Quilting an 8-petaled flower

27 01 2015

In a recent Community Quilt (blog post to come), I stitched heaps of 8-petaled flowers in the centre of each on-point block. I took some photos and with some (very) rudimentary computer drawing skills, I’ve tried to describe how I stitched it (I still don’t have the hang of videoing anything!! and my computer-drawn lines leave a lot to be desired…)

Basically, you start in the centre, loop out to a corner, then back down through the centre to the opposite corner in a fat-topped figure eight fashion (let’s assume you do the first one vertically), then scoot back through the centre and make another figure eight going on the other plane (e.g. horizontally). You don’t stop and start for the entire flower, just cross over in the centre point.

After making your two big figure eights, you swing back to the centre and make two smaller and narrower figure eights to fill in the gaps between the large one.

Then you swing back to the centre again and echo stitch inside the fat figure eights so that there’s a double line for them. And that’s it.

It’s certainly much easier to do than to describe! Hopefully the pictures and the diagram below will help.

This is what the finished flower looks like:

FMQ_flower_design11

And this is how I got there. First, start in the centre and loop out to a corner, swinging back to the centre.

FMQ_flower_design01

Next, finish the bottom of that figure eight.

FMQ_flower_design02

When you get back to the centre, keep stitching and loop out to the horizontal plane, doing another figure eight to the left….

FMQ_flower_design03

…and then to the right (or whatever feels most comfortable for you).

FMQ_flower_design04

Swing back through the centre again, and this time stitch a smaller, narrower petal in between two of the large loops.

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Swing through the centre again and repeat on the opposite side.

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Next time you come back through the centre, swoop to the left to make another skinny loop, and repeat on its opposite side. (no photos for this figure eight — however, you can see the stitching in the photo below)

After completing all eight petals of your flower, add some extra oomph to the large petals by echo stitching about 1/8 to 1/4  inch inside each one — you don’t have to be precise!

Swoop back down inside one of the large petals and echo stitch it from the centre, around the loop, and back to the centre.

FMQ_flower_design07

Keep on stitching through and echo stitch the opposite fat petal.

FMQ_flower_design08

Swoop back through the centre and echo stitch inside the last two petals, forming yet another figure eight through the centre of the design. Again, unless you are using plain fabric, you don’t have to be perfectly precise with where your centres cross — the crossing point will get lost in the fabric design.

FMQ_flower_design09

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And you’re done! Here it is all stitched out:

FMQ_flower_design11

And below is a really basic drawing of the stitching lines — each colour is another figure eight loop/infinity symbol, with all crossovers occurring in the centre of the block.

FMQ_flower_design12


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Categories : Quilts and fabric stuff, Tutorials

In light of SkyMall folding…

27 01 2015

For those of you who have never travelled on a domestic flight in the US, there’s a magazine in the seat pocket of most planes called SkyMall. Well, an announcement was made last week that SkyMall was filing for bankruptcy.

So what was SkyMall? Basically a mail-order shopping catalogue of cheap (and not so cheap), tacky, crud that most people most of the time would never use. But it was always worth a chuckle while waiting for the plane to take off, or while in the air.

I was going through some photos recently, and was reminded of SkyMall because I took a photo of this page on my last trip to the US around mid-October (i.e. just before Halloween). It’s an example of all that was tacky about SkyMall 😉 A remote-controlled tarantula. Yea, just what I need… NOT!

DSC_0007


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Categories : USA

What the…?

27 01 2015

I was working on a Community Quilt yesterday (separate blog post to come), when I happened to turn over to look at the stitch tension on the back. I was close to the edge, and this is what I saw on one selvedge:

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This is what I saw on the other selvedge:

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Now, I don’t know about you but my immediate reaction was ‘What the…?’ I can understand the copyright on the fabric (though how on Earth a ship’s wheel and some stripes relate to The Wizard of Oz movie is beyond me… And yes, that’s ALL that design was – just more of what you see in the pictures above), but the ‘License is required for any use beyond individual consumption’??? What’s up with that?

So I researched it a little bit and found some interesting articles on the internet, none of which I can take as more than opinion, though the Tabberone one looks reasonably authoritative:

I still don’t know what all this means for the consumer or for the shop owner that sells these ‘licensed’ fabrics. I particularly don’t know what the ‘license required for any use beyond individual consumption’ statement means to either consumers or shop owners. And whether the licence is for just one country (which one?) or many (which ones?) or all? It can’t be ‘all’ as every country has different copyright and trademark laws.

What does ‘beyond individual consumption’ mean? If you have purchased fabric for a project and have cut it up and used it, does that mean you’ve individually consumed it? Or if you sell that item or give it away, is that still classed as ‘individual consumption’? Or are the lawyers having a lend of us all and scaring us into submission with words that sound scary but may well be meaningless and unenforceable?

Personally, if I saw that ‘personal consumption’ statement on the selvedge of fabric I was intending to buy, I’d ask the shop owner to explain, and if I couldn’t get a satisfactory explanation, I’d refuse to buy it AND I would ask the shop owner to tell the manufacturer’s agent why customers weren’t buying it. If I was able to remember the manufacturer, I’d also drop them an email asking them to explain what it meant AND telling them why I wouldn’t buy it when the meaning is not at all clear.

And what if the fabric had been cut by a store into fat quarters and offered for sale without selvedges? How is the purchaser to know that some weird restriction or limitation may exist on the use of that fabric?

This sounds like a legal minefield! Surely designers want to design fabrics and manufacturers want to sell those designs, but if they start putting restrictions on the use of the fabric, then they won’t have a business. And only the lawyers will have won. Again.

It’d be like buying a dozen eggs and then being told that legally you can only use them for yourself and no-one else. Stupid.

If anyone can shed some light on what these printed license and copyright statements on fabric mean to the final purchaser of the fabric, I’d appreciate it if you could add your comments below.


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Categories : Quilts and fabric stuff