Hi I’m Nicole Gilbert and this is the Stop Scrolling, Start Sewing podcast. Each Wednesday join me as I share the ins and outs of that quilt life. If you don't have a sewing machine, can bust out a super fly Y seam, or just want to hear about the newest or coolest quilty news, this is the podcast for you.
Hello, Hello I’m back! Did ya miss me? Cuz I for sure missed you. This has been a crazy year and I can’t wait to get back into the podcast saddle with all of you! So what have I been up to?Well, we've moved to Kansas, I'm a new Baby Lock Educator, and I'm back to traveling to guilds and shops to teach!
There is a new format for the podcast! You can listen on your favorite podcast provider as well as watch on the Nicole Gilbert Quilts YouTube channel.
Don't forget, National Jelly Roll Day is September 17.
Questions answered this episode:
How to choose fabric for scrap quilts? What are good sewing projects for kids? How do you choose background fabrics?
Hi I’m Nicole Gilbert and this is the Stop Scrolling, Start Sewing podcast. Each Wednesday join me as I share the ins and outs of that quilt life. If you don't have a sewing machine, can bust out a super fly Y seam, or just want to hear about the newest or coolest quilty news, this is the podcast for you.
Hello, Hello I’m back! Did ya miss me? Cuz I for sure missed you. This has been a crazy year and I can’t wait to get back into the podcast saddle with all of you! So what have I been up to?Well, we've moved to Kansas, I'm a new Baby Lock Educator, and I'm back to traveling to guilds and shops to teach!
There is a new format for the podcast! You can listen on your favorite podcast provider as well as watch on the Nicole Gilbert Quilts YouTube channel.
Don't forget, National Jelly Roll Day is September 17.
Questions answered this episode:
How to choose fabric for scrap quilts? What are good sewing projects for kids? How do you choose background fabrics?
Hi, I'm Nicole Gilbert and this is the stop scrolling start sewing podcast. Each Wednesday join me as I share the ins and outs of that quilt life. If you don't have a sewing machine can bust out a Super Why seem like nobody's business, or just want to hear about the newest or coolest quilty news? This is the podcast for you. Hello, hello, I am back. Did you miss me, because I sure as heck missed all of you. This has been a crazy year. And I can't wait to get back into the podcast saddle with all of you. So I know, I get all so many questions in my inbox asking where the heck I've been and what I am up to. Well, this year has been a little bit nuts in all of the best ways. So first and foremost, you may notice that I am in a new quilt studio. And that is because we have just relocated to Kansas City, Kansas. As many of you know, my husband is in the military. And he is currently stationed at Fort Leavenworth. And so we are spending the next year or so here calling Kansas City home. Another thing that I have been up to this year is that I have become a Baby Lock educator. And with Baby Lock, what I do is I assist their trainers and other educators with instructing retailers, Baby Lock retailers on the new machines, and how to use them and different techniques for sales and marketing. As well as teaching consumers directly how to use their machines. Baby Lock machines are amazing. And I am so happy that I've gotten to add so many of them to my machine lineup. I am currently sewing on a Baby Lock chorus for my daily Sower, I use a Baby Lock regalia on a kinetic frame for my long arming. And I have a baby lock accomplish that I use for both Bag Making and as my travel machine. So lots of Baby Lock up in here and I am beyond thrilled. I've also been traveling to guilds and shops. So that is probably the most exciting thing ever, because like 2020 kind of get a you know what I mean? Like just beyond stoked to be traveling, again, to be sharing my love of quilting with people all over the country. And it's so much fun. If you're listening to this and you have a guild and you're interested in me coming to visit for a lecture or a workshop, please head on over to Nicole Gilbert quilts.com Because I would love to hear from you. And of course I have been hosting. So alongs like so many. So Long's so many fun, so alongs so many good soul longs. It's been pretty awesome. Quite frankly, I have gotten to make some of my favorite quilts, like the Tula Pink butterfly, or the sampler spree 100 Black quilt, I've been making all of them. And it's truly been a super fun experience. I love the fact that I get to sew my favorite projects, share them with all of you see how you're creating the projects. And I love it because there's, there's like a very low barrier to entry. It's just the cost of the pattern. I don't charge anything for the soul long itself. I just do it because I enjoy doing it. And so actually, right now we have just started and when I say like just started I mean, this past Monday was the first day where I shared what fabrics I'm choosing for the sampler spree. So along which is this amazing 100 Block wonder that you see behind me it is based on sampler spree by Susan Aki, which is just one of the most phenomenal books and patterns I've ever seen. So, shameless plug here. If you want to go visit it, the links for all of that are in the show notes and the bio or bio. I've been on Instagram too much lately. They're all in the show notes or the video description. Speaking of video description, you