First, if you are reading this and you asked me in the comments over the last several days to be your Quilting Mentor, please send me an email instead.  My eyes have glazed over from reading and replying to so many people.  If you didn’t ask but you want to, you can email me too.  I don’t know what I am doing yet as far as mentoring, but I want to make sure I don’t leave you swinging in the wind. You can use the “Contact Us” link at the very bottom of the page. Or click the link I just made. And let me know whether you want industry mentoring, or sewing/quilting mentoring.

I’ve been at the Practice of Making Crap all my life.  That’s what makes me an authority on the topic, at least where my own crap is concerned.  What I am writing about here are the things that have helped me in my own practice.  You can apply these things if you think they will help your own practice, and discard the things you don’t.  That’s how you grow, not by accepting everything that someone says to you, but by pulling out the things that are useful and applying only those things to your life.  Over time, you get better at doing that, and this will come up again when I post about constructive criticism in the future.

In terms of who these posts are for, well I guess they are for anyone wanting to hone their skills in sewing and quilting, but I suppose this stuff could apply to anyone. And if you are having problems with the word crap?  Well, sorry. It stuck.

These posts will probably be pretty text-heavy, but I’ll try to break it up and not write volumes each time. I had a lot on my mind the other days.   Alright, let’s get started.

The Practice of Making Crap

Let’s call these things guiding principles, that help us along our sewing journey.

1.Own your own crap.

It’s not nice to call other people’s stuff crap.  At least not in public. I did it the other day to make a point but my reference to crap was crap en masse, not any crap in particular. Everybody makes crap, but no one likes to hear their stuff called crap. There are better ways to tell people what you think of their work. It’s okay if they want to call their own work crap, and for you to call your own work crap, but it’s usually not good form to use “crap” to refer to someone else’s work specifically.

When you go about your practice, you have to own your own crap, the crap you make, because you are responsible for what you put out there. As a consumer, you don’t have to buy stuff that you think is crappily made. It’s hard to judge that if you don’t have a sense of what crap is.  You want to try to buy crap that is better than what you can do yourself, so you can learn from it.

2. Everything is crap.

If you’re having a hard time distinguishing crap from non-crap, or good crap from bad crap, just assume everything you make is crap.  That gives you a baseline to start from. What you are making today is crap. What you make tomorrow is hopefully better crap than what you did yesterday.  If nothing else, it’s different crap, and you can learn from that too.

3. Your crap is not my crap.

You are on your own journey.  Some of the stuff that I refer to as crap that I’ve made, is something that a novice would look at and wonder if they’ll ever be able to do that. That’s can be a slippery slope, because it starts to give you a complex about whether or not you’ll ever be good enough to do this well, let alone professionally.

If you’re newer at this, it’s tempting to idolize someone for what they do that you can’t.  But they are just people, like you, who are practicing, just like you.  You know Marianne Fons?  As in Fons & Porter Love of Quilting TV and magazine and quilting conglomerate?  Well, to me, she’s just my friend Mary’s mom.

I mean, I grew up watching her like lots of folks, and still watch her & buy her stuff. I know that she is quilting royalty, but I didn’t meet her under those circumstances.  I met her as Mary’s mom.  So next time you think of idolizing someone, just try to think of them in terms of being someone’s mom or dad; being someone’s sister or brother, or friend, or someone who does their own laundry.  Human People. Not Quilting Gods.

This has helped me in so many ways, because then instead of trying to quilt like Karen McTavish, or make videos like Vanessa Wilson, or have my own TV show like Marianne Fons, I can just try to figure out how to be the best ME, how to do the best that I can do, how to make and sew and quilt my OWN way.  You can admire the things that people make, and aspire to their skill level, but don’t idolize them so much that you see everything they do as untouchable, unquestionable, infallible. Find your own path.

4. Make crap every day, and lots of it.

You have to make a lot of crap to make less crap.  Or, lots of crap so you can make it less crappy. Make crap every day.  This really is a practice, and if you are going to improve your skills, you have to practice them. Allow yourself you have a learning curve, to make mistakes, to experiment, to try.

If you can’t find the time, MAKE the time.  I get up at 5:30ish every morning, not because I enjoy it, but because sometimes that is the only time I get to be in my studio that day.  I’m still working full-time. You might also have a job, kids, a spouse, a second job, an ailing relative… there’s always something ready to take you away from your practice.

If you want to improve, you have to DO.  Don’t make excuses for why you are not getting better.

5. Beware of crap shortcuts.

I know someone pretty well-known in this industry who was so frustrated at having made a log cabin block so wonky, that they resorted to paper piecing it.

Now, I’m not knocking paper piecing at all, or taking shortcuts to achieve an end, but I want to use this as an illustration of the dangers of instant gratification.

Log cabin blocks are made from strips of fabric.  Just rectangles. They are all straight seams. If you cut accurately, and sew accurately, there’s no reason for your log cabin block to be wonky.

Paper piecing is a technique, and it’s a good one to learn, but it’s something to add to your arsenal of skills, not use it to avoid learning how to cut accurate strips or sew an accurate 1/4″ seam.

The log cabin is what I would call a skill building block… there are so many things to learn in making one.  How to cut with the grain of fabric; how to cut accurately; finding the 1/4″ seam on your own machine; learning the right needle/thread combinations that get you an accurate seam; how to press blocks without distortion.  If you make many log cabin blocks, you can also learn about using color placement and block rotation to create patterns; how color can be used to highlight and area or push it to the background.

And THEN you can learn to paper piece it. Or die-cut it. Or bling it, or paint it. Or wonk it.

I’m not suggesting that you have to pick up every single skill in quilting, or like the log cabin block at all, or have any desire to make one… but the basics are essential. If you can’t make an accurate block, it’s going to be hard for you to teach anyone patchwork. It’s going to be challenging to get better at piecing if you don’t know what factors impact accuracy.  It’s going to be harder to learn sewing curves if you don’t understand the properties of fabric and how to manipulate it to your will.

6. Not all your crap is the same.

Because you’ll be making lots of crap, you have to figure out where the crap belongs, or the crap will overwhelm you.

You can’t keep all your crap.  That’s when you turn Hoarder.  Your crap should be sent out into the world, but where it goes depends on the type of crap it is.

Some crap should never see the light of day. These might be failed experiments that you’d be embarrassed for anyone to even know you made. Use these for cleaning rags, or to test stitch outs. Chop them up and use them to stuff dog beds. If you make enough crap, you’ll know what this stuff is & when you need to make it disappear.

Some crap is functional crap.  You could incorporate it into lining that no one will ever see or use it in a charity quilt. Okay, before I start getting hate mail… I’m not suggesting that you only make crap for charity, or that charity only deserves crap.  But I can do something that I’m donating to a homeless shelter and have that be different than what I’m doing for Quilts of Valor.  Not that homeless people are worth less, but that if my crap is going to be dragged along the street or stuffed into a cardboard box under an overpass, or whatever other horrible metaphor I can use, I’m not going to spend 30 hours piecing it and quilting it to perfection.  Warm, here, is better than beautiful. Finished is better than perfect.

Some crap is pretty good crap.  These might be things you feel okay gifting to family and friends and charity too.  Not everything has to be a masterpiece. I might be perfectly capable of executing heirloom feathers, but if I’m making a binkie for a toddler, that kid is gonna get what he gets, because I want his parents to feel okay about letting him drag it in the sandbox, poop on it, toss his cookies on it, and they can just throw it in the washer and be done.  If you make something too beautiful, his parents will hang it on the wall and it won’t get used.  Some quilts are meant to be destroyed, or loved to death if you like that better.

