NQC LIVE! February 2019

Hey everyone. And welcome to this month's live event for National Quilters Circle. We are at our Minnesota headquarters today and we're shooting some classes and some clips. So we're very lucky to have Toby Lischko with us here today. So thank you so much for being here.

Oh, I'm excited to be here. Well, good. Of course, I'm Ashley Hough. And so we're going to be answering your quilting questions for about the next hour. So if you have any of those, go ahead and type them into the comment section here on the video.

And Toby is going to work through answering as many as we possibly can. So our first one, of course we know we're going to get a lot of questions about the challenge. So before we ask the question I do want to tell everyone if you haven't signed up for the challenge yet you can do that. There is a banner below the video. So be sure to sign up for that.

But our first question here, we're going to answer this one. This is from Patty. She's having a little bit of issue finding the fabric requirements for the 2019 paper piecing challenge. And wants to know if you can give her a little bit of direction about where you can find the fabric requirements. Oh, the fabric requirements can be found either on the Facebook page, under announcements or on the National Quilters Circle website, where it says about the paper piecing challenge.

Yep, absolutely. So again, if you find that banner underneath the video and enter your email to sign up for it you can also then from that page, get to our website where you can get the fabric requirements. And also definitely that Facebook group page, which is NQC Quilt Block Challenge. Facebook group page has all the info, plus we're on there all the time answering questions too. So you can interact with us there as well.

All right. Our next question here, this one says. How tight should your rotary cutter blade be screwed into your cutter? Well, I always tell people to just loosen it just a tiny bit. You need that wheel to, that blade to roll real nice and smooth.

So that way you're not expending a lot of energy trying to cut. So just loosen it just a little bit. Can you get it too loose and what would happen if you did? Well, no yeah. I mean, if you get it too, you can't get it too loose because otherwise, I mean, if you keep unscrewing it'll fall out.

But otherwise it's just, it just wobbles around a little more. So you just want to loosen it just enough to get that wheel to run real nice and soft. Perfect, okay so, I mean, I know personally that I have my favorite rotary cutter go-to the one I always use. What is your favorite? What size and why?

Okay. I like to use the 28 millimeter rotary cutter just because I have more control over that. The bigger cutters I have, I don't have as much control of. So the 28 millimeter is a perfect size for me. I like, in terms of brand I don't know if I'm allowed to say that.

I like the Clover, it's got a nice grip to it and it has a really nice blade on it. It lasts a long time. Perfect. Well, so we're at total opposite. So you're like a 28 and a Clover and I use the 45 and an OLFA.

But so do you find since you have the smaller blade if you're cutting through multiple layers, thicknesses is it more difficult because it's a smaller blade? No, it isn't more difficult. And I don't normally tell people to cut unless you're, I'm cutting a lot of fabric. Like a, if I'm cutting half yard pieces for, for sending out, you know, if I'm sending out fabric I use the larger rotary cutter. But for specific cutting, I only cut through two layers at a time.

So I don't need a heavy, a thick blade for that. And I do a lot of cutting around templates. So when I'm cutting around templates I like the smaller rotary cutter because it has more control. Perfect. All right.

Our next question here. Sherry wants to know what is the best way to square up a block? Well, there's lots of different ways to square up a block. I mean, there's special rotary, there's special rulers you can use just square up the block. But what I do is I'll trim a little tiny bit off of one side and then turn the block around and then trim the other side.

So that way I get the, all of it squared up. Do you use, you mentioned specialty rulers. Have you ever used something like, excuse me, like the block lock ruler or is it just a standard square? I Just use a standard square ruler. Okay.

Okay. Next one here. PJ wants to know, are you getting any more purple fabric? Oh, that's a good question. I didn't have, this time, I didn't have.

I had a lot of requests for blue so I've ordered more blue fabric. But I didn't get as many requests for purple. So fabric is expensive and it put, it takes a lot of money to buy a whole set because I was buying 11 or actually 13 different fabrics. So I'm, I've just ordered extra blue. So I'll only have the blue kits.

And of course, if you order it now, you won't get it in time for the challenge, but you will get it in time, hopefully, if I can get it by Friday. You will get it in time for the second, maybe the second installment. So is this something that, so say, 'cause I know not everybody necessarily joins us right at the beginning. A lot of people stumble upon our challenge, you know a few weeks in. If there is enough interest in either blue or purple, would you do a reorder of those color?

If there was enough interest in the purple I would reorder it. But right now I've only had a few orders for purple. Perfect. Okay. Our next one here Jules says is starch and steam recommended in paper piecing?

You know, it's a personal preference. Some people do like to starch their fabrics first. I prefer not to starch my fabrics. I like my, I just liked the feel of my fabrics as they are and batiks have a nice feel still feel to them anyway. And then you get into washing or not washing.

And so, you know, it's just a personal preference. Some people will say they always starch their fabric. So, you know, it's just what you feel you want to do that works best for you. Do you pre-wash your fabric? No, I don't pre-wash my fabrics.

If I have a batiks that are dark like blacks or navies or reds, I do pre-wash those. But most of my quilts aren't bed quilts. And so they don't get washed in the washer. So they're hanging on a wall and you just stick them in a dryer to get the dust off. So I don't, I like the feel of my fabrics before washing.

With washing it kind of takes some of the stiffness out and plus I do a lot of fussy cutting and I feel sometimes when I, if I wash it it'll distort what I'm cutting. So no, I don't pre-wash. But again, that's a personal preference. Okay. So if you were going to make a quilt for a friend and you didn't know how they were going to use it, whether they are going to hang it on the wall or actually use it as a bed quilt.

Would you let them know that it hasn't been pre-washed so they need to treat it any differently? Or how would you go about that? No, I mean, I would just tell them to wash it, you know, gentle cycle and then just dry it slightly and that let it dry out the rest of the way. So you're not sticking it into the dryer and it has something to do with the threads and the fibers if you dry it too much, so. Okay, perfect.

Our next one here at Kenna says, what if I do not know how the foundation piece, is this mystery quilt, easy to learn? I think between Ashley and me, we'll be giving you tips. Ashley's going to be doing a lot of videos to help you paper piece. And she's going to show you a couple of different ways. And because we have the option of doing templates, we're going to be using templates to paper piece.