may have noticed something a little different this week. So moving forward, the podcast will be available not only on your favorite podcast provider, which I'm sure many of you are listening to right now. Oh, but also via YouTube. And so I thought I would add this element because so many of the topics that I've talked about could really be enhanced with visuals. And so many of you, over the years have emailed me asking, you know, what certain things look like or sending me copies of products and being like, hey, is this what you were talking about? And so I think adding a visual element will be a great, great option. So I am easing on in to that. Now. My on YouTube, you can find it at my YouTube channel, which is Nicole Gilbert quilts. If you don't subscribe, I highly suggest that you do because not only will you get these weekly podcast videos, but you will also get techniques and projects and reviews unboxing videos, I mean, the sky is the limit with what I'm sharing over there. So if you haven't had a chance to go check it out. Please do. If you have found me on YouTube, Yay, I'm so excited. This podcast has quite the backlog of past episodes. So if this is the first episode that you are catching, because you are a YouTuber, but you're interested in some of the other things I have to talk about, you can go on the podcast provider of your choice, because I'm pretty much listed everywhere. And you can go ahead and find me at the stop scrolling, start sewing podcast. So there goes a lot of for lack of a better word housekeeping, though you guys know I hate housekeeping. Housekeeping for all of you. And now let's dive on into the thing. So first, I want to talk about the quilt on the wall, which is something that I will continuously share with you from here moving forward since you guys will actually be able to see my Sewing Studio. And currently the quilt on the wrong wall is the sampler spree quilt, which was designed by Susan Aki, if you're not familiar, The samplers free book, which is this guy right here is this amazing book published by Martin Gale publishing. And it goes over step by step how to make over 100 Different quilt blocks. They're all six and a half inch blocks. And what's great about it is it's a great skill builder, because you are using so many different skills, so many different techniques. And you're doing it with such repetition. In obviously different ways. The quilts, I mean is totally different, every single block is completely different than the other. But it is a great way to really kind of shake the cobwebs out. And so this is actually the current Solong that I am hosting just started. So as I said before, you can log in, or join in at any point is is really great because it's also a slow along, which I love. I love a slow along because it allows you to make a couple blocks, here and there. Check in see what everybody's up to but then go about your life. So often so many soul longs can feel a little bit tense as far as deadlines. And like this is a hobby or something I've always said is like we're having fun here. Okay, so you don't need that kind of negativity in your life. And that's one of the best things about the Solong. Another cool thing is just this thing stashing. Do you see the sashing on this thing, it's like kind of a Greek key kind of a Byzantine kind of feel to it. It's super simple, but has a huge visual impact, which I absolutely adore. So that is the quilt on the wall. If you're interested in just purchasing that quote book, you can find it at most major retailers, where you typically buy your your quilting books or at your local quilt shop. You can also find it at my shop at Nicole Gilbert quilts.com/shop And you can find it there as well. So I've got a bunch of stuff to talk about. First up. So today is Wednesday, September 14, and this upcoming Saturday is September 17, which is national so a jelly roll day. And I just wanted to throw that out there because like you are going to be inundated with Jelly Roll patterns and Jelly Roll features on Instagram. So if you're wondering why everybody's using a jelly roll, that is why I plan on participating. If I get all my stuff done like a good girl I don't know if I am because things are things are going really well in Nicole Gilbert quotes world and so I hope I have some time interest in personal sewing, but we'll see. Okay, so foreign like I'm back kind of treat, I decided that I will be answering some listener questions. And over the course of this season, I will kind of grab a question here and there to answer. So if you have any questions, go ahead and drop them in the comments. Or you can email them to me at Nicole at Nicole Gilbert quotes.com. And you can be featured in a future episode. But I have a few questions that I'm going to answer. Because this is like a getting to know you new format, kind of a thing. I'm not going to go crazy on them, but just touch on some some key key questions that have been coming in. So the first question that I have gotten was how do you choose fabric for scrap quilts. So for me a scrap quilt is the most fun when it's cohesive, but all over the place. So I know that some people will do a scrapbook. And it's like, just random, like total randomness. And I love it. And I enjoy that. But my OCD brain cannot handle it for myself. Okay, so like, I would love to look at it, but I couldn't physically make it. So how I choose fabric for scrap quilts, is I first