Colette is a quilter and maker, and does magic on her Pfaff sewing machine as a former Educator for Pfaff. She knits, beads and loves to keep her hands and mind busy.
How did you learn to sew?
My mother taught me how to sew when I was ten. I made Barbie Doll clothes.
What other types of hobbies do you do?
Beading, any kind of hand work and reading.
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What is your favorite storage tip for your sewing supplies? fabric?
Organization, organization, organization – fabric is sorted by color.
About how many UFOs (unfinished objects / projects) do you think you have right now?
About 15. I’ve been very good lately.
How often do you start a new project?
At least every two weeks.
Are you the kind of quilter that plans everything out ahead of time? or do you just dive in and start playing with fabrics?
I do both. I recently made a hidden wells quilt for a dear friend. I stacked up 7 fabrics that I knew she would like and left them on my cutting board to ponder each time I was cutting something out. Every time I looked at the stack, I would change out a fabric. By the time, I cut out the quilt, only two of the original seven were in the quilt. The process lasted about 3 weeks.
When you are in your creative mood, do you listen to music, watch tv or do you prefer a quiet spot? If it is music, what types do you listen to? If watching tv, what kinds of shows?
Sometimes it is pure silence, others it is a movie going, usually a chick flick, and if there is music, it is usually my christian praise and worship music.
What is your favorite tip for quilting? Or do you have a favorite tool to help you succeed at your projects?
Anything else?
Little Luke, my one and only grandchild is the light of my life.
Posted August 2015
Some of Colette’s projects!
Stupendous Stitching Sampler
I signed up for a class on Craftsy.com called Stupendous Stitching with Carol Ann Waugh, which I highly recommend, by the way. It was so much fun to try out different stitches, thread and techniques to help give me more ‘tools’ for all of my sewing projects.
The first assignment was to make a “stitch bible”. A Stitch Bible is picture form of all of the stitches on your sewing machine at different settings. Many of the stitches do not look the same as what is depicted on the lid of your sewing machine. I did three different settings in my stitch bible as recommended by Carol Ann.
What making this stitch bible did for me, was open up a whole new world of stitches to use, and I find myself referring to it many times.
Even if you don’t take the Stupendous Stitching Class – at least make a stitch bible. You don’t have to take a class in order to learn how to make your stitch bible, but the class is great!
Check out some of my pages from my book:
You can see I tried different stitch widths and lengths with each of my fancy stitches (and utility stitches) on my machine, and now I know what it will look like when I use that stitch on a finished piece!
Machine embroidery is a fun and relaxing technique. The finished project is gorgeous, and you get to pick out the colors and layout.
Hummel Boys
During the time I was a Creative Consultant (Educator) for Pfaff, they gave us the software to create art with machine embroidered Hummel Boys.
I had fun picking the colors, setting up the embroidery and watching the magic happen as the embroidered Hummel Boys came to life!
I have a grandson that I adore and wanted to make something special for his room. I stitched out nine of the little boys. I priced them with an offset inner border, sashing and then quilted it to make this wall hanging.
Inchies Are the Best
What is an inchie? Any size square, rectangle, triangle, circle, etc that you decide you want to work with. In our group of 20, there was no limit set to the size of the inchie except that it could not be larger than 6 inches on any one measurement. Inches are mini sized pieces of art.
The way an inchie exchange works is the owner of the inchie makes enough ‘starts’ for each of the participants. It’s a blank canvas for other participants to embellish in any way they want, and return to the original owner. It is so much fun to see how different people put their style on these mini sized pieces of art!
Since we had 20 participants for our “Inchie Round”, each participant received two inchies from the others to embellish, making mini pieces of art. So, as you can see, it took some time for everyone to complete the embellishment on 18 inches (not everyone finished!). Once the embellishment process was completed, everyone returned the inchies to their owners, and the owners had two months to create a well-balanced composition.
I placed each of the mini sized pieces of art on a purple based background fabric with black and white stripes in each piece to make the final piece coherent. Then, I sewed each of the pieces together, intentionally leaving spaces between each module, for visual interest.
It was so fun. We all got together and did a reveal of our final composition of the mini pieces of art that we had received from each other! This is what I did with the inchies art from my friends!
Navajo Code Talkers Quilt
Navajo Code Talkers Quilt is a kit that I purchased from Keepsake Quilting. I made it with homespun fabrics, using 15-1/2 inch squares. As a gift for my husband, I switched it up a bit. So I changed some of the designs to make it a bit more masculine!
I really enjoyed making the squares for this Navajo Code Talkers quilt. There are so many techniques that I got to use and learn – from basic strip quilting to half square triangles and log cabin and even flying geese!
The quilt is fun to make, so I’m glad my husband enjoys wrapping up in it on cold nights.
Browse through more sewing projects and inspiration on Create Whimsy.