Splitting the sky: The Advantage of Split Light Sources

August 18, 2024 | ellenanneeddy

I don’t piece well. It’s not my skill. Anything that takes accuracy and careful cutting really isn’t my skill. The new 770 Bernina came with a foot that does make it better, but I don’t normally do large pieced tops. I know better. It’s not pretty when I do.

But there are rare occasions when I piece a split light source top.

Why? Why walk into accuracy land and piecing?

A light source brings you fabric with direction, and a built-in world. That world can be integral by itself. But if you want to filter the light as if it were through haze, woods, or shadow, you can piece two light source fabrics to create that shaded look. There are several approaches, with different effects.

Vertical Piecing

Where the Heart Is was pieced from two separate yards of the same blue/orange color range. I lay both pieces together on the cutting board and cut them in gradated strips, 2″, 3″, 4″, etc. Then I sewed them together with the narrowest light of one to the widest side of the other, in gradation. Set in a vertical arrangement, it makes for light flowing through the trees.

Horizontal Piecing with a Frame

Envy was one horizontal light source yard, split in gradations with a half yard cut in 2″ strips put between. The piecing creates a sense of space. The narrowest strip in the gradation defines the horizon line.

Piecing within Multiple Frames

Sometimes I split the two fabrics with the light at the widest on one side and the dark widest cut so they can carry the light across the piece. Twightlight Time was also double framed with a 2″ and a progressive border. Having a narrower border on the top weights the bottom of the piece.

Piecing Machines

Lately, Don found me a Singer 99 at a yard sale. For those of you not familiar with these darlings, they are a featherweight industrial drop-in bobbin Singer. They only straight stitch, but the stitch is impeccable. They are tougher, and faster and they use bobbins that are still commercially available. I’d never seen one before, but I fell in love instantly. It took a little work and some creative parts searching, but Don got it working for me and it’s perhaps the best piecing machine I’ve ever had. Did I mention Don is my hero?

So I pieced the guinea hen’s background on it.

How do you keep it straight? It’s tricky. If I get them out of order the fabric doesn’t progress correctly through its colors. I make all my cuts, leave the fabric on the cutting board until I can number the pieces all on the back side. Since there are two pieces of fabric cut, I label my fabric, 1a,2a, etc. and 1b, 2b, etc. and chalk in the sequence on the ends so I can always keep them in order.

Expanding Fabric Size

Sometimes there’s just a beautiful fabric that needs to be bigger. That’s been known to happen too.

I needed a background for What the Flock, a grouping of guinea hens. I’m low on fabric and money right now, so I have to make do. I found a purple piece that should make a great meadow, but a yard was just a bit small. So I pieced in another half-yard to expand it. I cut the half yard in 2.5″ widths and graded the yard-long piece in segments of 9″, 8″, 7″, 6″, and 5″,

Seam Rollers

For those of you like me, who hate to run back and forth to the iron, there is a seam roller. You can use this gadget to flatten your seams right where you’re sewing. Roll it over the seam and you’ll have flat, ready-to-sew seams without the iron woman run.

I don’t piece often, but these backgrounds are worth it. I love the shaded light and the action of light of the fabric across the piece.

Getting fabric Straight: The wonders of starch

June 12, 2022June 12, 2022 | ellenanneeddy

One of the constants of quilting is that the methods of fabric care we enjoy now don’t always work for quilting fabric. Why? Quilts are mostly cotton. Cotton is not perma-press. It can be made so, but it’s hardly cotton after that. It dries at a different temperature, it shrinks, it is more vulnerable to mildew. It does not act like a polyester fabric. And it never will. It’s cotton. It’s a natural fiber that does not ever act like a test tube baby. And it rumples. There are no wrinkles like cotton wrinkles.

So, many of the tools our grandmother’s used to work with cotton still work best. I have a wringer washer and mangle for dyeing fabric. They both are made pretty specifically for cotton and still do the job they were made for.

We talked several weeks ago about cotton and irons. Cotton takes real heat. The old fashioned irons do that.

Here’s the other unspoken bit about cotton. It’s made of fibers that move, shift and don’t stay steady. You can tear fabric straight on the edge and have it still not lie square. There is, however, a secret weapon. Starch.

You know that wonderful crisp feeling that your cotton has off the bolt, when it feels like a thin piece of paper, only fluid. That’s created by starch. Starch is one of several chemicals they use to finish fabric. So is formaldehyde. If you’ve ever walked into a fabric store and smelled a strong chemical smell, that’s probably it. A good prewash removes much of that smell. But it also removes the starch.

We joke about starch in someone’s underwear and complain of too much starch in new clothes, but for quilting, it really helps us out. It means things are more stable and don’t move around. Those moving, shifting, shifty fabrics stay flat and stay straight, making it easier to piece straight seams. I’m told it’s excellent for hand piecing. It keeps the fabric smooth and steady underneath the needle.

I became aware of the starch factor when I began to dye all my fabric. It just didn’t have the same body as unwashed fabric. I experimented with spray starch and found it expensive but helpful. It was also very hard to control how much starch you got. And you often got spots.

Then I found liquid starch. Stay Flo has turned out to be the best I’ve used. It comes in a jug and you mix it to the level you want. I usually use 1/3 cup of Stay Flow to 2/3 cup of water. Roughly. I mix that in a cheap spray bottle.

But here’s the secret weapon. On my last wash out, I put in a cupful of starch in the softener cup of my washer. I also put in a capful of a professional softer called ProSoft or Milsoft. On it’s final rinse, it starches all my fabric evenly. Then I let it hang dry and iron it while damp. Perfection.

Here’s an interesting article from The Spruce with more technical information about sizing and starches.

Starched fabric is so much easier to piece because it doesn’t shift as much.

I’ve been piecing another landscape gradation, and I gave it a final starch before pressing it. It changes how your fabric lies, how it irons, and how it handles under the needle. And you don’t need to stop and smell the formaldehyde. How good is that?