decide overall, what I want a quilt to look like. It's almost like I approach it as if I am just making a regular quilt. And in which case it's like okay, I want to use a green here, a blue here or purple here, whatever. And then I head over to my scrap bins. And this is where organization of your quilt scraps is really important because I organize my scroll quilt I can't speak today. I organize my quilt scraps by color. And so I got it pretty well broken down, I want to say I've got like 20 containers, so they're pretty well broken up. So it's not just blue, there's blue, and there's Aqua, and there's Navy, and there's powder, like there's, there's a few blues. And so what I do is I choose exactly the colors I want to use and where I want them. And then what I will do is like let's say the pattern says you know, 10 yards of color or 10 yards, can you imagine how big that thing would be one yard of color A and I've decided color A is going to be green, I decide what green, lime green, let's say I go into my lime green, and grab basket and then I pick enough fabric to make up a full yard. And then I cut it up as per the directions. And then I use them as if they were one color as if they were one printed fabric. And I do that across the entire quilt top. And so I will end up in a very scrappy quilt with lots of different fabrics in it. And yet overall, there's a huge level of cohesion because the color tone plays through the whole thing. If it's blue, it's the same shade of blue, but there's different prints. It's different scales, it's different volumes. And it really does come across as quite scrappy, because it is while having a really nice tone to it. So that's how I like to choose my scrap quilts. Another way to go about scrap quilts. And this is something that I suggest to beginner quilters who are wanting to go the scrap route but there maybe are not so confident in their color choices and their color matching. I suggest using a large fabric collection. So I let's see. I'm just gonna grab this. So this is on my cold table right now it's in a bag, which is a bummer. But this is Christmas morning by Lella boutique, which is probably one of the prettiest Christmas lines I've seen in a few years. But what I love about it is Look how many different fabrics there are. They're all different. They all go together. You will get an incredibly scrappy look using these fabrics. They all go together. The designer did the work. Vanessa Girton of Lella boutique did the work. They all go together. They're beautiful. There's different colors going on. There's different prints, there's different styles, but it's very cohesive, it goes well together. But with this many different prints, it's going to look scrappy. So one thing you can do is to choose a fabric collection that has more than 10 prints in it and I has more than 10 prints in it, you're naturally going to get a scrappy look. So that is a another hint or trick that I suggest for how to choose fabric for a scrap quilt. Let's see. Next question, what is a good project for kids learning to sew? I love this question so much because I have one you most of you know, I'm a boy Mom, I have a seven seem to be eight year old. His birthday is next week, a five year old and a three soon to be four year old His birthday is also next week. And then all boys, and so it's a lot of fun. It's really loud. But I didn't anticipate having any sewers for obvious reasons. But my seven year old came to me this summer, and was like Mommy, I really want to learn how to sew. And I loved that he did this. He's like pure boy. He plays hockey, he plays soccer. He's, you know, chasing his brothers around the yard with sticks. But he really wanted to learn to sew. And so I love it because I didn't think I was going to have that opportunity with my kids. I mean, you could teach your kid how to I tell all my kids how to operate a sewing machine. But actually sitting down and doing projects with them. I didn't think that that was actually going to happen. So it was a really nice moment for me. So the very first thing I did before I did any projects and I know this is the question was asking me what's a good project for kids who are learning to sew. But I do think that the first thing that you should do with any child who's learning how to sew is go over the fundamentals of sewing. You know, what is a presser foot? What is the uptake lever? What is a flywheel? What are feed dogs, how do we sew a straight line, you know, all of those things. I think it's really important to know the fundamentals. I also chose to teach him on a mechanical machine, it would have been a lot easier to teach him on my chorus because everything's automatic, the presser foot would automatically come up for him things would get trimmed automatically. But I really wanted him to know how to sew before he got all of the fancy bells and whistles, where if he used them, he wouldn't necessarily know to do them on his own. So that is something that I suggest everybody do. But that's again just make you totally be like nah, nickel, automatic presser foot was the pivot. That's, that's where it's at. I get it. So once we had gone past that phase, I chose to do a pillowcase with him. And I did the burrito method, which is like the you line up everything on one end, you fold, roll it up, and then you wrap the collar around and sew it and they pull it out and sew it. But he did French seams. He really he had a