Saturday, January 14, 2012

Cheap & Easy Way to Hang a Quilt

It's Christmas and you want to hang up your special Christmas wall hangings and quilts, but darn it! The quilt doesn't have a hanging sleeve and it's such a pain to drill into the wall, put up a rod, yadda yadda yadda. Here's a clever way to hang your quilt quickly and easily without wall damage and without damaging your quilt.




Hanging is achieved using 3-M Command Strip hooks and office binder clips.  Each hook cannot hold very much weight, but all together, they distribute the weight and can hold up something as big as a quilt.




  1. Figure out where you will want to hang your quilt.
  2. Figure out how many hooks and clips you'll need. You want the clip every 6 to 8 inches. The hooks look better if they are roughly evenly distributed across the quilt.  You want to use a good number of them because it will keep the floppy fabric straight.
  3. Get your level out and lightly mark a straight line. You could just make small marks where the hooks will go.
  4. Clean the areas and affix the hooks to the wall per the directions on the package. Make sure you line them up with your marked line the same way on each one (e.g. match up the top of the hook backing with the line, etc).


  5. After the waiting period (usually an hour), hook your binder clips to the hooks.


  6. Hold your quilt up to the wall, and clip go down the line one by one attaching the clips.
    • You should hold most of the weight while you're hanging it - one or two hooks will probably not be able to hold the whole thing, and it will tear off the wall (potentially damaging your wall!)
    • If your quilt is large, you might want to have someone help you with this step.
       
  7. You can adjust the hooks where they clip onto the quilt to make it straight.

When you're ready to take it down, remember not to let only one or two hooks hold the weight of the quilt, and remove the Command hooks according to package directions to avoid damaging your wall.

Even cheaper - you can use pushpins instead of the Command hooks. They will leave a small hole in the wall, of course.

I borrowed this idea from a gift shop in North Carolina, back when I lived there. It is a nice technique for apartments, where you may not be able to drill into a wall.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Bev's Quilt: Coming Together

I'm quilting like mad on Bev's quilt. I came up with a little design for the "negative space" which has turned out to be really fun to quilt. It's easy to do and it is a forgiving pattern - does not have to be precise to look good.

Bev's Garden Quilt

The design was inspired by Leah Day's many free motion quilting project designs. I had a perception that free motion quilting had to be feathers, large designs, etc. but her work has been inspirational to see quilting designs differently.

Here's a closer look.

Close Up of Quilting

I'm intrigued by giving pattern to a blank space through the quilting. Remember that charity quilt I did a year ago? I basically superimposed a nine-patch pattern on the quilt top through the quilting. That one was crazy fun to do.

For Bev's quilt, I am using variegated thread (Gutterman 100% cotton), not something I use very often. It looks good on the plain green background. 

In the center of the "plus mark" shape,  I'll put a center design (flower, spiral, or something).  Within each vegetable pattern square, I'll quilt a design (so it doesn't puff up) but it's less important because the fabric pattern will obscure the quilting. 

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

New in 2012

I'm evolving again...

Thinking about this blog and what I want to do with it, what I want to give to the world through this blog,  I am getting ready to change things up. I still like its name, and I'm sticking with the artsy theme - but now, I want to broaden it. The Etsy shop is closed, selling my handiwork is over. What's next?

Creativity.

What's it mean to live creatively? I think all people have an inborn need to create, and we express it in diverse ways. Some paint pictures. Many build families. Some write books or poetry, or build websites, or decorate rooms. I sew, knit, quilt, write essays (here in my blogs), garden, cook, perform music, and take pictures. Every once in a while I branch off into a totally new creative outlet, like writing a story, scrapbooking, terrarium building, crochet, or paper arts. It exercises a different part of my brain.

So let's explore the theme of creativity this year. What can I make? What can I share with you? What can I teach you?