Twisted Stitchers: Week 10

In last week's class, the Twisted Stitchers braved hail and a potential power-outage in order to begin their Cathedral Window samples. As thunder and lightning tried to jostle nerves and alerts from UAB buzzed and beeped repeatedly, fabric was cut, pressed and sewn into window frames of white, gray and cream. This week, during the next-to-last gathering of the fearless Twisted Stitchers, we will place colorful panes into our window frames. Stay tuned for next week's farewell ceremony, during which, each Twisted Stitcher will share a completed project and we will nosh on delicious snacks. I know y'all are on pins and needles...(ha!)

Tammy gets a head-start and starts sewing down her window panes.

Happy Kimberly and her window frame

Theresa's window frame is a beautiful neutral gray.

Meredith gets pin-happy

Two parts of the window ready for sewing

...and the storm is finished! Time for a beautiful sunset

Cathedral Window demonstration

This Cathedral Window demonstration yields a 9" x 9", four-pane window. Traditionally, Cathedral Window quilts are made using a white or light-colored fabric as the base or background. In this demonstration, two patterned fabrics are prepared to create a checker-board background. It is probably a good idea for first-timers to begin with a white background. Some of the issues that need to be considered when using patterned fabric are not relevant when using white fabric. 

Cut four pieces of fabric at 9"x9" - for a standard window, use four pieces of white fabric.
In this demo, I will use two pieces of pink and two of the red flower/orange background.

Fold the square of fabric into fourths and press

Open up square. If your fabric has a pattern, place it pattern-side down

Fold one corner into the center and press

Repeat the above step for the remaining corners until your square looks like this

Fold one corner toward center and press as before

Follow above step with remaining corners

Repeat above steps for remaining three squares until you have
four squares folded and pressed like so. If you are using white
fabric, the layout doesn't matter.  

Take two of the squares and turn up the corners in order to sew them together

You can hand-sew or machine-sew all of the following seams.
If hand-sewing, use a running stitch or back-stitch.

Once the seam is complete, fold corners back down and press.

Repeat above steps in order to sew bottom two squares together

Now you have two rows of sewn squares. Make sure to press well.

Line up top and bottom rows and lift up matching corners. 

Pin in preparation to sew the top and bottoms together.

Sew both pairs of corners along the pressed line with a running stitch or
backstitch or with your sewing machine.

Once top and bottom rows are sewn together, fold all corners back down and
press your window frame flat.

This is what your window frame will look like from the back if you use
two contrasting fabrics to create a checkerboard.

Pin all corners down. Cut four pieces of fabric at 2.75 inches square to be the panes in your window.
These can be four pieces of the same fabric or four different fabrics. The design is up to you. Pin the
squares into place. The next tutorial will explain how to sew down the window panes.

Twisted Stitchers: Week 8

We continued working on stitched poems this week. Tammy's Dickinson line reads,
Give me the splendid, silent sun
with all his beams full-dazzling.

Nancy works on a composition, not fearing her new green cast...

Kimberly's Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is coming along

Meredith's composition is complete, though she took it apart in time for me to take a photo...

Not content to wing her letters, Shannon gets professional with embroidery hoop and stitch book in hand.

Shannon's beautiful Dragonfly piece for a dear friend...recognize Nina's lyric?

Thanks to Daylight Savings, we had a beautiful sunset in our ArtPlay classroom tonight!

Theresa's I-Ching reading turned out great and now she's working on an equally impressive composition.

Twisted Stitchers: Week 7

Theresa's finished pillow - all made by hand!

Theresa's workstation: finished pillow and the Tao Te Ching (her inspiration for the stitched poem activity)

Tammy's stitched poem is by Emily Dickinson

Theresa's stitched poem is from the Tao Te Ching

Ellen was inspired by her "creatures from patterned fabric" activity and continued working on it

Ellen's peacock composition

You can see where Ellen's peacock came from in this quail fabric. A great use of patterned fabric for this activity.

Kimberly adds JAZZ HANDS to her stitched poem, which will be...Girls Just Want to Have Fun!

"Make Cornbread, Not War" by anonymous (she wasn't happy with it so we shall leave her unnamed)