By April

The Make House is located at 17th and Alberta. You can’t miss the space there is a sculpture out front of a giant beaver in Louis and Clark pose.

 The Make House embodies the true Alberta Arts spirit.  It is a communal space where several artists work.  They also have a charming retail space with a sampling of work from the in house artists.

Nathan Reimer is the printmaker and also teaches screen printing classes there at the house. If you are interested in taking a class contact him through the link.

Alexa Stark is a fashion artist she occupies the upstairs studio of the house.

Rutabaga Designs offers jewelry and woven jewelry displays. 

You may remember our Bolt Tea towels they were printed right here in the make house.

Action shot of the printing in progress!

 Just a few more things you may find at The Make House.

 Stop by next time you are in the neighborhood.  The screen printing classes are great! 

-By April

Working with paint on fabric is a great way to loosen up, get messy and have fun.

You may remember the stamped project on the blog last summer.  I wanted to try stenciling and work with the Jacquard Textile paints in a different manner.

All set up in process. Notice the stencil has that space around it…that is to help with spacing the pattern repeat.

 My trial run fabric, a piece of osnaburg, which is inexpensive and still has some nice texture.

 Went back over the edges with a sashiko style stitch.

Some of the triangles I left intentionally less painted.  I had a great time going back over those not so solid stencils and went all in on the stitching.

Some basics if you want to try stenciling.

• Start with a solid surface and cover it to protect your surface from paint bleed through.
• The stencil shown here is made from cardboard covered in painters tape.  (There are many ways in which to make stencils, do what works best for you.)
• Tack down the fabric onto the surface on the edges with painters tape to keep it secure during the stenciling process.
• I used a combination of sponge brush and paint brush to fill in the stencils.  I also used paper towels to dab blobs of paint to get more even color.
• Apply pressure to the edge of the stencil while filling it in to get a cleaner edge.

We have a full pallet of paint colors available here at the shop.  Also check out our selection of embroidery supplies. Need more help? There are several books in stock to get you inspired.

by April

There is a great computer program on the internet called Quiltr.  It is a tool that allows one to try out quilt patterns with different color options and upload fabrics via flickr to see what quilts will look like before a stitch is sewn. This is a great excuse to get on flickr (if you are not already) and upload some photos.

 This is an example of a virtual quilt I made on Quiltr with some of my photos.

Here is an an example of a virtual quilt made just from a color picker, with no photos incorporated. There are limitless colors options!

Dorie Schwarz is the creator of quilter.  She is also author to several patterns like this Mama cat with kittens.

Project and photo provided by our own Heather.  Thanks Heather!

Dorie has also contributed projects to many sewing books that you may of seen in the shop. Titles include: Absolutely A line, Pretty Little patchwork, Quilts Baby! and Quilt it with wool.

Dorie was nice enough to answer some questions about Quiltr and herself. 

BN: We’d love to know a bit about your history as a sewist. Are you a life-long sewist or did you discover it as an adult?

Dorie: I learned to sew as a child.  My mom sewed a lot early on and I admired her for it.  I made an awesome vest in middle school, some pajama pants in high school, and a series of random things after that.  It’s something I’ve always done, with varying degrees of obsession.

 BN:What Inspired you to make Quiltr?

Dorie: Professionally, I’m a web developer, and I had thought for years that the ultimate project for me would be one that combined my technical skills with my love for needlecraft.  I also wanted to do something useful for the sewing community I love so much.  After watching this Daniel Pink Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc) and getting some free time, I decided to go ahead with quiltr. 

Dorie: I thought that I would use it for planning, but it turns out that I use it for problem solving.  If I’m pretty sure of what I want to do for a quilt, but I’m stuck on some of the fabric/color options, I’ll use quiltr to preview what the different options would look like.  I still do a lot of actual fabric manipulation when picking fabric for a quilt, but quiltr keeps me from wasting fabric on a test block I might not like.

Dorie: I recently added an x & + block to quiltr, because I was thinking about joining that quilt-a-long on Instagram. (Here is a link to the x & + along fliker group)

Dorie:  Tiny kitty doll clothes.  I just finished up a Papa Cat version of my Mama Cat pattern.  Next up is a bricks quilt!

 Thanks so much Dorie!

  Quiltr was launched in January 2012. It can be a  such a great source of inspiration and play. I encourage all levels of quilters to check it out.

One more Quiltr generated virtual quilt made with just the color picker.  Good times!