Some crap is great crap. This stuff might be great candidates to sell, gift, or enter in a local show. This might be the stuff you submit to people for constructive criticism. You want to figure out whether you still have room for improvement; you might be testing the marketplace with your ideas to see if they should go forward as-is or need to be tweaked.  Great crap need not be a finished product.  You might have a great design that you want feedback on, or another set of eyes to see if it’s worth pursuing.

Some crap is excellent crap. The excellent crap is what should represent your professional standard. This is the stuff that should go to magazines, get included in books, form the basis of your patterns.  These are your business cards, this is the stuff that other people are using to form judgements about your skills and work ethic.  I can’t tell you what your professional standard is; I only know what mine is.  Some people establish their professional standard in a couple of months; others take years to get there.

Once you decide that you’ve set your professional standard, this is when the marketplace should take over and tell you whether or not you are right.  I’m not going to get into the business side here, because a lot more goes into being a successful professional than making things well. But if you can make things well, then that can open up opportunities for you that you may not otherwise have had.

Some people make excellent crap, and have no intention of ever turning professional, and that’s okay.  But once you set your professional standard, you should really try hard not to go below it.  This is what people do when they start throwing crap at a wall to see if it sticks; to see if people will accept less than their best because doing their best is no longer worth the effort.

7. Aim for excellent crap.

Nobody sits down and purposely makes bad crap. Okay, maybe “nobody” is overly optimistic, but let’s assume that when you go into your studio, you don’t make bad crap on purpose. Bad crap just happens, and it happens a lot.  It can happen because we are not that skilled yet, because we are inattentive, because we’ve lost interest, or for a whole host of other reasons.  Sometimes bad crap is even the result of overconfidence!

Whatever you do, always do the best that you can. Ask yourself if you really did your best, if you feel good about what you’ve accomplished, if your crap is better today than it was yesterday. Or better this month than it was last month. Or at least as good. Keep pushing yourself to grow and move the bar.  Maybe yesterday’s pretty good crap is now only functional.

You might even get to the point where it’s hard to even distinguish between your pretty good, great and excellent, and only YOU can be the judge. It might come down to design rather than execution.  You do want to get to a point where execution is the least of your worries, although you always have to keep checking in to make sure you’re still doing the best that you can.

8. Try new crap.

The way you do things today aren’t always the best. The way you learned something on a video or in class or from a book isn’t always the best way. It might be the best right now, until something new comes along to replace it.  You won’t know if you don’t try different things and add them into your practice.

After making my first quilt, I really wanted to learn the right way to make and apply binding.  The first book I ever learned from told me to cut my binding at 2-5/8″.  And I did that for a while, until I grew to hate it. Because that’s a really weird measurement. So I started experimenting with 2-1/2″ bindings.

I had to make some adjustments to how I stitched on the binding, but once I made that first change, it gave me permission to play with all sorts of other things about making and applying binding. Maybe you like 2-1/4″ bindings, and I should probably try it because it would make some of my machine tweaking less fussy. (Yes, somehow I hate cutting at 2-5/8″, but using a scant 3/8″ to stitch on my 2-1/2″ binding seems normal.)

The more things you add into your practice, the more options you have for problem solving down the road. If I know I need to make a block a certain size, I can either cut everything with precision, or piece it freely and square it up at the end. I can choose something based on the outcome I want, rather than doing it because I don’t know how to do something different.

 9. Beware of the Crap Trap.

Everyone has a different Crap Trap.  Yours might be stagnation. Or rigidity. Or overconfidence.  Or perfectionism. A Crap Trap is anything that keeps you from growing.

My Crap Trap is perfectionism, and yours might be too. If it is, you have to realize that some of your pretty good crap is going to be flawed, filled with mistakes, and some of these flaws might make them cringe worthy to you.  If you are gifting things to non-makers, I promise you they won’t notice. Even if they do notice, they won’t point it out.

Some of your excellent crap is ALSO going to be flawed.  I have a friend who submitted a quilt to a show, and after it was juried and hung, she saw that she missed an entire line of quilting.  Whoops.  It won ribbons anyway, and she was able to fix it before it got submitted to another show.

I have a quilt like that.  It’s touring with OSQE. A friend pointed out the unquilted spot to me after it had already been in a magazine too. When I get the quilt back next year, I can fix it.  In the mean time, have fun finding the spot with the missing quilting. 

If everybody waited until something was perfect before showing it, then there wouldn’t be shows or patterns or quilts to buy. We would all be paralyzed with fear and would never do anything.  Perfection is not the goal.  What you want is to be as authentic as you can when you make something; to do it to the best of your ability, and to figure out where you are on your own path and where you want to be.  I have to remember not to go off the deep end and obsess about every little thing.

Just because you make a mistake doesn’t make it bad crap. I wrote a book, I did the best I could. I considered it excellent crap. It’s won a couple of book awards.  I cringe at the errors we found after the book went to print (even though at least 20 people read the book cover to cover, including myself, the editor, and the designer.)  It didn’t mean I had to scrap the book. It means fixing the errors before the second printing. It would be bad crap if I shrugged my shoulders and just said, “oh, well!” and left the errors in.  The other Crap Trap here would be indifference if I left it alone. I know it’s wrong, and I know I should fix it, regardless of whether or not someone else finds the errors too.  They bother me enough to want me to fix it.  That’s how I hone my practice without drowning in perfectionism.

10. Get feedback on your crap.

Sometimes, we tell ourselves lies about what we’ve done.  Some of these lies are that are crap is better than it actually is, and other lies tell us that our crap is worse than it is.

I can’t tell you how many times I fight the urge to rip out my quilting and do it again.  I have many quilting mentors and friends whose opinion I value, and whenever I have doubts about what I am doing, I reach out to them for help.  I snap close up photos, I text them or send Facebook messages. I ask them what they think of it, and what they would do if it were their crap. I trust their feedback, because I respect them as artists and admire their work. And they trust me not to get offended if they tell me the truth.

When you are asking for feedback, especially if you want valuable feedback, you have to ask the right people, or ask  in the right way. If you just post something on your blog or on FB, and say, “Look what I did!” Most people are just going to say, “Really cute!” or “Oh, I love that!”  That’s not asking for feedback, that’s asking for an ego stroke. Those are cool too… but don’t mistake that for real feedback.

I’ll talk in more detail about giving and receiving constructive criticism in a separate lesson.  In the meantime, I consider these things to be really important in forming the basis of a good  practice that is going to help me grow, both in my skill as a designer and quilter, but also as an industry professional.

Do you have any other tips that have helped you in your practice?

There has been such a great debate over what I posted yesterday (was it just yesterday? Gosh!) and for the most part, people have kept it civilized and on-topic.  Some people got what I was saying right away, others felt compelled to go down a rabbit hole (rabbits are cool but sometimes their holes are not, know what I mean?), and yet others decided to use it as an excuse to unleash vitriol and attack me personally.  That’s cool. (Check your FB privacy settings, folks, if you don’t want friends of friends of fans finding your shtuff.)

That said, I really liked reading all the differing opinions and interpretations around the internet block.  Some follow up posts that others have written that I think you should check out are:

A thought experiment… by Thomas Knauer (I didn’t even think he knew who I was! Hi Thomas!)

The Post Where Ebony Lost Her Shit and Maddie Gave It a Think by Maddie Kertay of Badass Quilters Society (doesn’t the title just crack you up?)

Technique Does Matter by Amanda Leins of mandalei (very thoughtful post on the topic)

The Dumbing Down of the Quilting and Sewing Industry by Ebony Love (the original post in case you missed it)

Have you seen any others?

