and the other
in New York City. She ties her two lives together
through her amazing quilts. I'd like you to please welcome
Victoria Findlay Wolfe an extraordinary quilter
who uses a double wedding ring
quilt pattern as her palette
to tell her life stories. Welcome back to
Sewing With Nancy, Victoria. Thank you, Nancy. Thanks for
having me. If my grandmother
and I were able to make a quilt
together this quilt,
Greatest Possible Trust is probably what
it would look like.
The design is a contemporary
double wedding ring and it combines modern
and traditional quilting. It brings the two worlds
together. "Double Wedding Ring Quilts" That's what's coming next
on Sewing with Nancy . Sewing with Nancy TV's longest-airing
sewing and quilting program with Nancy Zieman
is made possible by Baby Lock, a complete line
of sewing, quilting and embroidery machines
and sergers. Baby Lock,
for the love of sewing. Madeira, specializing
in embroidery, quilting and special-effect
threads because creativity
is never black and white. Koala Studios fine sewing furniture
custom-built in America. Clover,
making a difference in sewing, quilting, crafting,
and needle arts for over 30 years. Amazing Designs
and Klassé needles. We're going to start with
Victoria's quilt Remembering
Christmas Past which is filled with images
from her childhood. The concave square of
the double wedding ring design is a perfect palette to showcase
memories using fabric. With this quilt
as a backdrop learn her secret to piecing
this traditional design. We're going to get back to
the Greatest Possible Trust that dramatic quilt that
you saw in the beginning but this is a great place
to showcase how the double wedding ring design
is sewn together.
And Victoria,
you know people sometimes steer away
from this design but if you break it down
it's really quite manageable. That's one of the things
that I'm trying to get people to let go
of the fear. Sure. The curved piecing
is really not that it's a hard
thing to do but it's
a patience builder. And we all need
more patience. I like
that terminology. It's true. Where you have your memories
showcased in fabric is this middle section
called a concave square.
A concave square. This whole quilt,
the pieces are pretty standard. That was the concave
square this is the solid arc shape
that we're using. And the melon. And the melon on the inside,
and your setting square. The rest is just
duplicating to make this main element
of the double wedding ring. Now we have
the pieces cut out. You can use
templates as Victoria has done
on this quilt or you can use a die cut machine
to cut the pieces. Our grandmothers probably
used templates. What do
you think? The probably used
paper templates. The fancier templates
that we have now for the precise piecing
on these curves makes things much easier
to go together. So here you can see
some of the elements that are cut
apart and you first sew the squares
to one of the arcs.
Exactly. It's a nice easy
place to start. You get those little
straight seams done. You can chain-piece
all of the squares to your arcs in one go,
right? We have that
together. Then anytime that
you're doing curves you want to find the centers
of your shapes. You should always pin
your centers first. We have them nicely
marked there already so we can just go ahead
and pin our center.
Then we're going to
pin the end. I find, after having
made almost 30 double wedding ring
quilts now that I can get away with
just three pins. The reason I like to do that,
and it makes it very obvious when I get
all of them pinned. I'll get this little guy
on here. Because you're working with
mirror images on the curves if you just pin
those three points your fabrics will magically
line up evenly your raw edges
together. Let's share with our viewers
this little end because you extend
the melon piece this 1/4".
Exactly. A little bit of a quarter
over the end of the fabric. And here is Victoria
stitching this curve. You use
a straight stitch. A straight stitch,
1/4" seam. And when you're
finished with that tah-dah, it looks
like this piece. Exactly. Once you've got that down,
that's what's happening next. You're going to place
the arch with the squares on it to the melon
piece. Yes. And one of the things
I often get is how do you remember
which way this goes? I always say,
floppy-toppy. Okay. Floppy-toppy goes
on the top, right? Belly
on the bottom. They call it
the belly piece. So I'm going to
just pin that and on the bottom here
you're going to be lining up
this seam with the seam
that you've sewn. I like to pin directly
through that seam so things
line up exactly where
I want them to be. I'm pinning
1/4" down exactly where
I'm going to sew.
