30 years of Nancy

What a gift Nancy Zieman has been to the quilting and sewing industry.

I have been fortunate enough to work with Nancy many times, doing several episodes on her TV show and working at her wonderful quilt show the Quilting Expo in Madison WI.

It's a special year for Sewing With Nancy—2012 is the 30th anniversary year! The celebration pinnacle is during mid-November with the first airing of the Sewing With Nancy 30th Anniversary Special, 2-part TV series, both on PBS stations and online at  http://www.nancyzieman.com 

Each of the episodes will be the featured video online for one week, November 11th —24th.(Goes live Tomorrow night) Recorded at Wisconsin Public Television with a studio audience and special guests, Nancy takes a look back over 30 years of sewing, quilting, and embroidering. She shows how things have changed and stayed the same. Video vignettes tell the story—hair styles, fashions, set designs, techniques—they've all changed. What's stayed the same?—the love of sewing and quilting.

To continue the celebration of 30 years of Sewing With Nancy on Television, Nancy Zieman’s Hosting a Sewing With Nancy 30th Anniversary Blog Giveaway Event in November — and you’re invited to participate.

To continue that wonderful tradition I am offering a gift as one of her promotions.
Go to Giveaway Event Posting: http://www.nancyzieman.com/blog/ to find out how to win -

Purple Coneflowers Kit – hand dyed fabric and pattern. 

This is the first project I did on Nancy’s PBS show Sewing with NANCY.


Good luck.

Step by Step

Friday I showed you the Paper Tablet Keeper I made using Nancy Zieman’s Trace N Create templates.

Today I wanted to show you the steps to make it. It really was fun and easy and a nice change a pace from what I normally do.

The first step for me is always to find the fabric.

Look at all those gorgeous wicked fabrics. It was hard to pick just one.
One of my goals for 2012 to use as much of this fabric as possible.

The green really caught my eye. I thought it looked mottled and interesting woodland like the area the trilliums grow in.

I had already decided to use my pattern Petite Trilliums for the cover design.

After ironing and sewing two of the fabrics together to make the cover piece I also fused the back of the cover fabric.

The directions tell you to use a medium weight interfacing but I like the idea of the fusible web. I normally fuse my fabrics anyway. I used the template from the pattern to cut out a slightly larger than the template size background area to create the design. I knew I was going to machine quilt it and the quilting would shrink it  a little so I made it bigger and trimmed it to size when the quilting was done.


To trace the design from the pattern I used the release paper that peals off of the fused fabric. I always use
WonderUnder #805 when I am fusing and a Sharpie extra fine black marker.

I used the Sharpie extra fine marker to trace the design. Once the design is traced I placed the marker side of the traced design against the fused side of my fabric and pressed with a hot dry iron. I will often cover it with another piece of release paper to protect the exposed fused areas on the rest of the fabric.


I always let the fabric cool down and remove all the release paper before I and cut out the design on the line that is transferred to the back of the  fused fabric.

It helps if you use VERY sharp scissors so you get a clean crisp edge.

Once I had my design finished I added in a layer of Fairfield batting to the back, instead of the extra firm stabilizer that the directions call for.

One of the things I did as I was working with this pattern was to highlight the areas in the pattern that refer to the Paper Keeper part of the design.

The pattern has directions for several different applications and it just made it easier for me to keep track of what I was doing if I highlighted my parts.

Ok that’s it for now, I will finish up this project tomorrow.
See you then.

Paper Keeper Project

Machine quilting the paper keeper cover

I hope you enjoyed the video. Please pass it on to your quilting buddies.
After I finished the machine quilting, I squared up the top to the exact size by placing the plastic template back on the front and trimming it to size.

I found it helpful to put a piece of doubled scotch tape in the corners and then place my ruler over the template and use my rotary cutter to trim up the sides.
Next I needed to add the snaps and create the tab. I had never used these magnetic snaps. I found them very easy to put in.


You mark where you want the snap to go and then cut two slits and fit it through. I added an extra piece of very stiff peltex to the underside to give it more strength.
Pay attention to what you are doing, because I cut on the wrong side of the tab the first time and had to add in another design element on the front over my mistake!! The second side of the snap goes on the inside of the tab.

Once you sew on the side tab and add in the inner fabrics with pocket you run a stay stitch around the whole outside to hold it all together so you can add your binding. This project called for a traditional binding but I made my a fused binding.

You can see a tutorial by pressing the tab that says FUSED BINDING at the top of my blog.

Once all the bindings are added you slip the plastic precut shapers inside this makes it a very sturdy tablet or paper keeper.

A pretty quick and fun project. I hope you all make yourselves one.
For more ideas and inspiration, I invite you to become a follower of my blog. Just click on the link to the right that says join this site.
Happy Sewing

Woodand Wonder

I happen to run into Nancy and her assistant Deanna Springer at the Houston Quilt Market, and we had lunch. Poor Nancy and Deanna, I was getting sick and ended up with Streep Throat  and they had to sit and share lunch with me, but don’t worry I didn’t kiss or hug them or anything like that.
Anyway, during lunch they were telling me about their new product and I of course had to get in on the action.
My version of Nancy’s Notion E-Tablet and Paper Keeper project.
I have said this many times before, I love Nancy Zieman, she is the nicest person in the quilt industry. Nancy is doing a blog tour of the Tablet Keeper makers. You can visit her site and sign up for prizes from Clover.

NancyZieman Trace n Create templates from Clover. This is for either an E-tablet and or Paper Tablet Keeper. I don’t own an iPad because I think it is redundant - I have an I-Phone, it can’t really do much more than my phone can the I-pad is just bigger.
I made my version of a Paper Tablet Keeper. I used my pattern Petite Trilliums for the jumping off point.

I have been making this really cool fabric lately. I want to use it in everything I make. I call it wicked fabric. I don’t sell this stuff because each piece is so individual.  I really like it. and I am not ready to share it yet.
But I wanted to use it in this project. I thought it looked like the wooded areas where the Trilliums grow.
These are not the colors I used, but aren’t they great, I used greens and teals instead.
Initially I thought I would do earth tones like this little quilt.

Tiny Trilliums mounted on a peltex frame.
But as usual the whole opposite color combination theme really caught my eye when I was sorting through fabrics to use and so I went with deep teals and hot pink for the stems and flowers on the green background.

I just couldn’t resist using the deep purple and fuchsia for the oak leaf border.
An aside. My DH came down and wanted me to sign something while I was working on this. He placed the paper down and then looked at the project and said, I quote, “oh that’s really nice”. I nearly dropped over, he never comments, let alone says anything is NICE.


I love the inside too, I think it is so cool, it is also made using some of the wicked fabrics. I love the combinations that I choose, the blues and greens. They look like water don’t they?
I had a good time making this project and I will share with you the steps that I went through next week in a video.
Thank you for stopping by today to see my creation!  For more ideas and inspiration, I invite you to become a follower of my blog. Just click on the link to the right that says join this site.
A big Thank You to Clover for providing the templates, shapers and hardware to construct this project!  And don't forget to enter HERE for Nancy's drawing to win these great products from Clover: