Making Quilts: The costs Involved

I don’t do production work. These are words I find myself saying more and more in regard to my machine embroidery. I take the compliment intended when someone says they should buy something that I make. Unfortunately, whatever it is I’ve made isn’t usually for sale! The politest thing I can say is that I really don’t do production work.

While I love making quilts or small embroidered items to give as gifts, it’s just not worth the time and effort to make these things to sell. Contrary to popular belief, making things on our own is not less expensive than buying it from a store! The only true benefit we get is by creating a one-of-a-kind item that is exactly what we want. If that option was readily available at stores, we would be expected to pay top dollar for it.

However, when someone wants us to make something for them to buy, they don’t seem to understand the true costs involved in making quilts or stitching intricate lace by machine embroidery. Instead, they see prices at stores and think our prices should be the same.

I can pick up a decent quilt for around $100 at a local chain department store. However, just the fabric costs to make one on my own far exceeds that price. This doesn’t include the costs of prepping the fabric for use, the time it takes to make, or any of the additional quilting supplies needed. The few times I have sold quilts, my minimum price for a crib size quilt is around $100. While my wanna-be customers have no problem paying that price for a designer name, they think my homemade crafts should be cheaper. The responses I get to my price quotes are sometimes quite rude, but I don’t mind. I just smile with the knowledge that I’ve, once again, gotten out of having to do production work!

When it comes to machine embroidery projects, I’m even less willing to stitch for others. The cost of thread and stabilizer alone would put me in the poor-house if I only charged what these folks wanted to pay. Of course, they don’t understand that there is a cost in maintaining our expensive, and very well loved embroidery machines, as well as an intricate inventory system for making sure we have the right needles, threads, and other embroidery supplies for our basic projects. If the person just insists that I make them something, I direct them to very expensive linen stores online. I ask them to compare the prices and let me know what they feel a fair price is. In all but very rare cases, this also has me smiling that I got away with not doing production work.

You may be wondering what my aversion is to stitching for money. Well, I consider what I do to be an art form. If I create for cash, it’s not artistic for me. It’s just work. Instead, I would rather spend my precious time stitching beautiful embroidery patterns for those I love. I love to spend rainy afternoons making quilts for all the babies that crop up in my little corner of the world (meaning … hubby’s co-workers). Sometimes, I like to just create an embroidery project or quilt just to do it. No reason. Nowhere to put it. Just pure, simple creativity.

Now, if someone wants to buy one of those things I’ve made just for the creativity, I will gladly sell them.

And, if you’re like me and feel guilty when saying “no” to people, just learn this simple phrase … I don’t do production work.

Simplifying Quilting and Embroidery

Whether it’s making quilts or digitizing machine embroidery designs, I seem to be in a constant state of confusion lately! Since I make my living doing both, this is not good!

Years ago, I could happily check the state of my quilting supplies and just get to work on whatever idea popped into my head. Or, I could choose an embroidery design from my collection and make pretty things as often as I wanted. Then, I began teaching classes and all that changed!

Instead of just stitching for my own pleasure, I now had class samples to create; these had to be certain styles and consist of the new in colors, regardless of my own personal preferences. The longer I taught, the harder it was to just make a quilt. My mind was always revolving with class-type ideas. My stash of fabrics and threads began being dominated by the latest trends instead of what I love.

I let this sorry state of affairs continue for much longer than I should have! My reward was to lose my love for my fabric arts. It is said that artists do best creating from the heart instead of the pocketbook, and I can vouch that this was true for me as well. My beloved stitching became work! Oh, no!

It took me a while to realize the full effect of this; I then wasted more time brooding about it! Finally, a little at a time, I began working to change the habits that had filled my brain and held me back from the love of my craft.

I can honestly say that I am back to making quilts for fun and stitching embroidery for the love of beauty! It took me some time to get to this point, but it was so worth the effort!

If you’re a stitcher who has lost your way, let me help!

First, you need to decide what you love. If you enjoy making quilts, what colors and styles speak to your innermost heart? What embroidery patterns are your favorites? Whether you write it down or just think about it, this is the first step to reclaiming the love of your art.

Is there a certain reason why you’re not creating what you want? Too many gifts? New babies? Charitable work?

When making gifts or quilts for newborns, it is difficult to just use the colors we like. We must think about the recipient. But, it is still possible to put our personal stamp on it by choice of pattern and other finishing touches. The recipient will love it no matter what.