blast. It's on his bed right now he's obsessed with it. Everybody who came to visit our house in the following two weeks, got a tour of his pillowcase because he had to show them he had to show them that there was no raw edges, he you know that there was all straight lines, he was really excited and really proud of himself. So I would say a pillowcase is probably the best bet. Now if you want to go and move fast pass that the next things we did together was make pot holders. And we have an RV. So I decided you know what you guys pick the fabrics. And we will use these pot holders in our RV. And he absolutely loved it. And he learned to straightline quilts, and how to baste and how to bind and how to make bias binding. So it was it was quite the project. But it was also nine inches by nine inches. So it was also really small. Because quite frankly Mama's patients couldn't handle it. I was planning on doing like a hot pad for like under a casserole dish. And pot holders, which by the way, I have tutorials for those on my YouTube channel. But he drove me bananas at that point. And I was like, You know what one pot holder will do. And so those I would say are two great projects for kids a pillowcase at a pot holder. They're useful. There'll be excited to use them every time they use them. They will be like, hey, that's fine. And they teach them some really great skills. So that's that's what I would do for projects for kids. And again, my son is seven, and I knew he was ready to do it. I still did the rotary cutting for him. But this will also be dependent on your kids. So my five year old will probably learn to quilt or so a little bit younger than the seven year old did. Because to be quite honest, he's less of a wildcard and I can I think I'd be confident in letting him sit at the sewing machine that he wouldn't so his fingers. So keep in mind the age of your kids that you're going to be teaching and, you know, you know their limits better than anybody else. So that's just my two cents on that. Okay. And then the last question for today is, what do you use for background fabric? And how do you choose your background fabrics? Okay. So there is a bunch of different ways that you can approach this. First and foremost, like when you have and I'm just going to grab these because they're here. A fabric collection. This is like half of that Christmas morning by Lola Batik. When you have a fabric collection, that designer has used a specific background fabric for the entirety of their collection. A lot of times, especially with Mota designers, a lot of times, it's Bella 200, or Bella 60, which are like an ivory and like a creamy, brighter white. And those are some of my favorites. So one thing you can see is like if it's a specific designer, it's a specific collection, you can pretty easily online, find what is the background color they've chosen to use, and that will help you do that. Also in a lot of collections, and that's this one included, let me see, where's it there it is. This one included, there's usually in every fabric collection, a tone on tone print, this one is like a really cute little polka dot, you could probably not even see those dots on here. But that's another thing that you can use for the background print, which is a tone on tone, it has just a hint of texture, which is really nice. And quite frankly, that's what I always do, I always use a tone on tone for my backgrounds instead of just a plain solid, because the background is just as much a place to get something out of the quilt as the bright colors. So we've got the solids that the designer used, we have tone on tones, which is usually what I do. And then you could also do low volumes like something like this. Where you see it actually does have the polka dots on it. And they're colored. So this was the little boutiques, it's the background color with white and red and green and grey polka dots and achieving a like a pretty Aqua in there, which is a little different for Christmas, and I love it. But that's another way that you can go is to do a low volume. And when I say low volume, it means that there's a lot of background space. And in this case, you're looking for a low volume, so a lot of background space. And the background happens to be the background color that they're using. And so that is another way to add some visual interest to your background fabrics without like going crazy. Another thing that I'm seeing a lot lately is for backgrounds to be highly saturated. So instead of using a cream or a white or an ivory for a background, using black, using maybe using eggplant using a really deep, rich color as your background, and so it really does make your fabric colors pop, and it gives them a slightly different tone. So that's just some things to think about when choosing a background fabric. Okay, so that was a lot of information. There was a lot of stuff we chatted about today. I'm so glad to have been able to have this conversation with all of you. So all of the links mentioned in this episode can be found in the show notes, or the video description depending on where you are listening to or watching this podcast episode. And congratulations, you have just finished another episode of the stop scrolling start sewing podcast. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. And make sure you never miss an episode by hitting subscribe wherever you chose to listen today. Now stop scrolling and start sewing.