So what is Craftsy anyway?

Sometimes at my quilt guild we rattle off program names like block of the month, fat quarter drawings, and stash for cash work, forgetting that new members may not know how our programs work, or even what a fat quarter is. I’ve been talking about Craftsy a lot, and while you may be familiar with it if you read lots of craft blogs, you may not.

Here’s me on the set of my Craftsy class, Start Appliqué

Craftsy is essentially an online, video-oriented learning platform for all things creative. One of the big differences between a TV show or DVD is that there’s an interactive component to the classes: you can ask the instructor questions (and benefit from other students’ previous questions and the answers), share pictures of your work, and get inspired by other students’ work. Committing to answering students questions is part of what we instructors agree to when we sign on with Craftsy, so you won’t be asking into the wind.

I resisted taking online classes like this for a long time, since I tend to be a pretty conventional book learner. In high school, the AP classes I did best in were the ones with really solid textbooks, not ones where we watched films or did participatory group projects. So for learning quilting and craft techniques, my first port of call has usually been a book. But there are certain things that just don’t lend themselves that well to written description or static illustration.

Needle-turning

When writing my appliqué book, I found it really difficult to describe how do needle-turn appliqué. I hope I did a decent job, but as I found when teaching in person, it’s much easier to show students how to hold the needle, how to manipulate the fabric, and how to place their stitches than it is to write it out. And in my Craftsy class, you get that visual, in-person guidance with the added benefit of close-up camera shots and the ability to back up and rewatch until you really understand something.

My first bullion knot attempts, using different threads

Bullion knots occurred to me recently as a good way to make feet for my pigeon quilts. I’d seen the stitch demonstrated before but never attempted it myself. Now that I was picking up needle and thread, I needed to see it again. I could have sifted through dozens of YouTube videos of varying quality, but I knew Craftsy would give me quality, high-definition instruction from the best-known bullion knotter I can think of, Sue Spargo. So I enrolled in her class, watched the bullion knot section several times, and set to stitching. My first few knots weren’t quite right, so I repeated the segment again and immediately knew what I’d been doing wrong. Seeing the stitches actually forming was just what even an old-school book learner like me needed.

One of Sue’s class samplers—bullion knots are only the beginning!

While Sue was demonstrating a bullion knot edging, she pointed out that sometimes your loops don’t form quite right and showed how to correct them. Craftsy calls moments like these “troubleshooting,” and that’s another area where their teaching model differs from DIY TV. Advertising-driven television doesn’t like to dwell on what might go wrong; it just wants you to be carefree and happy and immediately run out to buy stuff. Craftsy instead is selling the instruction itself, so they want you to be confident that you’ll be able to handle any bumps that could come along when you put that instruction to use on your own. When instructors make mistakes on set, they usually keep shooting as we work through it, because those are often the exact trouble spots our students run into. (Though when we realized that I shot a whole segment without the machine threaded, we did have to start over—yes, the thread was supposed to be invisible, but not nonexistant!)

Craftsy wants their students to be happy, and they want their instructors to be happy too. I’ve worked with several craft-oriented media production companies, and Craftsy stands out as one that goes out of their way to make the behind-the-scenes process smooth, smart, and fun for everybody involved. If we’re enthusiastic about our experience, it’s a lot easier to make students enthusiastic about the classes they take! The company also recognizes that we instructors tend to be running very small businesses around the creative pursuits we love, so they help us out by giving us the chance to share in the profits of our own classes and any others we promote. So if you enroll through one of my affiliate links to, say, Sue Spargo’s embroidery class, you’ll get a discount and I’ll get a little money too. And that helps me be able to create more things to share with you!

To spread the joy even further and celebrate National Craft Month, Craftsy’s currently offering the chance for one student to win $1,000 for the craft-based charity of the winner’s choice! Depending on the number of new students who sign up, the donation will be doubled, so if you’ve never taken a Craftsy class, this is a great time to try it out! Since Craftsy offers full refunds if you aren’t happy, you have nothing to lose, and spectacular new techniques to gain for your quilting and crafting. The National Craft Month offer only runs until March 13, so click here to try a class today!

What's on your playlist?