So it makes it a lot easier to know where those pieces are gonna fit in. And I teach this method a lot, especially the freezer paper method. And people say it really makes it a lot easier when you have the templates or the size of the piece that you're going to fit in. So we're going to start with an easy block. So I think if you start and you follow the videos and my blog, I think even a beginner can learn how to paper piece.

I think so. Absolutely. And just mentioned your blog real quick. So if somebody doesn't know where it is, they can find it. My blog is Gateway Quilts and Stuff with an N as instead of and.

And if you just Google my name, Toby Lischko, or Gateway Quilts and Stuff, you'll find my blog. Perfect. All right. We have hello from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Which project do you recommend for a beginner?

Oh, that's a tough question. It's a bit broad subject. But if you had to pick your favorite beginner project. I think rail fence would probably be the easiest project to start with. It's just cutting strips and sewing two or three, three or four strips together.

And then you just rotate the blocks. And it was the first quilt that I ever made. Project that I learned when I was a beginner quilter back in 1985. Okay. So any tips for making a rail fence?

I don't know. What would it be like? So I'm just picturing the pattern as like the only, the only way you can really mess it up is say, if you're seam allowance isn't correct, right. Well, actually a rail fence you can't really mess up too much. Because you can always square off the block.

If your blocks aren't the same size you can always make them the same size. Plus their, you're rotating them, so you don't have to match any seams. So, you know, if it's not perfect you can still get it to look pretty nice. You just want to make sure you have a variety of fabrics. So, you know, lights and darks and mediums and.

And then I think any rail fence would look good then. Perfect. All right. We have a couple people who were just commenting saying that they are really ready to start the new challenge. They're really excited for it.

A couple asking if we started the challenge yet, 'cause they said they haven't heard anything. So just a couple sort of comments on that. So the challenge officially starts, you'll get the first block on the eighth, but we have sent out fabric requirements. And you can still sign up for the challenge by clicking on the banner beneath the video you're watching and get all signed up using your email address. You can also join our Facebook group page and QC Quilt Block Challenge and get all the information there.

So the only thing out so far is fabric requirements. So don't think you're missing a block yet 'cause it's not out yet, but it will be soon. All right. Our next question here. They say they're fairly new to quilting.

Is there an easy way to finish a quilt without a long-arm machine? Well, I guess the easiest way to, if you wanted to quilt it yourself would be to just kind of quilt along the lines of the quilt or next to the seam allowance. That way you get it in your machine a little easier. I would that, that's the first what I did with my first quilt because I didn't have a big machine to quilt it on. So I quilted it on my little machine.

Wrap it up real tight and you can put it onto your machine. And if you just stretch straight lines through it that would probably be the best way to do it. If you're just beginning to do that. If you were just beginning, what would be the maximum size of a quilt you would try to attempt to do on your standard machine? Oh, I'd just do a little wall quilt maybe a 36-inch wall quilt or something.

I quilted a king size quilt in my small machine, one of my first quilts I quilted and I would never do that again. No. You really get your arm work out in there. Okay. So you said you do have a long-arm machine now.

So if you are say you're somebody who's on the market for a long-arm. How do you pick which one you get or what features do you look for? Well, the best way to do it is to find a quilt show close to you and go play with the machines. That's what I did. I went and played with quilting machines and I liked one that I, that I played on.

And I that's the one I got. The first one I got was a Gammill. And then I got, now I have an A-1. Because I would go to quilt shows and I'd play on the machines. And I felt which one worked best for me.

So you just have, it's the same thing with a regular sewing machine. You know, you want to go to a sewing machine a place where they have regular sewing machines and play with each one to see which one has features that you want. Absolutely. All right, next question here. Cheryl says, what is your general rule for pressing seams in blocks?

Okay, now that's. There's a lot of debate about that. Some people I know, press all their seams open. Some say, no, no you got to press them to the side. I do both depending on the block.

So some blocks I press the seams open because it reduces bulk. In these paper piece ones we are going to be doing some seams open. So if you just follow the directions, given in a pattern it helps all those pieces fit together better. Because a lot, most of the time they'll tell you to press a seam in one direction and then another seam another direction and then they bud against each other. And then they fit together better.

But it just depends on who's writing the pattern and who's teaching the class. So if you come across a pattern that doesn't have pressing instructions, how do you decide which way to press it? That's a good question. I don't, I don't know too many patterns that don't have pressing instruction. Magazines don't usually include pressing instructions.

But what I do, I always tell people make a test block. Okay. That way you can test to see if your seams are going in the right direction and everything's fitting together better, before you start on your real project. Perfect. All right.

Debbie would like to know where you can order the kits? Okay. The kits can be ordered on my website at www.gatewayquiltsnstuff.com, and under kits. And you'll see the purple kits are sold out. I still have blue kits.

I just ordered some more blue fabric. So I will have more blue kits. Perfect. All right. Another here just a nice comment.

Yolanda says, hello, everyone, she just loves to quilt. It's her medicine and brings her happiness. So awesome. I can agree with you there. Yeah, so glad to hear that.

Another question here. Would the quilt shrink up much when you wash it at a later date? You know, I haven't found it to. Once you quilt the quilt, it really holds it together. So I don't, I haven't seen a quilt that shrinks up a whole lot afterwards.

But sometimes when you do that, after it's been quilted, it does give it a kind of more antiquey kind of look. It just looks more, I dunno. Warm, vintage. Yeah, that's it, that's it. Yeah, perfect.

All right, next question here. Christine says quilts, as you go scares me to death. I've never tried it, but have been asked to do so. So do you have any input on quilt as you go? I have never tried it, so I don't know, what to tell you.

So I, I've done a couple different kinds of quilt as you go. So the first and I think the easiest one I'm thinking of is when you actually have your. It would be for a smaller project, like a hot pad or something, and you just have your backing and you're batting on and you're just, you lay a strip and you stitch it and you press it and then you lay the next one and then you just keep adding it. So it's, you're quilting and sewing at the same time. But other than that, if you just make your blocks and quilt them, and then you put them together with your one-inch sashing strip.

And so I think it's really, really easy. 'Cause you get to actually work a block at a time and you don't have to worry about that king size quilt fitting under your machine. So, so much easier. So we, since it's going to be hard to show without actually blocks or a machine or slashing strips or any of that. There's plenty of videos, I'm sure we even have it on our site for quilt as you go.