When making quilts for charities, many quilters err on the side of false frugality. Many of the quilts look like the quilter used the worst fabric in their stash and didn’t really care if the finished product was attractive or not. While I understand that quilting can be an expensive endeavor and that these quilters may be doing the best they can, these quilts do not look like much love went into them. So, if you are making quilts for charities, why not take a little bit more of your time to create something completely from the heart?

Another thing that had held me back was that I am the only woman in a household of men. Even most of our pets were male! Since I’m not a frilly type of gal, keeping things neutral wasn’t that hard, but I was craving some of my favorite colors … pink, purple and fuchsia. I was tired of my bedroom being in shades of blue and tan. Actually, the whole house was in those shades!

In a fit of rebellion, I made a quilt in very light shades of pink and sage that just scream out that it is feminine. Strangely, even the men in the house love that little snuggle quilt. As a result of that, my whole home now reflects my taste in all shades of red without making the men feel like they are in a ruffle palace.

Not only did I reclaim my love of quilting and use of what makes my heart sing, but I made home my haven. That is the best testament to the power of making quilts from the heart.

Take charge of your art and make yourself happy!

Innovation in Embroidery

I love learning new techniques for quilting and fashion sewing. It’s wonderful when I figure out that I can use a technique meant for making quilts to also create interesting effects on clothing.

I am currently taking an online class for creating embellished vests. There is so much information and so many ideas that I am spurred to try many new things. I want to add machine embroidery and worried about the construction of the vest making it difficult. Then, I realized that I could use a quilting technique, called Foundation Piecing, to put the outer layer of my vest together.

Once my main fabric is attached to interfacing in the foundation piecing technique, I can add embroidery designs to my heart’s content. Then, I can stitch the vest and lining together which will sandwich the backside of my embroidery between two layers of fabric.

This is wonderful for two reasons. First, my embroidery will be protected inside the lining. Second, the vest will remain reversible with the back side of the embroidery hidden. If I am truly inspired, I could even add embroidery to the lining fabric before stitching the vest together, making it an embroidered reversible vest. Beautiful.

Whether I am making quilts, machine embroidering a project or creating fashion, I find that it is very important to think about what I want from the finished item. What do I want? How will it be used? How will it be cared for?

Based on questions like this, I plan the construction of the project from beginning to end. Because I like my home furnishings to be easily machine washed and dried, I begin with cotton fabric. If I want to be able to wash a rayon skirt, I wash the rayon for maximum shrinkage before I sew the skirt. For anything that may need to be bleached, I choose polyester thread since it can be bleached without ruining the colors. I make many decisions like this before I ever begin a project.

In the case of my vest, I will create a sloper (sample garment) by stitching a vest from interfacing. Using the sloper, I can make adjustments in the fit before cutting out my fabric. When I cut my pieces, though, I will also cut it from interfacing. Then, I will draw lines on this to show me where I want to stitch my fabric pieces together using the foundation piecing technique. I can use the sloper to try out different ideas before drawing these placement lines.

While all this may seem fussy, it is something we all do when planning our quilts or embroidery design projects. It’s the same as figuring out if we will utilize embroidery quilting and where we will place it, what type of design we want for a pretty blouse, and where it should be stitched. Whether we make a huge production of making these decisions or just do it on instinct, we all make these types of decisions with every project.

Because of the decision and planning I have made, my pieced seams will be very secure because of a quilting technique. This same technique will have stabilizer (interfacing) already attached to my fabric, making the hooping for my machine embroidery a snap!

What could be easier?

Warm Up for Winters with Embroidery

The winter holidays are just around the corner and, as always, my mind is filled with the thoughts of cooking special meals, baking yummy treats and creating fabulous gifts for friends and décor items to make my home festive.

Two years ago, I hosted twenty people for Thanksgiving. Since it had been many years since I had hosted this holiday and special meal in my home, I created coordinated linens for the dining room that included tablecloths, chair covers, hot pads, and cloth napkins; all were embellished with fabulous machine embroidery designs. I placed scented candles in decorative wine glasses, and my tables were beautiful.

Because my Thanksgiving décor is complete, I can concentrate on Christmas for my projects this year. While I am hosting the Thanksgiving feast again this year, I am also having several Open House receptions during the Christmas season. I will need projects that can be easily laundered so that they are fresh for every set of guests.

