Make Modern Issue 4 Preview

Issue Four Modern Yardage:

fabrics that scale

Sew Your Stash Work with what you have!

Sewing for Sydney uniting quilters for charity

Meet

Anorina Morris

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Dear Diary‌ Quiltcon! make

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inspiring projects issue four

meet the makers

Soma Acharya blog

Melissa Gottliebsen

Alyce Blyth

Cheryl Brickey

Lori Hartman

@blossomheartquilts

@meadowmistdesigns

@lorihartmandesigns

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blog

blog

Jane Kelly

Stephanie Kendron

Kristy Lea

@msmidge

@wherejanecreates

@modernsewciety

@quietplay

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meet the makers

Lara Motta @luellabella

Tricia Mathis @quiltbugcreations

Shannon Mower blog

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Caroline Press

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Adrianne Reid

Casey York

@trilliumdesign

@adrianneonthewindyside

@caseyyorkdesign

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good things, small packages

candy dash

by Adrianne Reid

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e all love a good rainbow. The beauty of this mini quilt lies in having the rainbow as the background, allowing the bright white churn dashes to make a statement of their own.

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ask the makers

quilt crimes ach issue, we ask our contributors a very important question about some aspect of quilting. Regardless of how long we’ve been quilting and sewing, there is always something to learn or a tip to make or do something slightly differently. So this issue we asked our makers about their quilty crimes. If the quilt police existed, what would our makers be arrested for?

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Jane of Where Jane Creates & MM Editor “The first thing that comes to mind is my inability to finish projects before I start something (or ten things) new. I’m sure the Quilt Police prefer people who work in a linear fashion, not those of us with Quilter’s ADHD.”

Kristy of Quiet Play & MM Creative Director “Oh where do I start? I don’t bury threads. I minimally baste and quilt my quilts.

I baste on the table, and don’t even bother with tape or clamps. Clearly I’ll have to start making an escape plan if the Quilt Police ever knock at my door.”

Lara, MM Business Manager “Fudging seams! I hate unpicking - so will press, steam, pull, pin, and fiddle until my seams line up, usually taking twice as much time as unpicking in the first place!”

Alyce of Blossom Heart Quilts “Unless it's a mini quilt, I rarely iron/press my quilt tops. If they're fresh off the presses, I just go straight to basting. But if it's been sitting around in the cupboard, then I will. Ditto for quilt backs – I just pull tight and tape them down tightly on the floor!”

Stephanie of Modern Sewciety “I am always sewing over my pins when I piece. I know I shouldn’t and I have broken so many needles doing this but I still do it. I need to be arrested, I know!”

Lori of Lori Hartman Designs “I would definitely be arrested for not always ironing my fabric before I start cutting! I know, it's horrible. Sometimes I'm just so excited to get started that if it isn't too wrinkled I will skip the ironing and go straight to the cutting.”

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Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs “If the Quilt Police were to show up at my door it would be for sewing over pins!

I know that it is ‘bad’ but it keeps the seams aligned.”

Shannon of Modern Traditional Quilts “So...I would run like gang-busters from the quilting police – and they wouldn't be able to find me through their usual trail of dog-ears because I simply to trim them. The only way they could tie me to the quilting crime scene is at my quilting machine where I simply cannot quilt a project without catching finger on a needle or pin connecting my leaders to my quilt. I seriously have drawn quilt I have done (and that's a lot). They'd have to catch me using blood on my quilter's DNA – on the supply of band-aids next to the bobbins.”

Soma of Whims and Fancies “I often wait too long to quilt my tops until I am absolutely sure of the quilting motif.”

Caroline of Trillium Designs “If there were a Quilt Police, I would like be arrested on multiple charges and thrown in jail for life without parole as I break many, if not most, of the quilt rules.

I prefer to press with steam, I never prewash fabrics and I don't bury threads.

Those are the top few, but there are many more rules that I will break. I am not a rule follower.”

Tricia of Quilt Bug Creations “If there were quilt police I would probably be arrested for putting on borders without measuring them first. I know that I shouldn't do this but sometimes, in a hurry, I do.”

Casey of Casey York Designs “I would probably be arrested simply for having so little regard for the ‘rules’.

When I'm inspired to make a design a reality, I'll try any and every technique-including making up my own--to accomplish my goal. Not all of my experiments work, but when they do it's very satisfying.”

Adrianne of On the Windy Side “I do not pre-wash my fabrics before using them in quilts (with a couple of exceptions, like 100% linen fabric). To be honest, if I did pre-wash, I'd spend more time washing, drying and ironing my fabric than sewing with it. So far, not pre-washing hasn't caused me any problems (but I am very vigilant about using colour catchers)!”

