In Memory of Nancy Zieman

I have been interested in sewing since around the 8th grade when I started making my first quilt as well as making garments in home-ec and then moving on to making my own clothes without them being a class assignment. It was only when I saw Nancy Zieman's "Sewing With Nancy" over our PBS that I started to realize there was a right way and a wrong way to sew. The wrong way meant I might have something to wear at the end of the project, but I bet anyone looking could tell I had made the garment. The right way to sew was the way that Nancy showed us. Taking the time to do things carefully and well. I never got to see as many of her shows as I would have liked, but I do have many of her books to refer to. Her show was the first for me to see what an awesome thing a top of the line sewing machine could be (I learned to sew on a straight stitch only Singer). I believe that she sewed on a Viking at that point in time. I wanted a top of the line sewing machine from then on and, happily, I eventually got one. However, I still can't sew as well as she did.

Nancy died today, November 15, 2017, after a long battle with cancer. She will be missed. She was a special woman; one that showed she could handle a career, handle raising a family as well as walk in her faith with God. She is no longer with us, but has left behind a body of work in her taped TV shows and books she has written and the Nancy's Notions business she started. Many women in the US can sew now thanks to her. For those of us with the same faith that she had, it is nice to know that whether alive or dead, her good-bye to viewers at the end of her show is just as true now.

Bye for now......"

Latest Quilt

Now that Christmas has been here and the presents are opened, I can now share my latest quilt project that I made for my son Steve. Steve is 6'2" I believe, so the quilt had to be pretty large to fit over him. I made it approximately 7' x 5'. I used plenty of scraps in it that were already pre-cut in the 4 and 2" squares and the 4x2" rectangles that I have mentioned before. See what a help that can be to have those cut out ahead of time? Some of the scraps in this quilt are from Ron and Savannah's wedding tablecloths that I snitched with permission, and also scraps from just about every special person I have made a quilt for including an old boyfriend that remains a friend to this day. Steve may not know all the memories, but they are there. I put this quilt together in a quilt as you go technique that I keep trying to improve on (at least my technique) so that it doesn't kill me with my arthritis to make a large quilt, but at this point, I think I am going to cry 'uncle'. Even with doing the quilt in sections, when I finally put the last two together (which was the whole bulk of the quilt) the muscles in my neck, shoulders and hands were cramping up like crazy. One thing I did do that was a huge help was binding the long edges and mitering the corners before putting all the sections together so I wasn't having to manipulate all that fabric and batting. It was just quick work to finish the binding on the top and bottom when I put all the sections together. I even MITERED the corners! A first for me thanks to a Nancy Zieman video that I watched enough times that dyslexic me could figure out which way to bend the binding strips.

 

 

I reference Sharon Pedersons' Reversible Quilts books each time I do a quilt as you go quilt and they are a big help. Until just a few minutes ago I didn't realize that she had a DVD out, but I bet it would be a really big help. The back of each of the blocks in Steve's quilt is a different fabric so he can use it either direction. It is such a bright quilt, I called it Steve's Happy Quilt, becuase how can you wake up sad after sleeping under it? this quilt was made entirely on my Janome 7700 Horizon sewing machine.

 

 

 

 



 

Project Linus Quilts

I was given a big batch of fabric, batting, pre-cut squares and pre-sewn blocks several months ago. I decided to try to make some quick Project Linus quilts with the pre-sewn blocks. I try to make 1-2 quilts for this charity yearly, but find myself rushing to get them done by the official drop off date although they can take them any time of year.

So I sorted through the pre-sewn blocks and found that I had plenty of purple with a purple flower print 9 patch blocks. Problem was I didn't have any of the opposite blocks. With some of the pre-cut squares and making some squares myself, sometimes by picking out and disassembling some blocks to move the fabric into new locations, I had enough blocks to make 2 baby quilts. While they both have much of the same fabric, they coordinate but don't exactly match. It was fun to be able to make them without a lot of cutting and now I have already been able to turn in the quilts and am on to other projects. To quilt the quilt, I used a serpentine stitch down each of the seam lines with my even feed foot attached. I've found that doing a stitch that isn't straight helps to cover up seams that don't quite match!

One of the things that I do while making Project Linus quilts, is practice new techniques and currently I'm working on preparing to bind the quilt and the actual binding. I haven't been happy for years with how my binding looks. I was able to see a Nancy Zieman show (after the quilts were finished) that showed how to make an EASY mitered binding and so with what I trying and the advice she gave, I think my next quilt will have binding to be proud of!

Fitting Book

Among the pile of sewing books that I got the other day, was The Busy Woman’s Fitting Book by Nancy Zieman with Robbie Fanning. I had seen Nancy demonstrate this fitting technique on television years ago, but didn’t have a written copy to refer to. As I have several body areas on my patterns that need altered when sewing, I have been reading up and trying to find a method that would work for me. I like Nancy’s approach that once you have fine-tuned this technique with classic style patterns, you will be able to add the same alterations to all patterns. I’m looking forward to trying out this technique as it doesn’t leave your pattern in multiple pieces and lots of tape attached to it and seems fairly simple and straight forward.