Several years ago, I created pillow covers for the throw pillow on my couches. These covers are created with holiday themed fabric and were constructed using foundation piecing to attach the fabric to a layer of batting and backing fabric. I then stitched the front to the back and finished the covers. Every year, these covers get freshly washed and pressed before taking place of honor in the living room. These covers utilized techniques I generally use for making quilts. This year, I will take them apart, add some machine embroidery for a fresh look and then stitch them back together.

Since my home has an open floor-plan with living, dining, and kitchen all flowing into one another, I need to color-coordinate the dining room and kitchen to my pillow covers. I have several beautiful tablecloths that I’ve collected over the years, but they are starting to get small holes and frayed edges.

In order to salvage my beloved tablecloths and coordinate my holiday home, I will use embroidery designs utilizing fabric appliqué to cover the holes. To freshen up the hems, I will stitch yards and yards of free-standing lace borders. I love this style of machine embroidery! I will stitch festive designs on one of my smaller cloths and drape it over the curtain rod in my kitchen, bringing the celebratory décor to that utilitarian room.

To finish off my décor for the receptions, I will use a free embroidery design I have that makes a collar that gets placed on the stem of a wine glass, making it easy to identify who it belongs to. These are quick and easy to make and elicit lots of wonder from my guests.

After wining and dining our guests, we will see them off with a little drawstring goody bag. These easy-to-make pouches will be decorated with tiny embroidery designs and filled with chocolate coins. A sweet treat to help our guests remember the evening and also have a little bag to hold jewelry or coins or anything they desire.

While I truly believe that good food and wonderful friends are all that are needed for a fabulous gathering, I also believe that a beautiful setting can make it even better! Celebrate and enjoy life!

It’s Raining Quilts!

Here in Crete, we have two seasons, Winter and Summer. Yes, we get hints of Spring and Fall, but once either of those mellow seasons begins, the harsher one is ready to take over. This week, we are seeing Winter coming upon us quite a few weeks earlier than normal. I don’t like the cold, but I love the rainy season that marks my Winters here. I absolutely adore rain! The harder the better, and if thunder and lightning are involved, I am in complete bliss!

When the weather is gloomy, I love to be in my sewing room, preferably making quilts. Something about creating in my snug space while the weather rages outside is so comforting to me! I’ve made some of my best quilts during bad weather.

This year, now that my sewing room is ready for all the messes I can conceive of to create, I am anxious to get in there! Patchwork for making quilts. Long-arm quilting. Machine embroidery. There are so many things to choose from!

I used to not like to do machine embroidery during the storms because we lose power a lot. Now that I am fully immersed in embroidery quilting, which can be very in-depth and tricky, it would be a shame if the power went out in the middle of something. So, like my computer, I now have my embroidery machine plugged into a UPS (universal power supply). This gives me 10 minutes to get my stuff done or saved. Lovely!

The wind is blowing and storm clouds are in the sky, making the blue that is still visible even more vivid. The white, puffy clouds are standing their ground, trying to hold on for another week or so. This is a time when I hope that the dark wins out over the light!

It’s funny that I hope for the dark, rainy season. I suffer from SAD (seasonal affective disorder), which is when a person’s moods and health are affected by a lack of sunlight. If I spend too much time in the rest of the house, the weather does affect me. But, in the sewing room, all is right with the world.

When making quilts, it is important to have good light for choosing our colors and fabrics. There are full-spectrum lamps out there that do a good job of recreating natural light in the small scale. Unfortunately, I don’t work in the small scale, so I needed a whole-room solution. For a total of $20, I bought a cheap 4’ shop light and two fluorescent bulbs. I chose one cool tube (burns in a blue or pink hue) and one warm bulb (burns in a yellow hue). The mixture of these two bulbs creates a facsimile of natural light. And the 4’ shop light on my ceiling spreads this light all over my largish sewing room. Fantastic!

So, when the weather is gloomy outside, I can make an excuse for my health and escape to my sewing room for hours of blissful quilting and machine embroidery! No one bothers me for several hours, and I come out happy and peaceful.

So, rain, rain, don’t go away. Come again. Today!

Machine Embroidery Made Fun and Faster

The past couple of days I’ve been railing at fate and grinning ruefully. I always have several deadlines for machine embroidery or that entail making quilts. This month, I was on time! In fact, I was a bit ahead of time and looking forward to submitting my final projects with time to spare.