Thomas chose to focus on whether it’s not just the stuff we make but the very ideas that get generated shouldn’t hit the cutting room floor much sooner; Maddie mused on how the drive to produce for the industry has led her to compromise her own work ethic at times; and Amanda posited that learning great technique should be something that everyone strives to do, even when they are just starting out.

I don’t agree with everything everyone has said in their posts and comments, and not everyone agrees with me (that’s why it’s called opinion), but I think what we can all agree on is that this topic hit a nerve and has shed some light on a subject that many people think about but don’t dare say for fear of alienating friends, industry folks, idols, customers, and random people we don’t even know and won’t ever meet.

There was a huge misunderstanding right off the bat though, so I thought it would be helpful to see a list of constituents to whom my post was directed, in case you missed the part of my post that said “industry” people.

People I Was NOT Talking To

• New sewers (sewists? seamers? That’s a debate all its own) and quilters
• People making stuff for fun, friends, and family
• People trying out a new technique
• People learning something for the first time
• People trying to master a skill
• People who have not declared their intention to be an industry professional by word or deed
• People who are professionals in other industries but not considered a professional in this one
• People who stopped caring about how it looks, because the stupid thing has been sitting around and they just want it DONE already
• People who are deliberately and intentionally making “art” for whom certain standards may or may not apply
• People sharing techniques with their friends, guild members, bees, swaps, etc. (See “fun” above)

People I WAS Talking To

• People asking for money for products they sell, be it patterns, quilts, teaching gigs, or supplies
• People who have declared their intent to be an industry professional by word or deed
• People showing wares at Quilt Market or vending at shows
• People teaching sewing and quilting out in the world
• People submitting work for inclusion in publications like books and magazines
• People serving as a stunt quilter or piecer for an industry professional, whether you get paid or not (because your craptastic work is reflecting on the professional when we see them at shows!)
• People taking in advertising dollars from businesses in this industry to support your endeavors as a professional
• People in the industry tasked with marketing or selling things to quilting and sewing consumers
• Editors and publishers of industry publications
• People buying and consuming things that the industry and its professionals put out (so you stop buying crap from people who should know better)

Why This Distinction is Important

Quite a few people said that I was acting like the Quilt Police, and chastised my attitude and words for being totalitarian, exclusionary and something else that was really funny but I choose not to acknowledge because 36 is not old.    To you, I say you kind of missed the point, but let’s review why having Quilt Police in some areas of our industry are important.

I’m using Quilt Police deliberately, because they get such a bad rep.  But think about it… we have Quilt Police in every industry.  We have Food Inspector Police, because we expect our restaurants and food manufacturers to keep the bug:real food ratio to a minimum.  We have Air Traffic Police, because planes running into each other in the sky is kind of bad.

We have Real Police too, but if the term “Quilt Police” just really gets your goat, just call it “Quality Control” or “Quality Inspection” or “BS Monitor”.  The reason the Quilt Police get such bad press is that people tend to use the Quilt Police for the wrong thing.  (Like, calling 911 to come open your bottle of beer.  While you’re driving.)

I’m going to illustrate by example the kind of thing that I am talking about, using one of my very own quilts.

This is a quilt which I love, am proud of, and would have cried copious tears over at the time if anyone had told me it was crap.
Here’s the front:

Here’s the back:

And here’s a closeup of the binding:

This is my very first quilt. That’s why I am proud of it, because I made it all by myself without reference to any books or guidance on the topic.  Although I’ve been sewing since I was a small child, quilting is an entirely different animal, as anyone in the garment industry can attest.  It’s not always an easy transition.  In garment sewing, you get 5/8″ seam allowances and if it’s a little wonky, on a side seam, whatevs!  There’s all kinds of ease going on in garment sewing that quilting does not forgive you for.

I love this quilt and am fiercely attached to it because it is what first launched me on the path that I am on today, and I am very proud to say that I am now a professional quilter.  This first quilt hooked me.  I knew at the time that it was terrible (no I didn’t, that’s revisionist), but I considered myself super-clever for figuring out the binding all on my own.  We’ll get to that in a second.

I chose to tie the quilt using yarn, because a) that’s what I had on hand and b) I thought quilting over the shirts themselves would somehow ruin them.  (A) is being resourceful; (B) is just plain lack of knowledge & skill.

If the Quilt Police were involved at this stage, we would have a huge problem:

Quilt Police: You totally did that wrong, your seams are all wonky, you’re not supposed to tie quilts with yarn, and they are too far apart. That’s not the way to do binding. What were you thinking?

What just happened? Well, I’m completely deflated, embarrassed, upset, maybe even angry and defensive.  It’s the type of thing that is a HUGE no-no for anyone teaching anything to anybody.  It reflects more on you as a person than it does the new quilter.  Attacking people is bad.  Please do not go pouncing on some unsuspecting blogger because you thought I just deputized you to start being all judgy and superior.  Shame on you.

What I’d like to see instead, if the Quilt Police are screaming in your head, is to offer something encouraging and supportive if you’re going to say something at all.  If you think the person might be receptive to it, you could offer to teach them a new technique.  I would also recommend doing this in a more private setting, and not announce it to the world via a public comment or in a guild meeting during Show and Tell.  In other words, if you know someone is new, offer to take them under your wing and serve as a Quilting Mentor instead:

Quilting Mentor: I am so impressed that you put that quilt together by yourself! I don’t think I’ve ever seen yarn used to tie a quilt, but I think it looks cool.  I might have to try that one day.  Do you think you will tie your next quilt, or will you try some straight line stitching instead?

Do you know what the question at the end does? It opens up a space for dialogue.  Of course the first time quilter might not have any idea what you are talking about, but what that does is invite you into their world.  If the quilter says they’re going to tie the next one, you can suggest using some perle cotton and tips on spacing for their next attempt. If they ask what straight line stitching is, you can give a short explanation and offer to help them learn.

If someone had said this to me, I might have confessed to my fear of ruining the t-shirts if I tied them directly, or I might tell them how my hands hurt using that giant tapestry needle to pull the yarn through and I’d be thrilled to learn something different.

Calling the Quilt Police on new quilters is like calling the real police on your next door neighbors, just because you didn’t like their tattooed son’s skeevy looks. It never ends well.

Mentor or Police, Choose Wisely

I think we should mentor the folks who are learning, and hold our professionals accountable to and for the standards.  And, be your own private Quilt Police for your own work – establish your own standard, and continue moving the bar upward as your skills and ambitions increase. Constantly ask yourself if you are doing your best work, if you are proud to send it out into the world, if you honored your integrity in the producing of it.   If it’s crap, you’ll probably know it’s crap without anyone having to tell you so.

My inner quilt policeman is very different from yours (he walks around in quilted boxers and knitted socks, by the way) and he’s going to do and say lots of stuff that I would never dream of saying to or imposing on anyone else. Not while they are learning anyway.  But once they start selling stuff? I’m going to turn to my inspector guy and ask if this is really something of quality that’s worth my dollar.

That quilt of mine that I showed you?  Well today, I would be absolutely mortified if someone asked me to write about that quilt, in any context other than this one, to illustrate first quilt attempts or what not to do, or how beginners start, etc.  Context is important.  But I wouldn’t send this saggy, sad, craptastic quilt out into the world to represent my craft today.  It’s a wonderful quilt because it’s mine, I can call it craptastic if I want to, but I know that my own standards today prevent me from wanting anyone to use this as an example of my skills now. Sometimes I think I’ll redo the quilting and binding (and I’ll probably have to anyway because this thing desperately needs a bath) but it’s so endearing to me now because I can see how much I have grown from it.