Then I'm
going to pin through this seam
1/4" down. Okay, stacking them up
nicely there. Get my pin in
flat. Okay? And here we
go again. Victoria's stitching
this curve after she's pinned
the other end. It just takes a little time,
with a shorter stitch length to create
that curve. Yes, and to be patient
when you're sewing that. Make sure that the fabrics
stay in place. Don't rush it,
just sew it slowly together. So that's
been sewn. Then the completed
melon unit goes to the center
square. The concave square. And when we put this up
on our backdrop this is a finished circle,
double wedding ring but to create rows
to sew this together we will sew
a concave square to a completed
double wedding ring.
Then add,
at the bottom– So you're not
going to make circle after circle
after circle. The row is going to
start at the top we're going to have
the concave square the circle, concave square,
and the circle. And the opposite happens
on the other side. So what you're seeing
is a nice gentle curve. That's kind of the little
Readers' Digest version of working with the double
wedding ring stitching. Victoria and I opened the show
with an image of this great,
dramatic improvisational quilt
called– Greatest Possible Trust.
Greatest Possible Trust with, as you
mentioned if your grandma could
make a quilt with you– If we could have
made a quilt together what would that
look like? And that was kind of
my challenge that I was
working with two different concepts
of modern and traditional. The most traditional
double wedding ring we can find
on here is I think,
right in this area. I think so, because here
you're going to have your setting of
a standard melon, right? You've got
your setting stones and your arcs
and your small melons attached to your concave square
to the inside.
I was really looking at how
I could change the story of melding the tradition and
the modern together by putting in
some negative space putting in some whites,
playing with some made fabric. This was
the '70s so getting out all my
vintage fabrics that I collect and making some
made fabric out of those to put it
all together. And to share with our viewers
if they missed our first program that Victoria received a quilt
from her grandmother for her graduation
present. Here's a close-up
of that quilt patchworked together,
all done by hand. And in polyester. Polyester. So this is
not polyester. This made fabric,
this pieced fabric and then cut
into a template form was that
inspiration. Exactly. And if you missed that program
you can go to nancyzieman.com and watch it online
or watch it on DVD as well. But now as we go to the next
double wedding ring we can see
some additional improvisational
accents.
Exactly, trying to bring
all the techniques together. My grandmother was also very
good at crochet and embroidery so I wanted that to be
an element inside of the quilt
as well. So here,
where I was doing more of a traditional
quilting pattern I went back and I chain-
stitched all the lines. By hand. By hand. Not a sewing machine
or a serger, nope. But putting in that little
detail in where it hits the red to help
tell that story. You know, and kind of
crossing over the modern straight lines
of the modern quilting.
Then going back in also
and making sure to have handwork
involved having some hand-quilting
here and there. You know, we can't teach
improvisational because what I would
improvise with would be different
than what you would. But to give you ideas,
I think that's what this whole program
is about. Exactly. So this is yet
one more technique that I wanted to be able to add
is having some applique. On most of my quilts you'll find
a small touch of applique. In here I did the red on red
of the flowers that related to
the traditional quilting. But it's very subtle,
so you don't necessarily see it right away
until you're up close and get to really
inspect the quilt.
The surprise that comes with
further investigation, right? Exactly. And as we go up the quilt
you'll see that introducing
more color– The white now is
white on white. And we can also
look at the border. Here at the binding
at the outer edge not the border,
excuse me you have the triangles
coming outward. But as we move up,
this is an interesting– I would hate
to bind that, Victoria. But then
as it goes around you've left
those behind and this is
the traditional way of binding a double
wedding ring quilt. Exactly, and that's kind of
the final thought that I like to do on a quilt is to
look at the edge of the quilt. So on the red, solid,
modern side you're going to find
a different edge than you're going to find
at the top, white portion traditional quilted
side of the quilt. Combining that modern
and traditional. The surprise that comes
in the lower corner to me, is that the melon
and one of the arcs is with this made fabric,
the patch fabric, and cut out
with a template.