I took a quick nap the other day after getting up early to deliver my friend’s dog to her at the airport for their trip home. When I woke up, I had a massive charlie-horse in … well … my nether region. Uncomfortable, but not bad. Within a couple of hours, though, it was apparent that I had sustained a groin-pull in my sleep! This is more than uncomfortable. It is also embarrassing in my house where I am the only female. The girl cats just aren’t any help with this! Luckily, we’ve always been pretty open about things in this household, or I would be hobbling around trying to hide my chagrin and pretending that all is well. Instead, my son volunteered to clean the litter boxes!

Since sitting is the best position for me, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the computer. The computer portions of my deadlines are completed so I went back to my archive files to see what I could see. It seems I started writing a book on foundation piecing, one of my favorite techniques, several years ago. Next year, I will be providing these types of designs for embroidery quilting, so I’ve been spending lots of time cataloguing things. I am planning for these to be free embroidery designs and I want them to be very special.

Even the most dedicated fiber artist can get bored when unlimited time is available. So, I’ve also been surfing the web (I almost drowned the one time I tried real surfing) and finding some great information on new quilting supplies, fun projects for machine embroidery, and lots and lots of temptations to buy, buy, buy! The only thing I did buy was a new accounting program since the one I’m using is over 10 years old. How is that for boring! Of course, my office is now set up in an alcove in the living room since our son returned to Crete, and the hubs sits on the couch not too far behind me. Something about online shopping while he watches me just doesn’t feel right. I have nothing to hide, but I like shopping in private!

But, my thoughts are now full of new projects to try! There are some wonderful hanger covers for those delicate items we love or to keep things from sliding off the hangers. I also found several collapsible grocery bags that might actually make me remember to take my bags with me to the store. Several beautiful throw pillows, and the embroidery software tricks to make them easy, are swirling in my grey matter, too!

Now that I want to be stitching, and really do need to anyway, I am determined to hobble into the studio today! I will ignore my full size cutting board and ironing station. Instead, I will lay out the table next to my machine with my portable ironing board and small cutting board that I use for classes. I normally hop up and down out of my chair when creating, but for today, I will sit and do everything. I’ll be genteel and ladylike!

Anyone want to take bets that I’ll forget, hop up too fast, and immediately yell obscenities?

Quilters Pull the Strings

Quilters come with strings attached. This is a well-known witticism in the quilting world, but I think I see it differently than most. For me, my strings are the tools and accessories that are needed to create my art, the most important of which, right now, are those that are needed to set up my long-arm quilting setup.

I have all the parts, pieces and accessories that I have always used, and they are all in good condition. However, I haven’t had this thing set up in a couple of years, so I spend some time at online forums in order to reacquaint myself with it all. Guess what? There are so many new products out there and they include items for making quilts and machine embroidery! So many new items that I feel I must have!

At the top of my want it list are these great gizmos that make it quick and easy to attach the quilt, backing at batting to my quilt rollers. I’ve learned all I can about it, including watching several videos, and yet I still can’t make up my mind. What I now have is perfectly acceptable and not difficult to use, and part of me doesn’t see the need to upgrade, while the other part of me is yelling that I must purchase them now! This last voice is probably the one that will win, but still I resist.

I’m actually like this with most of my higher-end quilting supplies and machine embroidery tools. I can’t afford to buy all of the ones I want, so I have learned to prioritize by whether or not the item will actually be helpful to me. Sometimes the item I want most turns out to be lower on the list than something that is much more helpful. If I spent my money on the most wanted item, I may not have enough to get the ones I truly need.

It’s amazing how much this reflects life outside of embroidery or quilting. Isn’t this the same as how we budget for items like groceries, clothing, cars and more? Of course it is! My husband obviously doesn’t handle the household finances because he quite often just tells me to buy whatever it is that I want. It’s a lucky thing for our finances that he doesn’t have many wants, with an attitude like that!

Of course, when I have an interest in a new product, I find that I spend way too much time online trying to find more and more information on the item. This, in turn, has me stumbling upon even more items that I am interested in, and more items I need to research. While I enjoy a good bout of window shopping online, this time would be so much better spent in my sewing room, using the tools I already have and perfecting new techniques!

So, if you feel you aren’t getting as many of your projects done as you would like and can’t figure out where the time has gone, think about your online time. Even if you’re researching machine embroidery designs, looking for free embroidery downloads, or drooling over the newest gadgets for making quilts, you are not really participating in making your projects!

Like me, you may need to log off from time to time and check back into your sewing room and projects! Of course, there’s nothing saying you can’t let your dreams take flight with a bit of surfing the net!