Oh yeah. And you could probably find anything on YouTube or even some books on, there's some authors that do quilt as you go books. So if you're interested in it. If you're scared to death of it and you know, if somebody asks you to do it, you can always tell them no you don't want to. That's true.

Be like, we'll do something else instead, yeah. All right, Ann wants to know. Can you use the cutting mat square on your table to square a block? I don't recommend it. The cutting mats are subject to weather.

You know, they could shrink or expand because of heat and cold. So I always use a ruler to square up anything, and I always use a ruler to cut everything that I'm cutting. Have you seen where I think there's even been some posts on social media where people have laid out, I think you might've even done it too, different rulers? And even from one brand of ruler to another. Yes.

Things are different. So do you always within one project use the same tools? Yes. In fact, I did post something. Okay that was you.

I wasn't sure. I laid one of my rulers on top of the other, two different brands, and they were not the same size. So when you're using rulers you have to stick with the same brand or ruler. It doesn't make any difference, which brand of rulers you use, you use the brand that you like, but you want to make sure all of them are that same brand. Perfect.

All right. Kenna says that she is quilting the mystery quilt using her own stash, fabric stash. Do you have any suggestions as to color and value I should think about while choosing the fabric? Okay. I just think that, you know, like I said in the beginning, use darks and lights.

You can use mediums, but you want high contrast in the blocks. So you can see all these points where we're going to be making with the paper piecing. So as long as there's good contrast between the light and the dark value is not important. You know, you can use different values so you can use mediums, but it's that contrast that you want. Okay.

And can you just like briefly explain what value is in case somebody has never heard of that in terms of picking their fabric colors before? Okay. Well, value just means that you're going from if you take a light blue, medium blue, dark blue, those are the, that's the value of that blue. Okay. And you can use the value of any color.

So you just want to make sure that your value is a medium value or a dark value or something that contrasts enough with that light other light fabric that you're going to be using. Perfect. All right. Our next one here says, please help, I have never made a double wedding ring quilt and just found out that my son is marrying this Saturday. And you recommendations on a quick double wedding ring pattern, no pressure?

Oh gosh. The double wedding ring pattern is not one of the easiest patterns to make. There are some out there that are paper pieced and you can do the ring, the arcs and paper piece them. The sewing together of those circles is the hard part because all you're doing is sewing circles together. So it's not a quilt that I would recommend for a beginner.

There are some other patterns that are called wedding ring quilts. And maybe if you're, if you're not proficient in sewing curves, you might try and look up some other wedding ring designs. But yeah, that's not an easy pattern to do. I've made one for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. And I made one and that's the only one that I'm gonna make.

Well, so it has a lot of curves in it. You mentioned that and I know that's actually one of the videos you're going to be doing for us, while you're here today. So, not to spoil everything from the video that you're gonna do, but what are some tips for just working with curves? Well, I mean, you gotta relax. I mean people think curves are hard and they're not really hard.

I have some special pinning techniques I show to keep the curves together. I talk about which piece I put on top. 'Cause there's a concave and convex piece. So those kinds of things you want to pay attention to when you're sewing curves. The deeper the curve the harder it is to sew.

Not that it's hard, but it's just a little hard. You just have to pay attention to where those edges are when you're sewing. So watch my video and you'll find out all about it. Perfect. And since she's going to be doing that today.

It won't be available right away. It will be on the website, but we'll be sure to like post it and share it when it's ready. Our next one here, Chris says, do you have a favorite way to hang a quilt and how do you make a quilt sleeve? Okay. The way I make a quilt sleeve and I just put curtain rods on my walls.

I hang my quilts on curtain rods on the walls. And I put a sleeve on, I cut an eight and a half inch strip. I fold it in half. I sew it, put a seam in it and I sew up the edges. AQS has a wonderful tutorial on how to do it so that it hangs straight.

So you don't, you don't, your quilt. The sleeve has a little give to it. So that, that's how I make my sleeves. I just make it the length of the quilt and it's eight and a half inch. Perfect.

And then our next question here. I know you've already talked about at once, but we're, we might be answering this one a couple times throughout this live event. So if you've already heard the answer, we'll move on the sec. But Kristen would like to know for those who have signed up after January 31st where can we get the fabric requirements? You can get the fabric requirements on the Facebook page, under announcements or you can go to the National Quilters Circle website and you'll find them there.

Yep, absolutely. And I mean, you can sign up after January 31st. Obviously you can sign up today. You can sign up at anytime and you can do that by clicking on the banner below this video as well. So I know we're talking a little bit about the challenge.

Can you give us just a little bit of an idea of how much harder the blocks are going to get through through the week? 'Cause I know we've had questions on if you've never done paper piecing before can I tackle this? And we say, we're starting with an easy block, but are we going to get just a little bit harder? Like ridiculously harder? Like where are we going?

Okay. Actually the first four blocks are relatively easy. And then after that they gradually get a little harder until the last is the hardest one. So just do it, take your time. And like I said, do a test block, you know use some fabrics, some scrap fabric that you have around and do that before you.

If you're going to use a good fabric, do that before you cut into your good fabric. Just so you kind of get some practice doing it. If you're really scared about paper piecing try with the templates first. And then you can always do, you know one or two blocks of that same block with the templates and then try it with paper piecing. So you can do it either way.

If you're going to do a little bit of both would there ever be an issue where the block that you have paper piece may, will not fit or be the same size as the one you use in templates? Well, it only won't fit if your seam allowance isn't correct. So you gotta make sure you have a good quarter inch seam allowance. And that's another way to, why I tell you to make a test block first, because you want to test your seam allowance make sure the block ends up being the right size. Do you, since we talked about squaring up blocks before, do you have to square up blocks necessarily when you're using templates?

Not necessarily. You know, I mean, even if the block is off just a tiny bit, I don't square it up. You know, I want everything to match. So I, you know, you can always make it fit, you know fudge it a little bit if you have to. So you don't have to square up a block.

Unless it's off, you know a quarter of an inch or something then of course you're going to have to square it up. But for, you know, an eighth of an inch or something like that, I wouldn't recommend it, 'cause then you might mess up something that you might want to match somewhere else. Okay. So we're going to do a hypothetical here on your block. So if your block is too big by a quarter of an inch and you're going to square it up and on something like this paper piecing you're going to essentially lose points, right.