Thanksgiving isn’t a very big deal round here, mainly because our family is on the other side of the country. But the Other and I are always happy to have some time off from regularly scheduled programming, and though working for myself means never being caught up—there’s always some quilt I should be sewing, or a pattern I should be writing—I like to take advantage of the long weekends to indulge in my playlist.

Not a music playlist, but a crafting or needlework playlist. It’s easy to get caught up with whatever sewing I need to do for my work commitments, which takes away from the joy of creative exploration just for the fun of it. So I try not to let myself feel guilty when I work on projects that are just for play, and I always have an active “playlist” on the go of things I can pick up to work on when I just feel like sewing. Or embroidering. Or weaving. Or whatever—just creating.

But you don’t have to be a pro crafter to benefit from a playlist. Any kind of high-volume, deadline-based crafting can lead to burnout. Lots of quilters are extremely generous with their charity sewing, and this time of year especially handmade gift-giving obligations can get overwhelming. Even just feeling like every project has to be finished or have a purpose can take the fun away. I think taking a break for some play projects actually energizes the “work” sewing. Here’s some of my play. (Affiliate links included where appropriate.)

Needle threader shisha sampler

I add to this freeform shisha-embroidery sampler whenever the mood strikes, which is usually when I have new threads to try out. It lets me play with fibers and stitches without worrying that I might “ruin” something that has to get photographed for publication. But these experiments can and do lead to ideas that get used down the road, so it’s actually a useful exercise. Oh, and if you couldn’t tell, those are the tops of needle threaders instead of actual shisha mirrors. I’m fascinated by the different obscure faces on them but I don’t very often use a threader, so they might as well get stitched down!

Vintage bargello

I found this 1973 bargello needlepoint kit several years ago when visiting my parents. Embroidered with super-chunky yarn, it was already partially finished, so it was a relatively simple job to fill in the rest of the pattern. I just worked on it when I didn’t have appliqué or other handwork to do while watching TV. Maybe someday I’ll finish it into a pillow; maybe not. There are no obligations on the playlist!

Pigeon No. 1

I’ve mentioned my fondness for pigeons before. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there’s a big market for pigeon quilt patterns, so this appliquéd pigeon was just for me and just for fun. Before starting him, I’d sewn a quilt of yarn-dyed stripes for Stitch, and though the quilt was simple, I’d loved sewing it because it was such fun to fondle all the woven fabrics. I wanted more, so I started amassing shot cottons and shirtings in enough shades of grey to make a pigeon. But he only suggested more pigeons: scruffy pigeons. Fat pigeons. Pigeons wearing top hats. Pigeons made of silk. A whole series of pigeons.

Pigeon No. 2

The second pigeon stayed with yarn-dyed cottons and continued my experimentations (in other projects) with irregular English paper piecing. I’ve been delighted with the exploding variety of yarn-dyes available, and was able to include some slubbier ones in this pigeon, as well as some extra tasty Oakshott Cottons. Some of the tiny triangles in his feet were fairly challenging, but that was part of the fun. (Obviously he still needs an eyeball.)

Use your playlist to explore a new craft—for me, weaving.

The Other’s keen eye for thrift-store bargains has netted me a range of secondhand looms, so my playlist also includes tinkering with weaving. Sewing, quilting, and embroidering share a lot of tools and methods, but weaving’s a whole other thing, which I have no training in—but learning about it really engages the creative juices. So I’m going to take advantage of this weekend’s Black Friday sales to stock up on some weaving instruction. Pickup Stick & Finger Control Techniques looks intriguing on Craftsy, where all classes (including quilting!) are on sale for $19.99 and under. And Interweave’s $5.99 ebooks and videos sounds like the perfect opportunity to indulge my curiosity in inkle weaving. I may be a quilter by trade, but one point of the playlist to encourage such indulgences—you never know where they might lead.

So what’s on your playlist?

Needle storage for fun and function

I was looking for a way to dress up some wood needle cases, and suddenly it struck me—they’re shaped quite a bit like English pillar boxes! A couple coats of paint and a royal cypher later, they truly looked the part. I sent one to the Mother and kept another to hold my own appliqué needles.