So, keep making crappy quilts. I make crappy quilts & projects all the time. It’s how we get better. Make LOTS of crap. Give the crap to your family and friends – most of them won’t call it crap or see it as crap and will love whatever you do. Love your own little crappy projects to death, because they are yours; but try to use them as teaching tools, as jumping-off points, as a marker of where you were when you made them, not where you have to stay.

Just don’t sell crap or submit crap for publication, please. Always do the best work that you are capable of, because integrity matters in life far more than the accolades that the work brings. Make the next thing better than the last. Have enough respect for your own talent and the people buying your work to know what’s worthy of representing you out in the world. What I call my own crap might be different from what someone else calls their crap. If you know you can do better, then DO BETTER. We all judge the work of others whether we mean to or not, but just remember that context matters, where they are in their own process matters, and when it comes to spending your own dollars, you have to decide what crap is worth paying for and which is not.

Now go make some crap, I’ll make some crap too, and maybe we’ll learn something new or finally get good enough that it’s worth someone else’s time and money.

I work hard, every day (ok, except yesterday because I was really tired) to hone my craft, make it better, make it worthy of putting out into the world to represent who I am and what I do.  I also feel like my work represents every artist out there, as an example of what is possible when you apply your talent to something tangible. I am harder and more critical on myself than anyone else, and maybe harder on myself than I should be, but I truly believe that an object should look just as good on the front as it does on the back; just as good on the inside as it does on the outside. I’m always looking for ways to enclose raw edges, make smoother curves, and I’ll even sometimes take the trouble to match patterns if I have enough fabric to do so.

What I am realizing is that a lot of people just don’t seem to give a shit. Yes, I said it. And I’m sorry for the inclusion of this word, but those who know me know how rarely I curse, and I really need you to understand the depth of my feelings on this topic.

I’m not talking about perfection; I’m talking about attention, respect, commitment.  Attention to detail, respect for your own work, and a commitment to putting out the best work that your talent & skill allows.

What is killing me these days is this assertion that being a “modern” whatever means that it’s okay for you to sew seams any which way, that if your piece doesn’t lay flat, it’s ok; that if your topstitching looks like a drunken spider stitched it, that’s all ok too.  And maybe it is, if you’re just stitching for yourself, or you haven’t developed that skill yet and you’re still learning, or you just wanted the darn thing finished because you’re tired of looking at it and you’ve stopped caring.

But if you’re going to teach?  If you’re writing a book?  If you’re cranking out patterns to sell? If you’re selling the item itself?  That’s where I draw the line.  This is what I call the dumbing down of our industry.  And it’s not just the makers of crappy work that I’m directing my ire toward; it’s also the consumers who lap up substandard work just because that person is popular, and the editors of books and magazines who don’t call people on their crappy work and make them do it better or not at all.

Someone told Lisa Sipes the other day something to the effect of, “You could sell poop and people would buy it.” Lisa does not sell poop, she has an incredible work ethic and talent, and I totally get what the person is saying.  It’s supposed to be meant as a compliment, but I would be horrified to be so popular, to have such celebrity that someone would allow me to sell shit as gold and not call me on it.

I’m not including pictures in this post, because I’m not talking about any specific person; I’m not trying to shame anyone or call them out, but I know you’ve seen this stuff out there.  It’s like an epidemic; the close-up shots of tangled starts & ends, because the person couldn’t be bothered to lock their threads or hang onto the tails when they started. The haphazard binding put on any which way that is lumpy in one spot and empty in another. Raw hems on dresses & trims that have masses of threads hanging off of them, because the person can’t or won’t draft their pattern to cut on the bias in order to properly employ a raw edge.  We call this stuff cute, we ooooooh and aaaaaah over it, and drool, and drape praises over them like superhero capes, all the while reinforcing the idea that crap is great and great is overrated.

And this isn’t restricted to novices; I’ve seen this stuff in glossy, well-made books.  I’ve seen it from very talented designers and makers alike.  I’ve even seen it in full page ads taken out by quilting celebrities in magazines.

Here’s how this cycle of ineptitude starts.  Some person starts blogging about their sewing projects. They develop a following because they came up with something clever, and even though that clever something isn’t particularly well-made, because it was clever, people pay attention. We don’t know how to separate the clever part from the construction, and so we heap praises on that person, and no one bothers to tell them, hey if you did this a different way, your piece would look better.  Or hey, next time you should do X, because X will keep your piece from looking like crap.  But no… people will share the clever, not the well-made, and that blogger develops an insane following and someone in the industry takes notice.

The industry person wants a piece of this person’s popularity, because if they can ally themselves to that person, they can reap some of the rewards that popularity brings. 

“If I give this person some fabric to work with, their followers will buy my fabric, and I’ll make money.  If I give this person a book deal, their followers will buy the book, and I’ll make money. And to hell with whether or not that person has a talent for sewing or quilting.  I’m not going to help them by mentoring them or suggesting they actually take a class on sewing and quilting techniques, or how they can improve; they are popular now, and that’s what I want.  To hell with them developing their skills. They don’t need to; they are popular without it.”

Because this now-popular person is being courted by the industry, and now has followers, and industry people chasing them, they think to themselves, “Well, this isn’t a big deal after all.  I was worried at first about my crooked seams and crappy construction, but no one seems to care, so it must not matter.”  They continue putting out crap, the crap is selling, and the attitude is reinforced.

Other folks producing crap feel encouraged by this blogger’s success, and so they start putting out crap.  Some of this crap gets through, and another crappy book comes out.

Meanwhile, there’s a sector of folks who have been doing this a while, the folks who have talent, and have honed their skills over time, and who ordinarily do not put out crap. They start noticing this trend of crap flooding the internet, flooding the bookshelves, the popularity of crap, and they think to themselves, “Why the hell am I working so hard?” And they throw some crap at a wall to see if it sticks. “What do you think of my crap?” They ask.  And you know what happens?  Because that person already has a measure of success that they BUILT ON  WELL-MADE THINGS, and are already popular, no one will dare say to them, “Did you just throw some crap at a wall hoping we wouldn’t notice?” NO.  Nobody says BOO.  They heap praises on that person, call the crap golden, and it reinforces to that person that they can sell shit as gold and no one will object. Now that person can start producing crap on a regular basis.

And I’m not making this stuff up.  I watched this very scenario unfold on Facebook last week. It happens every minute on Etsy. I’ve got examples of this very thing on my own bookshelf.

And so the cycle goes; someone makes crap, the crap sells. More people make crap, and that sells. Then someone makes something even crappier, and THAT sells too, and pretty soon the whole industry is putting out substandard work; fabric quality degrades, everything is made of plastic and breaks easily, and we buy the books and patterns and magazines filled with glossy photos of crappy projects.  This gives everyone the impression that crap is great, and the standards take a hit.  The bar is lowered, and all of a sudden the crap drowns out the well-made so that people don’t even know what well-made is anymore.

Then there are the rest of us, watching in horror as all of this happens.  And by “the rest of us”, I mean the people who refuse to put out crap, even if it means doing it over, or who put out crap because they honestly want feedback and to learn and improve but who wouldn’t dream of hoisting it on others as if it were not crap.   Those of us who wear out seam rippers by the dozen because it’s worth doing right if it’s worth doing at all.  Those of us who will still take the time to do a French seam even though it takes longer and we’re going to miss our deadline. The rest of us who point out the crappy parts in our own work so that you know we’re not perfect.  We don’t do this so you will tell us how fabulous we are anyway; we do this because we think you should know what crap looks like so you can make an informed decision if you ever decide to buy or make crap of your own. It’s the rest of us who want to hold the standard high so that even if we miss, it’s still better than the crap that most people will put out there.