So how, how would you square up a block or at what point do you need to just remake it, if trimming it would cut those points or lose the design of that block? That's a good question. Oh good. I probably would work on the corners more than anything else. I don't want to lose those nice points.

So I would probably try and square up the corners a little bit around the edges and kind of avoid that where the points are. Because if paper, if you're paper. Oh you mean with the template? With either, with either. Yeah.

I mean, if you're using paper piece you're not you're going to have your good quarter inch so you wouldn't have to square it up, because you've got your paper piece. You've got your cutout part of the paper piecing. So it's going to be the exact size it's supposed to be. But with templates, you want to make sure that it's at least close to the size you need it to be. Perfect.

All right. Diane wants to know what is your favorite way to use panels? I've made a couple patterns with panels and yeah I mean those, I just usually do for wall, put on a wall or, you know, you make something simple around it, simple blocks around it, squares or triangles or just something real simple just to frame that block. You don't have to make it real fancy because you're focusing on the panel. Absolutely.

We actually have a video on National Quilters Circle. Another one of our instructors sort of featured several panels that show how you can use them to sort of practice some of your quilting, echoing the designs already on that fabric panel. So that's always a fun option too. All right, next question here. How do you price a quilt to sell?

Oh, that's a really good question. You know, I mean, it just. You have to think about the cost of your fabric, the cost of the batting, the cost of the backing, how much it costs to quilt it. And you have to think about what your time is worth. You know, I mean, I pay somebody to help me quilt and I pay her 10 to $15 an hour.

So you have to figure out. Most quilts, depending on the size of the quilt, take 30 to 50 hours to quilt. And when I've told people how much my quilts costs they kind of, you know, go oh really. You know, because you can buy a quilt at Walmart or something for 50 bucks. But you know, that quilts not gonna last.

You're making a treasure, you know. And so you have to think about what your time is worth. Your time and obviously your supplies and everything to you. I would say to buy this fabric to even start. And sometimes in some cases you're, obviously you're designing your patterns but other people are purchasing a pattern.

So all those things going to cost too. I think a lot of that is overlooked sometimes. Right, right. Absolutely. All right.

Our next question, where would I purchase freezer paper? I don't recall seeing any in our local market but then again, I'm out in the boondocks of Rhode Island. Well, I carry freezer paper that you can put in your printer on my website. So, and sometimes our local quilt shop might carry it. You might be able to find it online somewhere else.

But I carry. St. Louis has a place that makes it called Jenkins Thai and they make freezer paper that you can put through your printer. It's eight and a half by 11 and I sell it in 50 and hundred sheets at a time, so. Perfect.

And on the total opposite end of that I'm going to show the way that I'm pretty sure I buy all of my freezer paper at my local Walmart, on the roll over in like where you buy your food storage. And then I'm going to show how you can also run that through your paper, through your printer. You just have to be a little bit more creative, so. You gotta flatten it out. You gotta flatten it out.

You sometimes have to tape it down to some other paper, but it can be done. So if you have some already on hand I'm going to show you how to utilize what you have too. All right our next question here. Rose wants to know do you have a particular thread that you like to work with when quilting? Are you talking about quilting or piecing?

How about we do one for each? Okay. For piecing there's two brands that I like to use. One is Alex Anderson's a masterpiece with superior. It's a really nice 50-weight Egyptian long Egyptian cotton, has very little lint in it.

And the other one is, and I'm just having a senior moment here right now. I'll think of it in a minute. Pop back in with it. But go ahead and tell about it and then we'll, when you remember it just pop it in. Okay.

Aurifil, that's it. Aurifil has another 50-weight thread that I really like. And that's for piecing. For quilting, it just depends on the project. I love using glide, which is a polyester thread.

A trilobal polyester thread. And it quilts really nice. I don't like real heavy thread when I'm quilting, because I don't want people to concentrate on my quilting. 'Cause I don't think I quilt as good as I sew. She's being very modest 'cause I've seen her quilts.

So go to her website and look at them. So I use a thin thread to quilt with, because I just just want you to barely see the quilting. But you know, it depends on whether you want to show a lot of quilting or not. So there's lots of great quilting threads out there. There's, you can use a variegated thread or a solid thread or.

Yeah, I've used an invisible thread. I use invisible thread a lot if I'm quilting in the ditch which just means I'm quilting along the seam allowance. So, you know, it just kind of depends on the project. So you've mentioned a lot about the thinner thread, thicker thread. So find somebody who maybe is just starting out and all I've ever done is just grabbed whatever thread is right there in that bin next to the cutting counter and never even thought about weight.

What weight should I be using for each step of the process? Okay, well that's a, that's a loaded question. Okay. So like I said you want to use a thin thread for sewing. You don't want it to be real thick when you're putting in your project, it takes up more room.

You know, every little inch you know, little micro inch that you're using when you're sewing is going to take up space. So you want to use a nice fine thread for quilting. You don't have to use cotton thread. I mean, everybody says, well you're using cotton, you know, fabric. So you wanna use cotton thread.

But you don't have to use cotton threads. Superior has a education part on their website, superiorthreads.com. And you can read all about threads in there and it'll tell you what the different weights, what the weights mean. You know, there's different ways of saying weights, 50 weight. The higher the number when you're talking about that kind of weight, the thinner the thread.

So 50 weight is the medium and then it goes all the way up to 100 weight, which is they call lingerie thread. There's threads, real thin threads you can use in the bobbin when you're quilting. So it just kind of depends on the project and what you're using it for. Perfect. See it wasn't that loaded.

You got it covered. All right, next question here. I have just finished machine quilting my quilts and the edges are all wavy. Did I do something wrong and can I prevent this in the future? Okay, I'm going to be doing a video on how to square up your quilt.

So chances are your quilt wasn't square when you quilted it. And so that, that's what makes it wavy. So you have to be careful when you're sewing your borders on. That you're not just, you got to measure them real good and so on. So that might be what's causing the quilt to be wavy.

That's the way you'll be able to prevent it in the future. There isn't anything that you can do now to fix it unless you want to put more quilting in it or in the border. So you have to quilt evenly across the quilt. If you have more quilting in the middle than you have on the outside of the quilt, that's another way it's going to make it wavy. So maybe by adding some more quilt in the borders it might help it lay flat.

