February 9, 2015 Podcast
Guest: Nancy Kerns
Topics: quilting workshop
She says: "You really get a chance to fine-tune your techniques, learn new ones, and then practice them, get the feedback from the instructor. It's amazing how many people have said to me that it was just so life-changing on their skill level. So I think that the longer immersion you can get will give you that experience."
Guest: Robin Buscemi of Threads Bespoke
Topics: designing quilts
She says: "I actually use a quilting style that I call 'pulling from my tapestry bag'. Of course, that's an imaginary tapestry bag. What it is, it incorporates everything I've learned along my journey, so embroidery, paper piecing, applique, mini piecing, whatever it is that I have, I put it into this tapestry bag. And then when I'm creating a quilt, I pull from that bag to see which technique that I would like to use to accomplish whatever my design is."
Guest: Elizabeth Dackson of Don't Call Me Betsy
Topics: paper piecing
She says: "One of the things that's important to have a successful experience with paper piecing is to cut your fabric in such a way that it's oversized for the area you're covering on the paper template. There's a couple reasons for this. Number one: for your ease, so you don't have to tear off (and trust me, unpicking paper-piecing stitches can really, really be painful and difficult, because you're using that shorter stitch length). But oversized cutting makes it so much easier to line up the fabric. You don't have to worry if you're off by a 1/4" -- you've got an extra 1/4" or more built into that fabric that you've cut, so you don't have to take out those tiny, tiny stitches."