Everybody makes crap – it’s how we get better.  In all things artistic, you have to make a lot of crap before you ever start to make anything good, and sometimes you have to make crap because only by doing it wrong can you find the way to do it right.  I’m not objecting to the idea of making crap, what I’m railing against is the part where crap sells and everybody thinks that’s OK.

It’s like the person who is told all of their lives that they can sing, and then they go audition for American Idol and the judges have to tell them they have no talent.  Simon Cowell was my favorite judge. He didn’t mince words; people called him mean, but Simon is someone who refuses to call crap golden. If you can do better, he’ll tell you to go take some lessons and come back next year, but if you have no talent, he will tell you to pursue another career.

I am not suggesting that we all start going around trolling people’s blogs and criticizing their work; but I do think that as consumers, we need to push back on the industry and refuse to buy stuff that we know is crap in the false name of supporting the “artist”. I don’t know what the solution is to get people to stop selling crap, or to stop believing their own BS. As makers, we need to have enough respect for our own work to know that we can do better, and enough care for the folks who come after us to show them what good looks like.

I do not want to set myself up as the Simon Cowell of the quilting industry. I know crap when I see it, and I refuse to lower my own standards in my work.  But I can only sweep my own house; it’s not for me to become the sweeper for the whole town.  It just really makes me sad to see how the quality of work has degraded so much that people no longer even respect the skills that it takes to do things well.  I get frustrated every time I open a book and see a closeup of terrible topstitching, and I get really upset when I see yet another artist I respect throw crap at a wall and get praised for it.

And it’s not sour grapes either, because I’m not sitting here whining about poor me, everyone else is popular and I’m not, or everyone else is getting a book deal or fabric or sponsorships or whatever.  I get the book deals, and the fabric, and the industry attention so you know I’m not begrudging what someone else has.

I don’t have a great solution to this pervasive dumbing down, other than to ask my fellow makers to examine your work to see if there is room for improvement & make a commitment to yourself to develop your talent for your own sake; and to ask the consumers to vote with your dollars, to recognize crap when you see it and to hold us to a higher standard. Don’t let someone sell you shit and call it gold and be okay with that.

And if anyone needs a sewing mentor, or a quilting mentor, or wants some constructive criticism on something they are working on, I will raise my hand and offer to be that person for you.  I won’t tell you your work is crap, but I’ve been sewing almost as long as I’ve been on this earth, so I have a lot that I can recommend.  Maybe I should start posting tips on how to make things less crappy.  I’ll do my part, but mostly I think I preach to the choir; the folks making the crap that sells won’t listen because they’re already writing and teaching and selling.  But if you think you can do better and don’t know how, let me know and I will try to help you.  I’m not a 100% expert on everything, but I know enough that I can share. 

What do you think?  Do you see what I see? Does any of this bother you too?

First, something big is happening with EDeN.  You know, my Equivalent Die Notation System?

Well, it’s going to be in print.

I had an awesome meeting with the editorial group of a magazine, and they have agreed to start incorporating EDeN into their quilt patterns.  We’re going to try it for three issues and see how it works out.

Oh. My. Goodness.  This is HUGE you guys!!!

I can’t tell you which magazine yet until we sign the letter of intent, but I just had to share what a giant step forward die cutting just had yesterday. 

Second, I met Emily Cier, from Carolina Patchworks.  It was so hilarious – I’d been talking to her for about 20 minutes (we hadn’t introduced ourselves, we just started talking), swapping curly hair stories, and she said hey let’s trade info & you should come to my booth.  She didn’t have any cards on her, so she wrote on the back of one of mine.  That’s when I saw her name, and I shouted, “Oh my gosh, YOU’RE EMILY CIER!” I totally embarassed her.  She’s such a sweet person. I have a photo that I’ll post up later when I have time to recap Day 3.

Third, the show floor is laid out in such a strange way that it’s hard to make sure you’re covering all the booths.  I can say that I haven’t seen anything that has really “wowed” me yet, but for my own business, I am glad that I came.

Back to Market!

 Of course, the very first sign that I saw walking in was about scooter rentals.  Not this time, folks!  I am walking in under my own steam, and that felt very, very good.

 I made a stop off at GenQ Magazine, but I didn’t snap any photos.  I am going back there today for a meeting to talk about EDeN (cross your fingers!!) so I’ll get some photos with Jake and the crew.

Next I stopped by Benartex to check out the display.  It was awesome to see three of the quilts I made on display (did I take photos? Nooooo….) but I did get to snap the photo of one of the quilts that they didn’t have room to hang:

This is “Lemon Squares” and the fabulous Greta Lynn is holding it.  She’s not the designer of this line, but I work with her fabrics all the time.  The fabric line is called Zest, and it ships in the August/September timeframe and this will be posted as a free pattern to the Benartex site.  I also need to get a photo of the backing, since I won’t see this quilt again for a year – it’s going on tour!

The coolest thing ever though?  Seeing three of my quilts in their catalog!!

 

“Corner of Bauhaus” uses a line called Op Art Reflections, and it was super-fun to work with.  It’s a huge quilt at 82″ square, and it will also be listed as a free pattern.  This fabric isn’t coming until October, so it’s a long wait for such a beautiful line! I was talking to the designer of the fabric line, Maria Kalinowski, and she loves this quilt so much that she wants to buy it.  That is the ultimate compliment to me, because she doesn’t have anything else in her house made from her fabrics.  This quilt is also going on tour, so I have a year to decide if I will sell it.

You can see “Lemon Squares” in the photo too!

 

“At the Bazaar” is a baby quilt that I made from the Bella Morocco line by Greta Lynn.  I really love this quilt because it has these fun prairie points that I inserted in between the seams and along the outside edge.  It’s a perfect fat quarter project.  The fabric doesn’t ship until October though, but this will be listed as a free pattern on the Benartex website.

So I have to say goodbye to those three quilts for the next year, but it’s really awesome to have a company and the designers like your quilts so much that they want to hang onto them.

The fourth quilt that I made, “Buzzed”, I did not snap a photo of.  Other people took photos of it I know, and as much as I want you guys to see it, I will not be the one to post it up on the web.  It’s going to be in a magazine, and I’ll let them be the ones to show it.  I won’t be a complete meanie though; here’s a little close up shot of the insane quilting I did on this quilt:

Yup… those are straight lines about 1/16″ apart, and a microstipple stitch called scribbling.  Here’s another shot:

I used two layers of bamboo batting for this quilt, so I was able to achieve this trapunto-like effect with the quilting by quilting in these large shapes and then densely quilting around them.  I was stumped for a while on how to quilt this actually, because there was just this huge expanse of solid to be filled. Fortunately, I took a class with Lisa Sipes back in April, and I picked up a few tricks from her that I used on this quilt.  The bubble path, for example, and how to use the microstippling to blend different quilting stitches.  Maddie Kertay (of Badass Quilter fame) suggested picking up some of the motifs from the fabric as the quilting, which is where the large flower comes in.  I doubt the magazine will highlight the actual quilting on this quilt, so I feel OK about showing you.

Speaking of Maddie, I finally got to meet her in person!

 

 She has been a lifesaver this Market, let me tell you.  She loaned me a fabulous skirt and a pair of jeans to get me through the weekend.  We went out to dinner at Frank’s Noodle House, and while the place is small, the food is gooooood:

After dinner we were both too tired to go to the Modern Meetup hosted by the Portland Modern Quilt Guild, so I’m sorry for whining about not being invited and then not showing up once I was.