Perfect. Yeah, absolutely. All right our next one, Janet says with the name of the quilt being ice crystals, does the pattern lean towards better looking in a certain color palette? Well, I don't, I'm not going to say it does or it doesn't. I mean, you just kind of have to use your imagination.

So did you, 'cause you picked blue and then obviously I picked purple. But did you pick, you picked blue before you picked the name, right? So that's kinda. No I picked-- Oh the other way around. Yeah, the other way around.

Okay. I picked blue after I picked the names. So, that's why I picked blue and white. All right. Well, my ice crystals are purple.

Okay. All right. Next question here. Rosemary says, does it help to drink wine while quilting? I think so.

It might help you relax a little bit, you know. I have a, I have a little tip for starch in it's a little formula use vodka. And you use an ounce of vodka to eight ounces of water to make some home starch. And I have the vodka hidden under my table. If my husband ever saw it he'd think I was a closet drinker.

But you know people told me you can always drink it if you need to, while you're quilting. I know sometimes quilting gets frustrating. And maybe, maybe you need to have a little bit of wine or a piece of chocolate, you know, to help you relax. So we're going to, we're going to go with the wine question here real quick. 'Cause that's obviously what I like to drink too.

But so say you're drinking your wine while you're quilting and you accidentally spill some on your quilt. What's the best way to remove stains from your quilt? We're going to turn this around. Don't ask me that question, I don't know. All right, fine.

We have no stain removal tips. So don't spill your wine. All right. Our next one here. Have you tried the paper sold at Walmart in the office section that is used for wrapping items for paper piecing, it's like newspaper?

I've never used it. But if it's, if it's like newspaper, then it's probably good. It's probably going to be good for paper piecing 'cause it's a thin paper. You can use newsprint. You can use tracing paper.

You can get some of that stuff you can get online at art, Art Mart at 500 sheets for like eight bucks, really cheap. I have, I've bought their tracing paper and their newsprint. I've also found some regular printing paper on Amazon that's, the paper goes by weights. So 20 weight is what paper is that regular paper that you put through your printer? And this is 16 weight.

I found it on Amazon. And it goes through the printer really good. Sometimes those real thin papers, your printer will take five or six sheets at a time you know. So I found that the 16 weight doesn't take them, only takes one at a time. So it worked out really good for paper piecing.

Perfect. I know we've talked about this before, that you have paper that you like to use and you have it on your website. And I mentioned that I just used my standard printer paper which was probably the 20 weight, 'cause I didn't even look. It's just what happens to be in the printer. But you had some tips for, if you're going to use a thicker paper there's a few things that you should do.

Well, you were talking about using a really fine stitch. Normally when I paper piece I would use a 1.5 or a one. But if you're using thick paper you gotta use a smaller stitch. And it's harder to take out if you make a mistake. Don't make mistakes.

That's good. All right. Our next question here. Margaret wants to know what kind of material do you recommend for the templates and is it possible to avoid buying plastic for the template? So what would be an alternative material that we might have at home already?

Okay. Well a good. Well, I mean you can always use cardboard, but, or you can use folder. That would be a good weight. Yeah, the Manila folder would be a good weight to use.

If you're going to use cardboard, then when you cut them out I would put a ruler on top of it, along the edge. So you don't cut into the cardboard and then, then you won't have to remake them. So that would be the best tip for using cardboard. Absolutely. Our next question here, suggestion or she's looking for a suggestion use.

Oh, this is, I read this wrong, sorry. We're giving a suggestion. So if somebody has a stain on their quilt, they're saying to you as a color catcher when washing the quilt for the first time. She wants to know also what size of long-arm needle do you use with glide thread? She just started long arming.

Oh, I use an 18-needle for most of my quilting. Perfect. Okay. Our next question. Can you leave the paper on the backside of the quilt after you're done paper piecing?

No, you cannot. There is material, now there is. I mean there, the method we use is also called foundation piecing. So you can, there are places where you can get foundation material that you can leave in the fabric. So you don't have to tear it off at the end.

And it's a really thin material. Of course you could do it on Muslin and printing on Muslin if you iron it to a piece of freezer paper and put it through your printer. And you could leave that in the, in your pad, in your block too, because Muslin you get a real thin Muslin, you can do that. But you can't leave the paper in there. And there is wash away, fusible paper too.

You could use that too. So technically you're leaving it in there 'cause you're not tearing it out. But then when you wash it away. Yes, it's very expensive if you want to do it. Oh, then maybe don't do that.

I just know it exists. It does yeah. Yes, you could use it. But I think for big project, it's very expensive. Perfect.

All right. Elizabeth says, that she does not free motion quilt. So she was wondering what quilting pattern would look good on a log cabin block, bearing in mind that I can only use a straight stitch to quilt? Well that I would recommend either quilting in the ditch, which I said was right in the seam allowance. Or you can quilt it a quarter of an inch from the seam allowance, all the way around the, each log if you wanted to do that.

But you know, or you can just do straight lines all the way through the quilt. Straight lines either vertically or horizontally or however you want it to do that. So I know a lot of people have sort of a love hate relationship with stich-in-the-ditch quilting. 'Cause it's, if you get out of that ditch then you can really see it. So do you have tips for staying right in that seam allowance?

Well, I try the best I can to stay in the seam allowance. But if you use invisible thread, nobody's going to see it. Perfect. Our next question here, it says can you give the name of the website again? So can you go ahead.

Obviously nationalquilterscircle.com is one. Your website. Gateway Quilts and Stuff is my website .com. Yep. And then obviously you can join the Facebook group page too if you want to do with our challenge which is nqcquiltblockchallenge.com.

And our next question here wants to know if we're going to have visual demonstrations for the paper piecing and they say hi from New Zealand. Well, yes. Ashley's going to do videos. And so she'll let you know, when she's gonna do. And when the first block comes out, she'll be doing a video.

I don't know whether you're going to be doing it on all three techniques or one at a time or what? Yeah, I will. I think for the first, first block we'll show all three techniques that way. If you've never done any of them before from the very first one, you can sort of see all three pick your favorite and then go from there. And then we'll kind of use either one or two going forward.

Sort of see which ones are the most popular or which ones people have the most amount of issues with and need to see multiple times. But regardless of which technique I pick there will be a video that shows each block each week. And then of course you have the pattern which is very detailed instructions. So if you are more of a visual learner will have that. Or if you'd like to read the pattern we'll obviously have that as well.