And then the surprise
of just one arc. It's just such a interesting
quilt to look at. You just don't see it
in one glance. Exactly. There's a lot to investigate
in this quilt which is what I used
to like to do on my grandmother's quilts,
was to trace through and find all my favorite patterns and
colors in her quilts. So I'm always
trying to find that sort of busy-ness
that happened in her's to happen
in my quilts. I hope that this quilt
will inspire you to try to incorporate many
techniques in one quilt. If you ask most quilters,
what's your go-to fabric? My guess is that
polyester double knit will not be
the response. Yet polyester knit is what
Victoria chose for this quilt. The look is modern,
the stretch in the fabric makes piecing
curves a breeze and the durability
is second to none.
This is
an amazing quilt. Different design,
a little stretched out. A little bit. Changed. And it's kind of fascinating
because it has many of polyester
double knit tied like
1970's quilts. So explain it. That's pretty much the way my
grandmother's quilts were made. First with polyester,
and then she would usually just turn the backing
to the front for her binding not a separate
piece of fabric. Sure. And then tying the quilts
to finish them off. But usually there's
two layers of polyester batting
inside of them so they're nice thick quilts
to sleep underneath. On this quilt,
I wanted to redesign that pattern
a little bit take a little liberty
with the shape. I widened it out and then turned the concave
square and put it on point to give you a whole different
look to the quilt.
I like to be able to
look at that this is just one melon
of this double wedding ring which is usually
only about this big. We're now
up to here. And by turning it on point
you're now getting sort of this TV screen
sort of a shape which really does
some interesting, different looks to the pattern
of the quilt. I was able to just turn
the variation a little bit. Now the fabric colors
are– Challenging? Fascinating, they're
fascinating, not challenging.
Using double knit,
recycled, some of it found,
I'm sure at second-hand stores,
whatever. Yes. It's just an interesting
color combination. You know, to look at
your inspiration this is
a nine-patch. Yeah, this was
one of the other quilts that my grandmother
made. We would sit
and cut the squares out for her so she could run them
through the sewing machine. Everything's pretty much
re-purposed.
I know
this fabric. Here's a photo,
taken a few years ago. Oh, just a few years ago,
yes where myself and my grandfather
and my brother and my cousins all had matching shirts
made out of them. That fabric. Yes, yup. And I'm sure you can
go through here and have some fabrics
that tell stories. Absolutely,
I know exactly which article of clothing came
from which member of my family. And what a great
jumping-off point to tell
a story. I think what we what to show
in this program– It's not your traditional
Sewing With Nancy program where we're showing you
exactly how to piece it because you're not
going to have these fabrics. Exactly. But to know what to work with
what you have and how you can kind of
stretch the envelope to use an
over-worked term. Yup. So tying, you know, I grew up
with tied quilts.
Right. You obviously
did the same. And there's
nothing wrong with tying them. Nope,
absolutely not. Actually, when I finished
making this quilt my daughter said this was
probably her favorite one because it's
so light and airy when you don't have all that
quilting involved in it. Oh, sure, sure. And it can be done
without– I can be,
many times tied quilts are
done in groups and with family members
and friends, and so forth. So that will make it
work for you. So we have
the big mama. She's a big mama,
yup, she sure is. And you know,
one of the other things too was again, tying
the story together. My grandmothers nine-patch
sort of a look and putting that
into the piecing in a few of
the arcs that go inside
of the quilt. So this was pieced
as a nine-patch and then cut which we did a lot of
in the first program to show. So you can re-cut,
make your own fabric whether you're working
with cotton which is more
traditional. But polyester, it's okay
to use polyester. Absolutely. I was pleasantly
surprised with it.
It went together
so easy. I was very
surprised. So retro, another way
of looking at quilting even with double
wedding rings. 150 fabrics make this scrappy
quilt extremely lively. The Bright Lights
Big City quilt vicariously tells
the story of Victoria's move
to New York City and the life
built there. This also is a study
in pushing a design combining the New York beauty
quilt element with a double
wedding ring design. This quilt defines the term
improvisational quilt. Color, that's what
I thought of immediately when I saw
this quilt and color in
many fabrics. Absolutely,
so 150 fabrics. How do you find
all those fabrics? Go raid your stash
and you pick every single color and fabric
that you love. And that's
what you did. What I like showing
in the progression that we did
today this is
the same pattern that was in the retro/mod quilt
with the polyester but now
it's cotton. Yup, the same pattern, shape
just using cottons this time. The idea that
when I'm making a quilt that every time
I'm making if it's the same pattern
or not that I'm changing one thing
within the pattern.