So the part of the day that was a blur was the time between going to the Benartex booth and meeting Maddie for dinner.  But I can tell you that:

• Marianne Fons and I went to present the Quilt of Valor to Vietnam vet and Checker Distributor President Rob Krieger. He was very appreciative of the gift.  The quilt will appear in a future issue of Love of Quilting!
• I finally set up my account with Checker, so you’ll be able to buy Kona Cotton from me very soon!! I was reluctant to list any Kona in my shop because once what I had was gone, I didn’t have a reliable source to replace it.  Now that problem is solved.  FYI, prices on Kona are expected to increase later this summer. Cotton prices are going up again. It’s significant enough that I expect retailers will be passing along the price increase in the fall.
• I went to the AccuQuilt booth and met up with Lynn, Linda, and my “sis from another miss” Tammy.  They’ve released 11 new dies this spring, and two of them will be included in the AFDC book, The Pyramid Cutting Caper.
• I popped over to Sizzix to say hi to my peeps Linda, Denzil, Andrew, Claudia, and Cheryl.  Have you seen their new die release?  There are so many dies that I want (three of them are also going to be in the AFDC book) that it’s hard to pace myself.  I do wish they would do smaller more frequent releases instead of 30 dies at once!
• I did  a little hand embroidery with Bari J.  Did you know that Aurifil threads has embroidery floss?  They sell it on little wooden spools.  I think it’s worth it just to have the spools.
• I met up with Victoria Findlay Wolfe at her display of her new fabric line.
• Everyone was wondering what happened to Liberty Fabrics.  They are in the catalog, but someone else is in their booth location.
• I ran into Alex Anderson.  She asked if we had met before, and I told her that it was two Markets ago in the AQ booth.  I’m sure she has added me to her “freak” list.
• I got to meet Erin Sampson from Pellon! She is just a doll, and I’m looking forward to doing some projects with them.

Today, I’m going to do a better job of walking the floor between appointments and really LOOKING at things! And taking photos!

Most of the work that I have been doing over the past week I am not allowed to post up, but if I can snap some photos in front of the quilts while I am here, I will do that and post them on my Facebook page.  You do “like” me, don’t you?

It’s funny though; no matter how much work I do or how many times I’ve been here, I always feel a little unworthy of attending.  I’ve paid my dues, I’ve worked hard; technically I should belong, but I still feel slightly outside.  I’ll talk more about that later, but not now.  Not in this post.

You wouldn’t believe the laundry list of things that I had to work on over the last few weeks. I had four quilts to make from scratch for Benartex – cut, pieced, quilted, bound, and sleeved – and ship them in time for Market.  I made it, but it was extremely close.  Two quilts got shipped to New York on the 4th, but the other two quilts had to be overnighted directly to Portland on Monday the 13th.  And these aren’t small quilts; I mean, one of them was a baby quilt, but the other three ranged from near-twin to near-queen. 

In the midst of that, I’ve been helping my friend Mary with her book project. I quilted a queen size for her; it was 90% straight lines, so that took a while. It was a brave thing to freehand them, but it turns out that I’m pretty good at freehanding horizontal lines, and Darcy rides like a champ when I keep his wheels and tracks clean.

One additional quilt that I worked on was a promise fulfilled from a year ago that I made to Marianne Fons; she wanted to make a QOV for a veteran and present it here at Market, and I promised to quilt it and attach the binding.  I had to bring it with me on the plane,  which forced her to spend last night binding it!  I doubt the person it’s meant for reads my blog, so here’s a photo of it.

 I’ve really been practicing my feathers, and I decided to go whole hog on this one.  I like them well enough, but the spines still bother me.  I need to ask my long arm friends for advice, because I’m still not sure I’m doing them right.

Initially, I wasn’t going to attend Market, because I don’t really have any new products ready, but a couple of friends convinced me to go.  If nothing else, it’s a way to maintain relationships and keep my name out there.

On that front, I worked with Brian Boehm to create a glossy brochure to help me promote myself while I am here, but it’s also set up to be able to mail off to quilt guilds and shops if I want to do that.

 

 I love the way that it turned out; Brian has such an eye for design and he really knows me well.  You can tell that this was something we just pulled off recently; notice the brand-new Sizzix Big Shot and the cover of AFDC? This also had to be shipped directly to Portland.

Packing for Market is always dicey for me; I never know what to bring, and I usually bring a lot of stuff I don’t need and not enough of the things I do.  Case in point: remembered to bring copies of BLB, but forgot to pack pants.

 

 I did remember my fabulous striped bag that my friend Donna made and gifted to me.  This is my Market staple. It looks small, but it’s bigger on the inside than you think.  It’s also super well-made; I stuff it with lots of heavy stuff, and I haven’t popped a stitch yet. You would think that I’d make my own bag by now since I do design handbags, but… the cobbler’s kids have no shoes.

All told, I have a pretty good array of promotional materials and books here at the show. If I had a booth, I could fill it with paper!

 

 If I had really been thinking, I would have shipped a case of books over instead of lugging them in my suitcase, but at least I brought them.

My fancy brochure is very much focused toward retail consumers – so they will get passed out to people that I meet in the aisles and at lunch.  Because this is a trade show, I also worked up a little flyer to hand out to the vendors at my appointments.  The flyer basically talks about the types of things that I can do for companies like what I do for Benartex and Sizzix - designing and making quilts, long arm quilting, and writing.

I also found some time on Wednesday night to make a wrap skirt and a handkerchief top, and then right before I was ready to leave the house, I decided to whip up a few last-minute gifts. Then I ran some errands before leaving for the airport – the printer (for my flyer), the post office, the quilt shop, the bank, and the drug store. It’s a joke among my friends that I can’t go anywhere without going to a CVS or Walgreens before I leave or sometime during the course of a trip.

I came in to Portland last night, and was about to take a cab when I decided to see whether the hotel had a shuttle.  Turns out, they have a train that goes from the airport to the hotel, so I thought I’d be adventurous and take the train.

Portland reminds me a lot of Zurich, Switzerland.  Their train is basically on the honor system.  You buy a ticket, you get on the train, but you don’t put your ticket anywhere and nobody’s checking.  I’m sure they do spot checks, but of all the times I rode the train in Switzerland, and here in Portland this time, nobody checked.  I love cities that trust their citizens to do the right thing. It says a lot about the people who live there I think.

They also have no sales tax here, so as far as I can tell, there’s no need to play games with .99 prices.  I got to my hotel a little late to adventure out for dinner, so I sat down in their bar to cobble together a meal.  It’s hilarious that when Portland thinks of bar food, it’s stuff like onion consomme or Caesar salad with prosciutto. Even the tater tots are wholesome – sweet potato tots with an aged cheddar dipping sauce. And no, that’s not ketchup, it was some custom concoction that was very good.

 

 I think I’m having tater tots for dessert every night while I am here.  Even though I am lactose intolerant, that dipping sauce is totally worth the toots. 

And on that note… it’s time to get ready for Day 1 of Market!

I got so much great feedback from people about the cut along so I’m pretty sure we’ll do another one, but before we do, I want to get your thoughts about how it went for you and what we can improve for next time to make it an even better experience.

Please take the survey below and let me know what you think! And even if you didn’t completely participate, you can still vote on the shape family for the next cut along!

If the survey does not display, please visit this link to take it.

When I opened this cut along, I got such an amazing and overwhelming response from people! Almost 150 people signed up for the cut along either directly via the blog post, via Facebook, or by sending me an email. People were so excited about being able to just cut, and not feel the pressure of having to finish anything in particular.

I tried to showcase a wide range of dies, and I was really happy that there were so many choices across all the different systems. That’s what I love best, being able to reach the entire die-cutting community.