Okay. And on my block, I'll be doing, what I do is I take photos of what I'm doing. So it's not drawings and so that helps too. And my blog will showed step-by-step directions on how to do everything. Perfect, yes.

So here, we're talking about the challenge and if you have no idea what we're talking about you can sign up for our challenge by clicking on the banner below this video. The actual first block will come out on the eighth. Right now fabric requirements are out. So you can start getting your fabric together to make the really awesome paper, piece ice crystals quilt designed by Toby. All right.

Our next question here, Kim wants to know, will the pattern prints on one full sheet of paper or will we need to tape pattern pages together? It will print on one full sheet of paper. Because you're only printing a section at a time. So yes, it will fit on one sheet. All right, let's talk a little bit about printing.

'Cause you know that I got to pattern test the patterns. So I've already made one. And the very first block that I printed it didn't even come out near the right size. So what are some tips for when you're printing out your paper piecing patterns? Okay.

So when you download the pattern, it's a PDF. And when you go to print it, your printer settings will say, every printer settings different. Some will say a hundred percent, some will say full scale. Some will say no scaling. You want to make sure that there is no scaling or you're printing at a hundred percent.

Because if you're not, if you say fit to page, it'll shrink it. And so you want to make sure that your printer settings, right. And when you're printing with freezer paper you have to make sure you put it in your printer the right way. So most printers, you can't do it on a ink. You can only print on an inkjet printer, not a laser printer.

If you try your laser printer, you'll have to buy a new one because it's wax and it'll melt in your laser printer. So with the, with the inkjet printer there are two kinds of inkjet printers. One feeds from the top and one feeds from the bottom. And most of them when they feed from the top it prints on the top side of the paper. And if you feed from the bottom it prints from the, on the bottom side of the paper.

So if you're putting your freezer paper in if it's on the bottom, you want that shiny side up. That's the wax side up because it prints on the bottom. And if you're putting your paper in the top you put your free, the wax paper down, the wax side down because it prints on the front side. So what I would do is I'd take my, a piece of paper put an X on it, run it through your printer and then that'll give you an idea of which side to print on. Because once you print it, you'll only make that mistake once your printing on the waxy side, 'cause I've done that and it makes it big mess.

So you say it only make mistake once but for some reason I can never remember which way my feeds. Every single time I have to print I do the little X tests and it's I have like 20 of those pages. I have to test it so many times. All right. Just a couple of tips here.

So for Nancy says that a stitch-in-the-ditch foot is extremely helpful when doing stitch-in-the-ditch quilting. Have you ever used one of those? No, I haven't because I have stitch on my long-arm. So I don't have a stitch-in-the-ditch on my long-arm. If I did it on my small machine I might look into it because that would help you stitch and yeah, stay in the ditch.

Do you use any kind of rulers or guides when you do your quilting or your long arm. Sometimes I, well, I do use a ruler for stitching in the ditch and I have a whole bunch of different rulers that I bought thinking I had to have them and I don't always use them. I like just kind of doodling on my quilt. So it's say using rulers does take up extra time. So there aren't any favorite rulers other than my one that I use for stitching in the ditch has a little quarter inch, little notches in it.

So I can stay in that quarter inch ditch, right in the ditch. But other than that I'm a doodler. Well, that's the best way to learn too and to practice with your design. I've learned to. If you practice handwriting on the, on your machine, on your long-arm machine, so you just.

I did a whole quilt where I just did the alphabet in cursive all the way across. It was a baby quilt. And so it, if you practice that, it's really fun. Probably relaxing. All right.

Our next one here. Francis says when your chat started I felt I could get involved as a beginner, but now I'm feeling overwhelmed with the variety of questions and I feel I won't be able to manage. Do you have any thoughts of encouragement? Oh yeah. Just go for it.

It don't, don't pay any attention to these, a lot of these questions. It's not really as hard as you think. And you'll be able, if you follow our instructions I think anybody should be able to do this. Absolutely. And I do know that a lot of the questions that we're answering aren't necessarily involved with the challenge quilt.

These are coming from people who are doing other projects and other patterns and other things. So, you know, we're talking about double wedding rings and curves and all that stuff. None of that is going to be in the challenge quilts. So you definitely can manage the challenge quilt. All right.

Our next one. What tools are required other than the fabric requirements? Well, you want to a good ruler for cutting. Cutting strips if you need to cut strips. I like to use a rotating mat.

It's a map that turns when you're cutting it. So that when I'm using templates I can turn the mat instead of the fabric instead of the template. I recommend a smaller rotary cutter, because if you're going to cut around templates you don't want to use especially that big 16 millimeter rotary cutter. It's just too big to get around templates. So use a smaller rotary cutter.

I even have a little 18 millimeter rotary cutter I use for cutting around templates. Because a lot of times, if I'm cutting I don't want to cut into another part of the fabric. So just get a nice small rotary cutter so that it goes around the template really nice and easy. I have to say I have a 28 millimeter. I've never used it in quilting.

I've used it for sewing to cut out sewing pattern. 'Cause there's lots of curved edges and sewing patterns but I've never even thought to using quilting. I've always just gone straight to the 45. I'm gonna have to try it out now. Okay.

Yep. All right. I'm not sure if you'll know what this is. I don't actually know what it is. But will school smart paper work for paper piecing.

School smart, I don't know what school smart paper is. I'd have to do a web search to find out what it is. Yes. So we'll have to follow up on that and we can, I can answer that on the Facebook page later or something and I'll Google what it is and we'll find out whether it's, it works for that. Our next one Michelle wants to know.

Is it easier to have bigger or smaller squares for your first quilt? You know, I really don't think it makes any difference. I mean, you don't want to use little tiny pieces for your first quilt. So you can use an eight-inch, nine-inch, 10-inch, 12-inch block for your first quilt. It's just a matter of what you feel comfortable doing.

I mean, I started making just small lap quilts and wall quilts as my first quilt, because I didn't want to make great big wooden bed quilts. Because I knew I couldn't fit them in my sewing machine if I wanted to quilt them. So if you're just a beginner I would start with a wall quilt or a table runner or a tabletop or something like that would be a good project for a beginner. Yeah. So you've mentioned before, I know our next question here is about long-arm quilting.