So this time
was taking the element of
the New York beauty since I live
in New York City add in that little sparkle
of city lights. That's a traditional
paper piece pattern but now
you placed it in one of the arcs
of the big mama. Yup, my big mama double
wedding ring pattern there. Yeah, so adding in
that little element just giving it
a little extra flavor. It's not a hard thing to do,
but yet another great technique to take a few minutes
to learn. Looking at this quilt
you can always find something
different and new. When I look at it
I think oh, I didn't see
that fabric before. Well, with 150 fabrics,
of course not. But we're going to start
in this area to show some of your unique
combinations. Right, so I'm still trying to
tell my story somehow. Obviously,
I live in New York City but I'm the farm girl,
right? Gotta have my little
country girl in there.
Country bumpkin
still is present. So finding fabrics
that will help tell that story
as well. You know, using some
vintage fabrics mixing them with modern fabrics
and traditional fabrics. Where I live, in the garment
center of New York City it used to be kind of
a seedy little place side of town
before it became residential so we had to give
a little sassy flavor going on
inside there. Again, adding
some retro fabrics that will kind of help
tell the story. And just my love of
all fabrics vintage fabrics,
reproduction fabrics modern fabric,
bold color… Pattern, print
together. All of that, because it's all
fun, right? We love
to buy fabric and touch and all that
good stuff.
And I think one of the things
that I'd like to stress– Or not stress,
but encourage you is when you're quilting,
when you're sewing you don't
have to stay within just
a color palette. Victoria, you certainly
stretch the boundaries. This in particular,
orange is my favorite color. Really? So that was a great
place to start. So if I'm going to tell my story
of New York City it's got to have
some orange in it.
That's one of the things I like
to encourage people though is that when you are
doing a scrappy quilt is that put all the different
colors together. Clearly, there is
every single color inside of this quilt
and they live happily together. So if you're picking
fabrics and colors and things
that you love you will have a quilt
that you love when you're
finished with it. Well put. When I look through
my scrap box I see a lot of
greens and blues and maybe a little
touch of yellow but yet when you
put them together not a bad
combination. Not a bad
combination. Well, it has been so enjoyable
to have you as my guest. Thank you,
I so enjoyed it. To share your
improvisational quilts to give our viewers
the encouragement to– Try something new,
throw some fabrics together and see what you're
going to get. So double wedding rings,
there's certainly ways that you can create them
and not always have them be traditional
but add a modern flair. Thanks again,
Victoria. Thank you. Several years ago
I featured the Wisconsin
Nicaragua Partners Project.
Women from my state
donate their time and talent to teach others
sewing in their partner Central
American country with a goal of providing
a skill and income. Please welcome
Dixie Thoyre who is one of the volunteers
of this good will project. Thank you,
Nancy. Thanks for being here
and updating us. Not everyone watched that
initial interview. What we need
to explain is what the Wisconsin Nicaragua
Project works with with the women
in Nicaragua. Well, volunteers
go down and they teach the ladies
sewing skills.
Lynda Pracht
had taught them how to make these
lovely dolls' dresses. Then we have
found them a market here
in the States that they will fit
the 18" doll. We go to
craft shows throughout the state
of Wisconsin and Minnesota as well as
our online services in order to sell the dresses
for the ladies in Nicaragua. Now what I think
is so fascinating is that
these dresses are made, many times,
on treadle sewing machines. Yes, correct. They do all of
this embroidery work on a treadle
sewing machine. They take the fabric
and they put it into a hoop. And then they take
the presser foot off of the treadle
sewing machine and they actually
stitch back and forth on a treadle
sewing machine to do all of this work
that they do. And these are called
Chica Nica. Chica Nica
doll dresses. Thanks for pronouncing it
correctly. It's phenomenal
what they can– The workmanship, the artistry
on these dresses! Yes, it is. And to think
that they you know,
they don't have a computerized
embroidery machine. They do it all on
the treadle sewing machines.