Of course, the post-box needle case is just a fun way to tote my most-used needles around. Coincidentally, I’ve also worked out how I want to store packs of hand needles, after much deliberation: an unassuming plastic drawer unit.

Prior to this little number, I stored needles based on purpose—embroidery needles with my embroidery floss, appliqué needles with my appliqué toolkit, betweens with my hand-quilting threads…. It sounds logical, but I often found myself digging around more than necessary to get at a needle: if I was doing a little embroidery with pearl cotton, I still had to get out all my stranded floss ’cause that’s where the needles were. If I wanted a tapestry needle, had I left them with needlepoint stuff, or were they in with the flosses too? And what about basic sharps and other miscellaneous needle types? I had packs of needles tucked in all kinds of places and never seemed able to find just want I needed, even though I knew I had it somewhere.

The drawers comfortably contain pretty much all the various forms needle packaging takes—hang cards, envelopes, tubes, folders, you name it. I labeled the drawers so I can still sort the needles by type, but now I have a central location for them all to live while waiting for active duty (at which point they take up residence in a needle book). Finding particular needles is much easier, and I can easily see what I have and what needs replenishing. Many of my organizing ideas don’t last very long in practice, but this is one I’ve been able to stick with.

How do you store your hand needles?

Sometimes it’s nice to just stitch from a kit

No design to plan, no supplies to track down (except matching Persian yarn when my chain stitch is tighter than the kit apparently intended…grrr).

Are you loving the blue gingham wallpaper from our kitchen? Yeah, me neither. Distracting from the mingitude with gaudy seventies fruit currently beats stripping the paper. Though I should perhaps save “gaudy” for this lurid little number from another vintage kit:

Love at first pork?

Free Pattern: Snowmen for appliqué or embroidery

OK, OK; I know tomorrow is Thanksgiving. But I’ve been itching for Christmas since the Halloween accoutrements hit stores, and for once I’ve had no problem with Chrimbo being rolled out ridiculously early by the gods on Mount Retail. (But please, keep the effing holiday music away from me. Yech. This will forever be a playlist-free blog.) I’m dying to get the tree and ornaments put up, and I’ve actually already started covering our living room ceiling with snowflakes. Last Christmas was a bit of a non-starter, so I’m ready to put my Grinchy ways aside and spread some cheer, dammit.

What does this mean for you? Well, I’m planning to share all my crafty Christmas stuff (“crap” would’ve alliterated better, but I shan’t give you crap!) with you here—photos, tutorials, patterns, and other bits of fun. So to start with, a free pattern for appliqué (or embroidery, if you like)!



I made these tea towels for Middle Brother and his wife a couple years ago, fusing wool felt to the background to give the snowmen some dimension. A really narrow zigzag around the edge of the felt with matching or invisible thread rounds the edges rather splendidly.

Something was missing, though: how did snowman A, standing happily, become snowman B, melting into a sloppy pile of sludge? Snowman C, armed with a hairdryer, is the culprit:




Why is Snowman C so ill-spirited? You’ll have to supply your own motivation; I’m just supplying the pattern.
If you’re not feeling the appliqué, try a melting redwork snowman instead:



Two formats are available:

• Get the PDF to print out and transfer for your favorite appliqué or embroidery technique.
• Get the EQ7 project file to use the snowmen blocks (on the Motifs tab) in your own quilts or other EQ designs.

Designs are copyright © 2010 Feed Dog Designs, but you’re free to use them on Christmas gifts, decor, or whatever you like. Happy stitching, happy Thanksgiving, and look for more holiday goodies here soon!

A long overdue Christmas update

Thanksgiving was the last post? How dreadfully rude I've been. I've hardly been reading blogs for the last few months, though, much less writing them. The Other's Christmas pressies only just got shipped off (thanks for understanding, dear Other). But things are starting to straighten out.

As the crafty blogosphere well knows, good intentions for handmade holiday gifts can quickly go awry. Only half of my planned projects ended up getting started, and those begun weren't always quite finished. The Mother's bag still needs a strap, and she was left to sew the backing onto Youngest Brother's embroidered pillow, stitched to a design modified from The New Crewel in colors he's planning for his dorm room.