But you've mentioned that you have somebody who helps you with long-arm quilting. I have someone who does some long-arm quilting for me as well. If you are somebody who is making their quilts and you know it's too big that you don't want to tackle it on your home machine. How do you find the person that does your long-arm quilting? Well, I mean, you just have to look in your area then just ask around.

If there's a quilt guild, a lot of places have quilt guilds. Even they may be small or large group guilds. And most quilt guilds have long-arm quilters in them. You can look at ads, ads in the paper or in magazines. I know there's quilters that advertise in some of the quilting magazines.

So you just have to kind of do a little search in your area and on the internet to see if there's somebody close to you. Yep. And then a follow up with this. Bianca wants to know what long-term machine you use? I have A-1.

It's, the main branch of it is in Missouri. Now there are different sizes of long-arm machines, correct? How do you, what are they for? What are the different sizes for and how would you pick between one or the other? Well, the standard long-arm machine is 12-feet long.

You can get one that's 14-feet long. I've never made a quilt that was that big that I had to fit it in a 14-foot quilting machine. But then you have small, you have a table quilter machines which come in a big, you know, they come in a great big table. So you have to move the quilt instead of the machine for those kinds of quilting machines. But the standard machine is 10 or 12-feet long.

And you have to consider what size room you're putting it in because you know, if you don't have a big enough room for a 12-foot machine, and certainly you can't get one that big. But there's lots of different brands out there. You just have to do some searching and find something that, like I said, a quilt show or something you can go to to kind of play with all the different quilt machines that are out there. There's lots of different. Used to be just three or four you can pick from but now there's a lot of different machines that you can pick from.

Is it possible to say you just, you want to buy your first one, but you don't have you don't want to give up like your kitchen. So you can, you get this 14-foot in there. Can you buy a smaller frame and then at some point in time upgrade or do the frames have to stay with the machine that they're on? That is a good question. I don't know.

I think you have to stick with the frame it comes on. I don't think you can, you know, change. I don't think you can change it as you go. Okay. So yeah, definitely do your research first to know what you have room for and what, you know you'll be able to use.

Because it would be a bummer to buy the small one and then make king-size quilts and not be able to use it. Right. Right. I have a friend who has her quilting machine in her living room. So, you know, you just put it where you want.

I don't think I'd be allowed. I wouldn't get away with that in my house. I would try. She lives by herself, so she's. Okay.

All right. Well I guess I gotta kick my husband out, I don't know. All right. Next question. Tina wants to know when will the first block be out?

It'll be out February 8th. Yes. All right, next question. Do you use an add a quarter inch ruler when paper piecing? Yes, I do.

And sometimes I use an add an eight or an add a quarter depending on how small the blocks are. If there's a lot of seams in there I may use an add an eighth. If it's a really tiny block, I use an add an eighth. But add a quarter is generally what I use for bigger blocks. And if somebody doesn't know what that is.

Okay. They're special rulers that have a little ledge on them. The ledge is a quarter inch wide or an eighth of an inch wide. And I think she now has one that's three eights of an inch wide. And you just use it along the edge.

Well, I'm sure Ashley's going to demonstrate it. But you just use it along the edge so that when you trim your seam, you're trimming it at a quarter of an inch or an eighth of an inch. So it's ready to sew. Yep. And I can show you using the add a quarter and also show, 'cause I don't always use that.

It's a little ruler and my two-year-old tends take my little rulers and run around with them. So I always use a two-and-a-half by 18. That's usually what I square most blocks of use for that. So that's, that's what I'll be sharing with you. You don't have to.

You don't have to have the add a quarter. But there's definitely, you know, all sorts of fun specialty tools that make certain things easier and that's one of those. All right. Our next one here. Shirley says that she plans to use flannel for the paper piecing any special things to watch for?

I don't know, I. Have you ever paper pieced? Have you ever made a quilt with flannel? I have made a quilt with flannel, but I've never paid for a pieced to quilt with flannel. You have to make sure you wash your flannel first.

A flannel shrinks a lot and it frays. So, I would, I. If I were doing flannel I probably would starch it. You know, I don't start a lot of things. But I probably would start it because flannel is very soft, it wiggles a lot.

And if you want it to really stay in that paper piece you'll need to make it a little stiffer. I think so. And it would probably help with the pressing. 'Cause I think when I think of flannel, sometimes I think of it doesn't take well to pressing as much as the cotton does. So when you're pressing your piece over, you know to add your next paper piece, making sure that that's nice and flat too.

And we actually have a video on National Quilters Circle on working with flannels. So things about pre-washing. Little tips, like you mentioned it does spray a lot. So when you're pre-washing, especially if it's a smaller cut to do some sort of stay stitching or basing around the edge to sort of eliminate all of those little threads gathering in your hair, washing and drying machine. All right.

A couple of little comments that came in. Sandy has let us know that you actually can change to a bigger frame with some brands of long-arms. So that could be something to look into if you're, you know, researching your brand. Well it's always nice, because I always learned something from quilters. So there you go.

She had the answer. She knows that you can do that. Yes. And so we're gonna talk again about the challenge real quick. So again if you haven't signed up for our mystery paper piecing challenge.

You can do that by clicking on the banner below the video here. But again where can you find? What information is out right now and where can you find it? Okay. You can find it on the Facebook page under announcements, or you can go to the National Quilters Circle website.

Yep. And if you can't immediately find it on the website, go ahead and just search for ice crystals in the search box and it should pop it up. Be the first search thing too. So that'll help, you know make it quicker and easier to find. Regina wants to know.

Do you know when the kits will be coming in? The next kits will be coming. I can't, I can't tell you for sure, because it all depends on the fabric company and their schedule. But I have ordered more fabric just for the blue kits and hopefully, I put a rush on it. Hopefully I'll have it Friday.

I can't promise. But Friday or Monday, and then I can get the kids out right after that. I send it priority mail. So it's only takes two to three days to get there. But I have to find people to help cut them because I've probably got another 50 kits to cut and that takes a little while to get all that stuff cut.

I volunteer, but it turns out we don't live anywhere near each other. So it wasn't helpful. But so if somebody has already. You've already shipped out some kits correct? I've shipped out about 70 kits and those should arrive before the challenge starts on Friday.

So I'm getting responses from people that have already got them. Some of them are further than others. Some are going to Alaska. I sent one to Oman. Nebraska.

