with an insert for another machine, should I get a different machine in the future.

Using a board to guide the router for a smooth, straight line.

You can get these inserts through various cabinet dealers and they will be cut to fit your machine. We happened to have an extra insert for the 8200 at the shop, but the brand we carry is Horn of America. Very nice cabinets, should you want to buy your sewing table! An insert should run, depending on size, somewhere between $65 to $90 dollars. I'd say it's worth it to avoid cutting out a complicated machine hole.

Almost there! Just gotta even out the right side and do some serious dusting.

The insert is 1/4 inch thick. So working with a router is necessary to get the surface down 1/4 inch. There are probably other ways to do this, depending on skill level and tool availability. A hole just the size of the outer dimension of the insert could be made and additional supports added underneath to hold the insert up.

A nearly perfect fit! Nothing that a Supreme Slider can't take care of.

My husband chose to cut a smaller hole and router out the remaining material as he didn't want to weaken the "engineered wood product" surface of the table we used. It worked like a charm!

All set to sew!

The last thing was to drill a new hole for the knee lift. He says this was the hardest part! Once the machine is in place, it is hard to line the hole location with the right place on the machine. Now my table is all set up and I am ready to free motion quilt my heart out!

He was not thrilled to find I had taken this picture, but I thought he deserved to be in this post. Check out that dimple, ladies! He looks pretty robust for a guy who had about all the chemo a body can stand, praise God!

If you're a Pinterest user, would you please pin the top photo? There were so many pins and repins of my original article and I want folks to know there is an updated and improved version.

Free Motion Ruler Work on Pfaff, Babylock Ellisimo, and Brother Quattro

Back in late October, reader Becki sent me an email letting me know she had taken a free motion quilting class from Patsy Thompson and Patsy had recommended my blog and videos to the class. After letting out a squeal of glee, I emailed Patsy to thank her and it has sparked an email correspondence that has been so encouraging to me.

She and I both are looking for ways for more quilters to do free motion ruler work. She has access to more machines than I do and after some back and forth discussion about the 3rd party ruler feet that have lately come onto the market claiming to fit nearly all sewing machines, she decided to try the Janome Ruler Foot on some of the machines we hadn't tried yet.

Patsy has just done a very clear and fabulous video on her blog showing how she's made this Janome foot work on several Pfaffs, Babylock Ellisimo, and the Brother Quattro. So go check it out! If you don't have any of these machines, it will still give you some ideas to see if you want to experiment with your machine.

Here's an excerpt from one of our emails (used with Patsy's permission):

Just wanted to report in about the convertible foot w/ruler toe on Pfaffs.  I have tried this combo on 5 models of Pfaffs so far:

2034; 2040; 2042; 2044; and 2046

 The combo worked great on all of them.  One thing that really surprised me was that the space from the base of the ruler toe to the machine bed seemed really high (this was after I'd adjusted the toe to its lowest possible position) but it worked like a charm on all 5 machines.  in fact, I find it easier to do ruler work on those Pfaffs than my Babylock Ellisimo/Brother Quattro even though the latter 2 have much larger harp spaces.  It is interesting to me that virtually every machine I have done ruler work on has its own unique area that is more difficult/impossible to position the template.  (emphasis added is mine)

I have a Q & A post coming up for you on a new 3rd party ruler foot maker  next week. But in the meantime, we're getting closer and closer to getting everybody into free motion quilting with rulers and templates.

I am sick--again. So I am so glad to share Patsy's post with you and go back to bed! I think I'm going to start spraying the kids down with Lysol before they come in from school. At least this time no one's stomach was involved.

Transferring Designs to Fabric

A few months ago, I began a series on working with text using your computer and using that resulting design in quilting. I promised a tutorial on transferring those designs to your fabric and here it is.

First there's a step I should have pointed out in Working with Text, Part One. When tweaking your text in Word, choose a line thickness that will be bold enough to see.

Not too thick, but not too thin, but just right. I prefer 1-1/2 pt to 2-1/4 pt lines. Sometimes this can vary with your printer settings. (By the way, Part 2 of working with text shows how you can enlarge your design using Paint. At some point, I'll do a third part on using a different program for a clearer enlargement.

With a good print from your computer, it is super easy to trace the design onto light colored fabric. I'm using Kona cotton for the white fabric shown below, which is a fairly substantial fabric.

First thing is to mark registration lines on your project. For this project, I'm quilting my word of the year, "Finish" onto a canvas covered frame. I traced around the frame with my air eraseable pen. I'll have to work fast with this.

Then some markings to show the center of the fabric and a line to rest my words on. Placing the word on the project can be as accurate as you want. It just requires more measurements and marking. The text above 'finish' has two purposes. The T is a place holder and helped me to move the word 'finish' lower on the page. Miandra GD is the font I used.

Since I'm marking the word onto white fabric, it's pretty easy to lay the fabric down and trace with my marking pen. I use painter's tape to secure the design and fabric to the table. Don't want either one to slip.

 But what if you're not using white fabric? Then you can use a light table to help you trace.

A light table can even help you mark dark fabrics! (Alas, I couldn't get it to also photograph well.) The fabric below was marked on the light table too.

Don't have a light table? Don't worry! Follow my blog with a feed reader (Feedly, Blog Lovin', etc.), by email, or just check back with me often as I've got another post in the works on make-do light tables and alternatives.

A fabulous way to mark dark fabrics is with your own freezer paper stencil and chalk. First get your design onto freezer paper (again, I've got some alternatives for this that I'll post soon). For this project I just traced the design by putting the printed page under a single layer of freezer paper. I didn't even need to use the light table.

Then I ironed the marked piece to another layer of freezer paper, shiny side to dull side. This causes some distortion as the freezer paper does shrink a bit. A heavy paper or cardstock will work without distortion or the second layer, but the freezer paper allows me to press it to the fabric later. Then poke holes on the drawn line with a seam ripper, awl, stiletto, or large needle.

It is better to get bigger holes that aren't too far apart than it is to get tiny holes very close together. Hold the stencil up to the light to see the results of your tedious poking. You'll also see if you've missed spots.

Then secure your stencil to your project. This is where the freezer paper comes in handy as you can iron the shiny side to the fabric. You can reuse it many times too. Then rub pounce powder/chalk pad over the stencil to mark it. If you've got a light fabric and don't have colored chalk (or don't trust the colored chalk), you can press the tip of a fabric marker through the holes.

I rub the pad over the holes a few times and then use the small sponge to rub excess powder into the holes. I use Miracle Chalk Quick Swipe Pad- . It 'erases' with heat. Don't skimp on the chalk.

Peel the stencil up slowly and see the marked fabulousness! The stencil method is also great for marking a quilt after it's already been layered with batting and backing.

Whew! Even with subdividing this into two other posts, that was long! Here in southern Virginia, the kids are having a "no snow" day. Temps right around freezing and some misty rain, so there must have been 1% chance of ice and they closed the schools. Even this former Florida girl just doesn't get it. Then again I leaned to drive in snow and ice in an 18 wheeler in the Northeast. (Yes, I have had an unusual life!)

Now, I'm going to go finish my "Finish". Stay warm and safe folks! And if you're in the southern hemisphere, stay cool!