Youngest Brother is getting quite handy with a needle himself. He started making sock creatures from Stupid Sock Creatures, and now he's making them to his own designs. His skills grew even over the week I was staying with the family, and the creatures are brilliant. I wanted him to make me one, and he started to, but we agreed that it was his best yet and he shouldn't part with it. He's been making rugs, too, and gave me this one as a Christmas gift. It's made of fleece and feels brilliant under your feet—I love it!

The Mother made me this pin cushion in homage to the rodents with which I share my home (though they've been making themselves scarce for several months, touch wood). I'd been meaning to whip up a pin cushion myself, but this beats anything I could have done. It'll go nicely with a quilt I'm planning, too.

The Mother was working on Middle Brother's wedding quilt over the holidays, Youngest Brother was making sock creatures, and I was starting to hand-quilt my Card Catalog quilt, which I'll post on soon. I don't think the Father and Middle Brother quite knew what to make of the lot of us sewing away in the living room. The Mother and I made the rounds of all the quilt shops in the Charleston area and even took a crack-of-dawn road trip to the bowels of North Carolina for the legendary Mary Jo's Cloth Store. All the ladies in the quilt shops insisted that the prices and selection were unbelievable, but neither of us had seen it for ourselves. The shop was tucked into the mall that time forgot, but it was a thing of beauty: bolts and bolts and bolts and bolts everywhere—quite overwhelming. Thanks must go to the Mother for offering up her credit card to satiate my every fabric desire. It was great fun to shop for fabric with someone who knew (more than me) about quilting, too, and we were both bouncing ideas off each other all week. Now I'm all stocked to start several of the quilts that have been simmering in the design pot....

Crewel and unusual in California

OK, forgive the cheesy pun. I got back Saturday from visiting the Other in California and have just finished stashing all the fabric I bought (which is another story entirely). My quilting projects all require a sewing machine, but the Mother has passed on a genetic defect requiring a needlework project to be on the go at all times, so I embroidered my way across northern California. The Other likes a good flamingo, so before I left I creweled this towel for him based on a design in a Charles Harper book (more on him later, too).

Well, I say crewel, but The New Crewel defines crewel as embroidery with wool on linen twill, and since I'm using pearl cotton on a cruddy Ikea hand towel, it doesn't technically qualify. But the stitches are the same, and so is the basic look. The stretchy terry cloth was hardly ideal, though.

This grey cloth leftover from recovering my sofa works much better, as I discovered when I started embroidering these starbursts with spiderweb stitch and French knots.

The Other seemed to like my housewifely embroidering while we watched TV or drove on the freeways, though I made less of a stellar impression on the flight over. I'd decided that if I wasn't stuck right next to someone, I'd give crewel at 30,000 feet a go, and I ended up having a row to myself. So out came the embroidery hoop and I set to work. I caught the woman in the row behind staring; she quickly averted her eyes when I noticed. After the plane landed, she asked her male traveling companion if he had liked the copy of Running with Scissors she'd lent him. He had not. "Don't you like memoirs?" she said. He made a quick glance at me. "I'll tell you later." Three guesses what his objection to the book was—first two don't count. She also commented to him that my bag was cool as we trotted off the plane, but he was unresponsive. Behold the power of men with needles.

I can't be blamed entirely for the substandard nature of my materials. Despite begging the Other to stop at every craft shop in northern California, no crewel wool was to be had. We popped over a hill in San Francisco, an embroidery shop appeared, and I made one of those "STOP THE CAR NOW!!" demands. But though they had "crewel" painted across the window, there was still no crewel wool except that already packed up in kits for embroidering flowers and leaves and other grannyish patterns. So I'll either be pulling apart tapestry wool strands or sticking with pearl cotton.

In other news, just before I left I made these Denyse Schmidt oven mitts for Mintyfresh, who's just moved. She helpfully left a comment here a while back to let me know what colors she likes together. Good luck, Minty! The mitts are quite fun to make (I made one for me a couple months ago), though I've yet to bind a pair without cursing like a sailor.

Stay tuned for more on crafting and thrifting in the Bay Area....