Oman. Oh, I don't know where that is. That's in Egypt or it's in the Middle East. So I sent one there. She probably won't get it by the time the challenge starts.

Probably no two to three days shipping. Yeah, no. But anyway, yeah, most of them are getting them now. So you should have them within a couple of days if I sent them out. Perfect.

And Gloria, 'cause I know you're the one that asked about the fabric requirements. We actually just have it posted here in the comments a couple below yours. So you can find the link by clicking right on that directly, directly to, so that should help you. So I know we've been keeping you really busy lately with challenge things. But if we weren't asking you to design and make a quilt right now; what kind of quilting would you be working on?

What's your favorite kind of projects to do? What would you be doing in your spare time? In my spare time. Yeah. I don't have a whole lot of spare time, because I'm an Island Batik Ambassador, that means that Island Batik.

There are 50 of us and they send us fabric and we have monthly requirements that we have to do something with the fabric they sent us. So like February's challenge is a miniature. So that'll be the next project that I'll be working on when I get back home. And I also like to do stuff for fabric companies. I like to design quilts for them.

And so sometimes they ask me to make it. Sometimes they just asked me to write the patterns for it. So I'm always busy doing something, either working on my computer designing a quilt or actually making a quilt, so. So always quilting. I'm always quilting.

My husband doesn't understand why I'm preoccupied. I love it. Well, you got your priorities straight here. All right. Danielle says, do you do any other types of quilts other than paper piecing?

And if so, what one do you like better? I do all kinds of quilts. It doesn't make any difference. So I mean, I like paper piecing 'cause it's quick and I know those blocks are going to be, I'm going to have perfect points. But my favorite quilts to make are fussy cut quilts.

And I'm going to be doing a video on how to fussy cut. Most quilters who know me know I love to fussy cut. And if you look on my website you'll see lots of quilts that I have fussy cut with. Some of them are a prize-winning quilts. So that's my favorite thing to do is to play with fabric and a fussy cut the quilts when I have time to do that.

So since you, so fuzzy cutting is you can explain what that is too. And then my follow up question to that is does it use a bunch more fabric because of how you have to cut it out? Well, it does, it uses more fabric, but it doesn't use as much fabric as you think it is. And fussy cutting just means I find a particular design on a fabric and I use a template to cut it out and find repeat so that I. It's creating kaleidoscopes, you know type of kaleidoscope designs.

But you don't have to fussy cut, just using a kaleidoscope. You can fussy cut anything. And I have, I started up state block challenge a couple of years ago where I was going to try and do a block a week of each state and then people could fussy cut wherever they wanted to. But I couldn't keep up with doing it once a week because I had too many other projects to do. So I think I'm, I stopped at.

I don't know what state I stopped at. But I do wanna pick it back up, 'cause there were a lot of people were having fun with that, so. Perfect. All right. Our next one.

Lou says, if you want to make this quilt larger what is your recommendation? You would just need to do more blocks or you could add more borders to it. After you see the project at the end you can decide how you want to make it bigger. Yeah. And even with the last challenge we had people that were making it different making a bigger, changing up the layout sort of things.

I mean, we're really, yes, you're providing a complete pattern with complete assembly instructions, but definitely if you want to sort of change it up and make a it your own, you can do that, right. Right. Yeah. I mean, there's no rules, there's no quilt policing and tell you you're going to do something wrong. And I really enjoyed seeing what people did with that first, my first challenge.

And some people got very creative and they did special things in the first border. They did some piecing in there. Some people even did fussy cutting in some of their blocks. And some people added extra blocks around the quilt they wanted at square instead of a rectangle. So it's your quilt.

So have fun with it and do whatever you want to once you see the end of it. You can always add more things to it or do more to it. Yes. Our next question here, we have a couple. So they're all about the kits.

So they want to know where can you find the kit and what is the cost of the kit? Okay. The kids cost $75 with $10 shipping. It doesn't make any difference worrying about shipping except out of the country. And you can find just the blue ones on my website gatewayquiltsnstuff.com.

Perfect. All right. So we only have a few more minutes here. But I want to go back. 'Cause you mentioned that you've done some miniature quilts and that's something that we've never really talked about a lot and I've actually never done one before.

So what's the difference between a miniature quilt and just a quilt with small pieces? Okay. A miniature, usually a miniature quilt is one that has a block that's four inches or smaller. I started doing miniature quilts because I could never get any quilts done. 'Cause I couldn't get them quilted in my little quilting machine.

And a miniature quilt usually is 24 inches. The size of the quilt is usually 24 inches or smaller. And those fit through your little quilt, your little sewing machine a lot better. And so I would get them I would finish them because they were faster. And so, I mean, most of my miniature quilts are very, they're not real complicated.

Like there's nine patches or lots of, you know, things that that only use small pieces. And some of them have three-inch blocks. Some of them have four-inch blocks. And a miniature quilt is something if you look at it you can't tell that it's a miniature, it's just. In scale it looks like a big quilt but unless you know what size it is you can't tell whether it's a small quilt or not.

So when you're doing really, really small pieces piecing them together, do you change up or trim off your seam allowance once you've done it? Sometimes I do, depending on the seams. But most of the time, I mean, I'm only talking about even if you're using an inch and a half strip and you're doing a nine patch, you have a three inch block. You know, so that's really not using, I mean your pieces are still manageable. Right.

You know. So I don't have to use a smaller seam for that. But if I'm doing something with lots of seams then I will trim them down to an eighth of an inch. And you do that with a pair of scissors or your rotary cutter? How do you do that without cutting your block?

Oh no, I do it with an add an eight ruler, I'll use a ruler or my regular ruler to turn it down. Perfect. Awesome. Well, I want to thank you so much for being here to answer all of our closing questions. It's over already?

It is, we've been here for an hour talking about quilting. Time goes fast and when we're talking about quilting. Yeah, it did. I just want to recap here again. We were talking a little bit.

We answered a lot of questions about it. But sign up for our mystery paper piecing challenge. Sign up by clicking on the banner below the video. Fabric requirements are out. The first block is coming out soon and we're both going to be here to help you along the way.

If you've never done paper piecing it's definitely manageable and it's something that we want everybody to participate in, right. Yeah. And thank you for joining us. This has been really fun. Yep.

Enjoy your day.