Things I Hope You Learned

I think the biggest thing I hope you’ve learned is that locked up in your dies are all sorts of wonderful shapes and uses, not just the ones they were designed for! Whenever you buy a die, don’t just think of it as a one trick pony,  try to think of other things that you can do with them, so you know you’re making a good investment.

If you can’t think of other uses for them, ask! I know I’ve got a million ideas (and we’ll talk about that shortly) but please know that there’s a HUGE community of die cutters on Yahoo and Facebook and even here.

I want you to use what you have. I don’t make money on the sale of dies, I don’t get a commission from Sizzix or AccuQuilt whenever I mention their names (darn!), and so I don’t benefit directly from you buying a die.

It’s up to you to decide whether a specific die is worth it or not, and I hope that I’ve shown you that there are a wide range of dies that can cut this shape (including the strip dies) so that when you want to undertake the Thousand Pyramid project, you know you have choices.

I also hope you learned that there is a process to die cutting.  Although it’s an attractive thought that you can just pick up a die, slap down some fabric, and get great shapes at the end, you’ll be a lot less frustrated with the results if you take a little time to get organized and prepare your fabric.

Finally, I hope I have dispelled the notion that strip cutters are a waste of money! They are your very best investment in dies, and I hope that if you don’t have a strip cutter yet, you’ll consider saving up for one now. 

Things I’ve Learned

A huge lesson that I learned is that I had a setting on my blog which caused commenting to disappear on posts older than 30 days.  That prevented more people from signing up for the cut along since I announced the signups back in February.

Grrrr!  I was trying to keep the spammers from flooding my blog, but I didn’t realize the complete impact, so I’m sorry to everyone who tried to sign up but couldn’t.  Thanks for emailing me anyway! 

That led me to realize that I need a better way to connect with all the participants so that people are aware of what’s happening and feel more of a connection to what we’re doing. I really wanted the cut along to feel like people were cutting something every day, and we were, but it wasn’t that obvious.

I had this thought more than halfway through the cut along that we needed some sort of social space, which is what led to the creation of the Facebook group. I’m planning more cut alongs, so the DCSMLA Facebook group will stay intact.  If you’re not on Facebook, you don’t have to join if you don’t want to, I’ll have other ways to keep you connected.

I am also learning not to assume that people know what I know, or think about die cutting as much as I do!  Some of the stuff that I just do out of habit are things that other people maybe haven’t thought to try.

I think this should be a lesson for ALL of us.  We each have something to contribute, and I want you to know that just because you may be new to quilting, or new to die cutting, or new to the internet… you have something worth sharing.  You guys teach me that every day, and I’m so grateful to have such an awesome group of folks who are willing to teach me new things!  That’s what gives me the courage & willingness to share right back.

The Next Cut Along

On Friday, I will have a survey for you to take about the cut along, so we can decide together what comes next and get your thoughts on how this cut along went so we can improve the next one.  One of the great things about the cut along I think is that we get to learn together about the different dies, how to use them, and how much fabric to cut. I anticipate the next cut along would start in July or August.

One of the biggest changes you will see is that the next cut along will have an entry fee to participate.  That may shock some, upset others, but the rest will just say it’s about time.

I’ve been doing free stuff for a while, as you all know, and free was okay when I was doing 5 minute videos with my 10-year-old digital camera.  But I’ve made huge investments in equipment to continue to improve my videos (about $2,000 just in camera equipment), as well as making them nearly 3x longer so that you get more information in each one.

They are more like mini classes than short tips. These videos take a lot longer to edit, especially now that I am running two cameras plus an audio track.  Right now, “free” is getting awfully expensive!  So I hope you understand my need to start charging for these coordinated events.

Because future cut alongs will be paid events, I will not run them from this blog, but rather I will move them over to the Blocks to Die For site.  I haven’t yet resurrected the magazine (it’s in the works!) but that site is already set up as a paid membership site, which makes sure that only the people who have paid to participate will benefit from the videos and lessons and prizes.

I will cross-post here of course to let people know when a new cut along starts, but the payments and content delivery will be handled over on BTDF.

The Awesome Announcement

I have been quietly working behind-the-scenes with Brian on a new book.  I think you guys can already guess the topic, but it’s really much bigger than that.

One of the major chapters in The Big Little Book of Fabric Die Cutting Tips (I call it BLB for short) is called All About Dies. This chapter by itself is about one-third of the whole book (80 pages), but even with all of those pages, it’s just a tiny fraction of what we know about dies. I tried to cover the different types of dies, and give you tips on what you can do with them, but there was so much more information to share that I thought, this could be a book all by itself!

This could be a book all by itself.

But not just one book.  A series of books.  A series of books about dies.  A series of books about families of dies.  And that’s how I came up with the concept of Adventures in Fabric Die Cutting.

And so, I’m really happy to share with you the very first book in the series: The Pyramid Cutting Caper.

 So let me tell you a little more about this book in particular, and the series in general.

The Adventures in Fabric Die Cutting Series

I want the Adventures series to feel exciting, as though you’re being taken on an expedition of uncharted territory.  It’s a way to explore and learn about different dies and ways to use them.  We’ve touched on a bit of that with the DCSMLA, but the book will be so much more.

These books will be 8-1/2″ x 11″, full color, and perfect bound.  I’m sad to have to forgo the spiral binding on these, but I think these will fit better into existing quilting book libraries.  BLB wasn’t meant to sit on a shelf, it was meant to stay with your die cutter, but I think Adventures is better positioned on the bookshelf to be pulled out when you’re working with a particular set of dies.  Moving to this format will also help me get the books published faster, because I won’t have to do huge print runs in advance. But I have asked Brian to leave room in the margins for those who want to cut off the spines and spiral bind them anyway. 

The books will have the feel of a guided tour… you can sort of tell by the cover that this isn’t your ordinary reference book.  The chapters will be like tour stops; we’ll get off the boat, or the bus, or the camel to visit the different dies and learn about them.

I’m kicking around the idea of doing another Kickstarter campaign to raise money for the series; although I won’t have a lot of printing costs, there are other costs associated with book production, and it’s easier to bring them out if I don’t have to wait and save up the money first. I learned so much from the last one and I think it could be done again, but I would simplify it A LOT.

About The Pyramid Cutting Caper

In The Pyramid Cutting Caper, you’ll see:

• All of the traditional TP dies, plus the non-traditional ones like the strip dies and the HST and QST dies. We only covered 6 dies in the cut along, but there are at least 15 to talk about!
• Tips and techniques for cutting with each die. You’ve seen some in the videos, but I’ve got plenty of others!
• Die compatibility, so you know which dies can be used in which machine, and what you need to use it.
• Complimentary dies, so you know what other dies can be used along with them to make other shapes.
• Fabric yield charts and unit counts for standard quilt sizes for each die.  That will make it a great reference book, because you won’t have to do the math on your own!
• An Inspiration Gallery, filled with photos of inspiring thousand pyramid projects made by YOU! And me. And some other folks too.
• 1-2 projects that you can make using a pyramid die.
• Isometric and Isosceles graph paper that you can copy, so you can sketch and plan your next project!

As you can probably tell, I’m planning to pack this book with as much information as I can so you can get the most out of your dies.  I’ll also pull in some of the relevant tips from BLB, so that you don’t have to flip back and forth between two books. I haven’t announced a release date yet, but it’s probably going to be late-summer, early fall.

Your Tour Guide, Diana Cutler

Of course, no tour would be complete without a tour guide.  Since I can’t go everywhere with you guys, I’ve invited Diana Cutler to be your guide throughout the Adventures series.  Now, we’re still trying to settle on the perfect Diana, so I’d like you to be the judge. (Brian Boehm is the artist here!)