They draw
a little design on the fabric
and then they just go and move it back and forth
in the embroidery hoop and do each stitch
individually on a treadle
sewing machine. True artisans. Yes. And this provides them,
as we mentioned, an income. They've done, I remember
from the last time a lady was able to
add on to her home. Yes. Provide for
her children. What a wonderful
service. Yes, yes. It is wonderful that we can
continue Nancy's work. We have volunteers
in our Stevens Point office that work with
and coordinate with the ladies
in Nicaragua.
They will tell them
what orders we need. Like, if we need so many
first communion dresses or Irish dresses,
or whatever we need. Then they communicate that
to the ladies in Nicaragua. Then they let
the ladies know. Each particular lady
is well known for a specific
dress. Oh, sure. They communicate that to them,
they make the dresses and then they send them
back to us. And how we do a lot of this
is there's always a Partners volunteer group
that's going to some area
in Nicaragua and so what we do
is then we can take the materials
down and they can
make the dresses. Then the dresses
will come back in somebody else's
suitcase for us. Then they also
communicate to us what supplies they need,
because they don't have this beautiful white fabric
that we have or all of the trims and
garnishes that we have here. So they will relay to
the home office in Stevens Point what supplies
they need and then they
communicate that to me and I'm the professional
shopper as well as– That's
a great job.
Yes. As well as attending
craft shows to, you know,
display their products. And you also
go to Nicaragua. Yes, I've been
to Nicaragua twice. I plan to continue to go
as long as my health– I don't think I'll make 39 times
as Lynda did but I do hope to
continue every year. Now what I find
fascinating to add to the story
of the Chica Nica dresses is that now women are
paying it forward. Yes. Two of the ladies,
Patronilia and Sandra who make
these dresses are now
giving back to their communities because they
have started– There's a burn center
that is operating out of our
Managua office.
These ladies are
actually making dressings
for burn victims. Custom fit. Yes,
custom fit. They come in and
they measure them and they take
the measurements and they sew
the garments. Then they come back
and they measure– Of course, this is all under
the supervision of Dr. Leandro. And they can
help these patients because these patients
have no funds to be able to
purchase them. Again, the Wisconsin
Nicaragua Partners and these
seamstresses are providing great service
to the community. It never fails to amaze me
how the art of sewing can be so helpful,
can help so many in a variety
of countries.
Just knowing how to
put needle and thread together is an amazing
feat. Yes. Well, Dixie, I thank you for
sharing the story with me. Good luck on your next trip
to Nicaragua. And thank you so much
for having us, Nancy. You're certainly
welcome. I hope you've enjoyed
this two-part series with Victoria Findlay Wolfe
on working with the double wedding
ring quilt. It was fun
to work with her. If you'd like to re-watch
this program hear this interview
again with Dixie you can go to
nancyzieman.com and click on
videos. Watch any of the
Sewing With Nancy programs. Thanks for
joining me. Bye for now. Victoria Findlay Wolfe
has writte the "Double Wedding Ring
Quilts" book that serves as a reference
for this two-part series.
The book includes
double wedding ring basics plus full-size patterns
for ten quilts. It's $18.99,
plus shipping and handling. To order the book,
call 1-800-336-8373 or visit our website at:
sewingwithnancy.com/2823. Order
Item Number CT11100 To pay by check
or money order call the number
on the screen for details. Visit Nancy's website
at nancyzieman.c to see additional episodes,
Nancy's blog, and more. Sewing with Nancy TV's longest airing
sewing and quilting program
with Nancy Zieman has been
brought to you by Baby Lock; Madeira Threads; Koala Studios; Clover; Amazing Designs
and Klassé Needles.
Closed captioning funding
provided by Pellon. Sewing with Nancy
is a co-production of Nancy Zieman Productions
and Wisconsin Public Television..