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go to gifts

ellie’s elephants

by Tricia Mathis

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right, fresh colours and adorable motifs make this sweet little appliqued quilt a perfect gift to welcome a new little baby to the world. It’s cute without being cutesy, which appeals to babies and their mothers alike.

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practicalities

sewing your

stash

just use it!

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e’re going to make a sweeping generalisation here and assume that if you’re reading this, you’re a fan of fabric. And that you take pride in your stash, which may contain more fabric than you could possibly turn into quilts in the next year (or five). And despite this, you will more than likely buy more fabric for the stash over the coming year. , we are huge fabric lovers. We buy it, pet Here at it, sometimes even sew with it. But a lot of it goes straight to the stash, where it stays (in some cases, in OCD colour coded glory).

In previous practicalities features, we’ve talked about maintaining a workable stash and organising your scraps. But all of that is null and void if you don’t actual the fabric you’ve got, which is why we’re talking about sewing your stash.

It seems simple enough… buy fabric, then use it. But it’s not always that easy. Sometimes we snap up the must-have bundle of the moment while it’s still available or we buy something for a specific project but don’t get around to sewing it up. Sometimes the lure of a big sale sucks us into buying things we don’t really need. Often we deem certain fabrics too precious to cut. All these factors contribute to having a stash that is bigger than any one quilter can manage. End result: you’ve got so much fabric that it’s guilt-inducing and overwhelming.

This is why it’s important to take a long, hard look at your stash and actually use it. A commitment to sew from your stash isn’t as strict as a fabric diet, but it does force you to look to what you already own and be a little creative with your supplies.

organise your fabric It goes without saying that if your fabric storage is in a state of disarray, it’ll be harder to sew from your stash. We’ve covered this extensively in previous issues so won’t go into too much detail now, but it is important to get that stash in order. This is your first plan of attack.

Once your fabric is in order, it’s time to do something much more fun – pull some fabrics!

Even if you don’t have a particular plan in mind, take a few minutes to pull some fabrics that work together. Explore new colour schemes. Mix and match things you wouldn’t normally put together. Pull out your treasured bundles. Take pictures of your fabric pulls on your phone and store them for later inspiration, then when there’s a particular project you need to make, you can pull up your pictures and see if you’ve got the perfect fabric selection already thought out. This is a great exercise to help you really understand and appreciate what’s in your stash.

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vintage2modern

yesterday

by Cheryl Brickey

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esterday is a modern interpretation on a classic quilt block dating back to the late 1800s. It features block, which is also sometimes called the block – because back in the 19th century, it wasn’t uncommon for a loved one to travel for work and never be heard from again. Cheryl gave her quilt a modern twist by using a simple colour palette of black and white solids.

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sew the rainbow

interlocked

by Kristy Lea

ur Kristy loves the challenge of using her paper piecing magic to create complex optical illusion designs. At first glance, you might wonder how on earth all these pieces come together to create the overlapping, linked in effect‌ but with paper piecing it’s as easy as following the numbers.

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meet the maker

stephanie kendron modern sewciety

ven though she grew up with a grandmother and mother who were always sewing when she was a child, Stephanie never took much interest. However, as it does for many of us, all this changed when Stephanie’s first daughter was born seven years ago.

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“As with most stories I have heard lately, I had my first child and felt the urge to sew things for her. I also needed something that was all mine to do. I was a full time wife and mom but having that extra activity that required only me provided lots of sanity for me as a new mom,” Stephanie explains.

Photo credit: Melody Coarsey

Stephanie believes she got into sewing at just the right time: “It was the start of blogs and modern fabrics,” she says, admitting she was addicted to it almost immediately. “It was just what I needed and I knew I had found my creative outlet.”

Coming from a non-creative career, Stephanie believes that quilting has helped her to find herself. “I have a bachelors in business and a masters in counseling and that wasn’t very creative! I am so glad I found this passion of mine. It has really helped shape who I know I am supposed to be,” she says.

While most of us are content to stitch away, connecting with other quilters online and reading our favourite blogs, Stephanie has taken it one step further by creating her own, unique presence on the web. She is the owner and presenter of Modern Sewciety, a modern quilting podcast, where she chats weekly to many of the biggest names in the quilting business.

For Stephanie, reading about something online was one thing, but she really wanted to get to know the stories behind some of our favourite quilters and designers, so she started podcasting.

“Getting to know them (quilters) was the reason I started the podcast. I wanted to know more about their stories,” she explains.

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