Which Diana do you want to travel with you?  Is there anything in this book or the Adventures series that you want to make sure I include?

Diana #1

Diana #2

I hope you’re looking forward to this next book.  I know I am excited to finish it!

We started the cut along without triangle dies, so it seemed appropriate to end the cut along without triangle dies.  Well technically this isn’t the “end”, but it’s the last cutting tutorial!

I talked in the previous post about dies that can do double- or triple-duty, but in the case of a strip die, we’re talking dozens of different cuts and techniques.  I list a bunch of them in my book, The Big Little Book of Fabric Die Cutting Tips, and cutting equilateral triangles is one of them.

You can do this with any strip die you own, so the potential to cut equilaterals is really only limited by the largest strip die you have.  Well, technically you’re only limited by the size of your acrylic ruler, but at a certain point I think these things just get unruly!

My largest strip die is 6-1/2″, so that’s the largest triangle I can get from my dies, and trust me, that’s plenty big enough!

Using a Strip Die for Cutting Equilateral Triangles

For this tutorial, I chose my 3-1/2″ Studio Strip Die.  You can do this with any die cutter, and any strip die that has at least two strips.  I’m doing a photo tutorial for this one, but I’ll post a video up later this spring so people can see it in action.

The very first step in cutting these equilateral triangles is to make sure your die is marked.

Have you marked your dies?  It’s been almost a month since I showed you the video for it, but if you need to see this again, let me demonstrate.  Grab one of your long acrylic rulers, and find the 60-degree line.  It’s usually marked from the lower right hand corner.

Take this 60-degree line, and line it up with the outermost blade on your die.

Now use a permanent marker to mark the 60-degree line along the long edge of the ruler, across the blades.  Don’t forget to write 60-degrees next to the line as a reminder of why it’s there!

Now that your die is marked, you’re ready to cut triangles.  We can cut triangles using three passes of the strip die.  Before you complain about this being too many cuts, you’re welcome to do this with your ruler & rotary cutter too, or just buy the triangle die already! Besides, I guarantee you can cut more triangles at once on a die, even with three passes.

Pass #1: Cut Strips

I skipped this part, just because I’m assuming you all know how to cut strips on the die cutter. These strips came out of my 3-1/2″ scrap strip drawer.  It’s a great resource for colorful fabric!

Pass #2: Cut Diamonds

Once you have your strips cut, take all of the strips off the die.  Take your first strip and align the long edge with the 60-degree line you marked.  It doesn’t matter which side of the line you start with.

What does matter is where you place the end of the strip.  You want to make sure the top edge of the strip clears the uppermost die blade.  This is going to give you an angled scrap, but it guarantees you’ll get a complete piece at the top.

Continue laying strips across the die so they are right next to each other and following the 60-degree line.

If your strips are too long, you can fold them back on each other, or cut off the excess.  Because this is a Studio die, I can just let the excess fabric puddle in the tray next to the die. Lay your mat on top, and run the die through your cutter.

After this cut, you will have diamonds.

 Pass #3: Cut Triangles

Now this is the fun part.  Take those diamonds, and arrange them on the die so that the center of them is aligned over a blade.  If you have enough blades, you can stagger them on the die; otherwise, just lay them side by side.

Because of how these were cut, you don’t have to worry about them being too tall for the blades – they essentially span two strips (which is why you need a die with at least two strips.)

Again, lay your mat on top and run the die through your cutter.  The result is a ton of equilateral triangles!

If I were going to do a large project with these, I would cut all the strips first, then cut all the diamonds, and THEN cut the triangles.  That’s because you’ll really be able to load up the die with more triangles than you would have had room to cut strips and diamonds. That’s where this really gets faster than rotary; it’s not necessarily that the steps are different, but because you can cut more at once, and they are going to be a lot more accurate!

Making a Project

I don’t really have anything planned yet at this point for the triangles I just cut, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something.  Until I do, I’m going to pack these in a baggie and store them in my 3-1/2″ strip drawer.  That way, I know where these came from and how to make more!

Who’s using a strip die to cut equilateral triangles? Do you know what you’re making yet? Don’t forget to visit our Pinterest board and join the Facebook group!

Dies that can do double- or triple-duty are always good buys in my book, and the TIAS dies are no exception.

I’m using the Sizzix TIAS die #677622 for the video demonstration here, but there are TIAS dies available for every cutter (well, the 5 I talk about the most anyway) so you’ll have an option no matter which machine you own. The dies for the GO and Studio machines produce the same size triangles (3″ finished), but the one for Sizzix is slightly bigger (4″ finished).

Another difference is that the Studio TIAS die comes in a two-die set, so the isosceles triangle is on a separate die than the half-rectangle triangle.  The Sizzix and GO dies have both shapes on one die.

Using the Triangle in a Square for Thousand Pyramids

No matter which die you own, you only need the isosceles triangle to cut for thousand pyramids. You’ll want to mark your dies ahead of time so you know the size of fabric fits the die (the Sizzix die uses a 5″ square) so you can plan your cuts more efficiently.

The Sizzix TIAS die will work in the Sizzix Big Shot, Big Shot Pro, and the AccuQuilt Studio. The GO version will work in all AccuQuilt machines as well as the Sizzix Big Shot Pro, and the Studio version will work in the Sizzix Big Shot Pro and the AccuQuilt Studio.

I sort of picture this die as being most efficient with a charm square, but you could certainly use it with strips if you wanted.  The thing I’m learning most about these dies as I use them is that when a die has different shapes on it, I almost prefer to pre-cut squares so that I don’t have to deal with strange cuts into my scraps, but I’m sure others will have a different opinion.

I do have a general tip for you related to the Sizzix dies.  I like to keep the packaging, but it’s really annoying to put dies in and take them out of the plastic boxes.  So I cut off the top and side flaps; now the die slides in and out easily and I can protect my dies.

Video Tips for Using 657622

After I drew the registration lines on this die and measured the shape, I realized that this die is the perfect size for charm packs.  I do realize that it’s not the most efficient use of a charm pack, but then again neither is letting said charm pack sit idle on a shelf for months and years for no good reason.

Besides, I discovered that one of my charm packs was very poorly cut (it was cut by a store, not by the manufacturer, and if they die cut it they are doing it wrong) so it was a great reason to cut up the charm pack into more useful shapes. Check out the video to see some ideas on handling the “waste” that comes from a charm pack.

 Making a Project

I honestly have no idea yet what do do with the triangles I cut from this charm pack, but since the colors are “me” maybe I will make some pillow covers out of these triangles.

There were duplicate fabrics across the charm pack, so a matching set isn’t a far stretch!  But all that is LATER.

Ok, that’s a little bit of a white lie. I am using this die to make a new laptop bag, which you’ll see somewhere down the road. I challenged myself to do something improvisational that is also die cut.

I have no idea where this is going or whether or not it will work out, but I’m having fun experimenting and problem solving. And yes… I do know that I cut the side strips incorrectly. That’s what I get for chain piecing using a long strip and not leaving enough space in between the triangles to square them up!

 Who’s using a triangle in a square die? Do you know what you’re making yet? Don’t forget to visit our Pinterest board and join the Facebook group!

Just so you know, I am still cutting in between posts, and I hope you are too!  I’ve cut up some triangles to make my flag for Boston:

Giveaway!

It’s Friday, so it’s time for another giveaway! How about a copy of my sketchbook, Notes and Doodles? Enter a comment below and you could win a copy! Remember, you must meet the eligibility rules to win, and you have until 11:59pm on Thursday May 2, 2013 to enter.

The winner of the triangles from last week is Linda H. from Granbury Texas.  Congratulations Linda!