It’s voting time!! The theme for this week’s contest is Quilted Pillows and WOW do we ever have some gorgeous pillows for you to see. Grab yourself a cup of coffee and a pencil to make note of your faves. You can vote for FIVE quilted pillows this weekend.

Valerie from Pastimes Online is back as this week’s sponsor. She’s giving away the first two issues of Vignette for this week’s winner. Also, check out the quick tutorial for a pillow she made using Dupioni silks. It’s simply gorgeous!

Now it’s time for you to vote for your favourites!

• Voting is open Friday – Sunday @ 11:59 p.m.
• One vote per person (based on IP address NOT email address), so have your family and friends cast a ballot for their favourite quilt (from home if you send it to coworkers)
• Winner announced Monday!

How to Vote:

• Review the photos and stories below… there are several, so you’ll need to scroll down to see them all. You can also click the link to the slider version to review the quilts in the large format and then return to this page to vote.
• Underneath the photos, scroll down, you’ll see the names of all the quilts with a square button** beside each one. Select the buttons for the quilts you want to vote for. You can select up to FIVE pillows this week.
• Then scroll down, all the way, until you get to the bottom of the names of the quilts. Press the vote button.

** Note: If you don’t see the square buttons to vote, but instead see the voting results, that means someone on your IP Address already voted, or that the voting period has ended, or that you need to refresh the page to see the voting options. Shared IP Addresses are very common in home or work networks.

Slider version: To view the large photos of all the quilts and descriptions, CLICK HERE. You’ll need to return to this page to cast your votes.

Please Note: If you are not seeing all of the photos, check your browser settings. Go to view, and text size. Make sure it’s set at medium. If you need web sites to be larger so you can read them more easily, then use the browser’s Zoom function, not the text resize. You can also use the scroll bar above, beside the photos, to scroll and see the hidden ones.

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Next Week’s Quilt Contest

The theme for next week’s contest is Scrappy Triangles. Your quilt does not have to be made up of only triangles, but triangles should play a major role in the design. Get your cameras out!

To enter the weekly contest, read the rules and guidelines, then submit your quilt photo by Thursday evening (EST). Voting will start on Friday and last until Sunday night.

Weekly Quilt Contest Links

• Guidelines
• Submit your photo
• 2012 Themes, Winners & Sponsors
• Sponsor a contest

The Learning Center

In The Learning Center this week, we wrap up the Studio Organization Series with a post from Pat Sloan on tips for thread storage and a few reader questions. We also invite you to share your “After” or “In Progress” studio organization photos. We have lots of great prizes to give-away.

For the month of March, the topic will be Quilting: Back to Basics. Pat kicks off the series with the first post on Quilting Terminology that is chock full of useful information.

Victoria of Bumble Beans Inc. asked me to participate in her Colourful Interviews series. How well do you know me .. what’s my favourite colour now and what’s my happy colour?

Part of the exercise was to choose a colour palette for myself and also one that I think represents Victoria. Can you guess which one is mine and which one I chose for her?

Head over to read Victoria’s site to read my Colourful Interview.

We are going to kick off this month’s Learning Center topic of “Quilting: Back to Basics” with terminology! First off, is it JUST me or do you also wish we had several words for the things the one word ‘Quilt’ means?

This is what Wikipedia says (and more!), “A quilt is a type of bed cover, traditionally composed of three layers of fiber: a woven cloth top, a layer of batting or wadding and a woven back, combined using the technique of quilting. A quilt is distinguishable from types of blankets because it is pieced together with several pieces of cloth.”

So here is the break down of what “Quilt” means to a Quilter… I know you’ll know what I mean.

• Quilt – The whole finished quilt with binding and everything …. “I made a quilt!”
• Quilt – Doing the quilting of the layers …. “I need to quilt this thing!”
• Quilt – The Top only …. “I made a quilt!” yes… we DO say that .. then fold it and put it on a shelf or send it to be ‘quilted’ or maybe do it our self. BUT I think most quilters consider a top a quilt!
• Quilt – A Description of what we do … “I quilt!” (for fun/hobby/business)
• Quilt – Used to describe the many process it takes to make a quilt… “I need to quilt this weekend”

What is most useful for your personal quilt library is a book like the Encyclopedia of Quilting (which has my quilt on the cover!). This is something you can reference as you go along and run into those pesky terms that are new to you!

For Terminology day I’m going to list a lot of the basics we run into when learning to quilt. For the entire month of March we’ll be diving deep into some of these (see the schedule here). Then in future months we’ll focus on different aspects of quilting. So for today… it’s an overview.

A Sewing machine – what most of us quilt on. If you are very new to quilting you may not even know where to get one of these. Try Hand Quilting – either piecing blocks by hand, appliqué, or putting the layers together. All things done on the machine can also be done by hand.. if you like .. wink! There’s lots of information at American Patchwork & Quilting Magazine on hand quilting.

The Quilt Top

A top is generally made up of blocks. Let’s take a peek a the different parts to a quilt top.

A block – Blocks are the basic structure of many quilts. They are made up of units and can range in size from finished 4″ x 4″ to 18″ x 18″ or larger. Common pieced sizes are 6″ x 6″, 9″ x 9″ and 12″ x 12″.

A few places to learn about pieced blocks… Craftsy’s free workshops and Jackie’s Blogger’s block of the month (I was December!)

Sashing – This is a strip that is sometimes used between blocks so the blocks either float, or have a frame.

Cornerstones – Often we ‘connect’ sashing with little squares. In my train quilt they create little pops of color.

Inner Border – The first, usually small (thin), border around the center of your quilt top. You can have several of these, or none. I personally love an inner border to frame my work. Think of it as a mat on a photo, I love several mats to make the photo sing! Inner borders and outer borders do this for your quilt center.

Outer Border – A single fabric, pieced or including appliqué. The outer border is the main frame of your quilt. But through history many quilts do not have them. So feel free to end with the center if you are happy with it!

NOTE.. not all ‘quilts’ have borders, or sashing.. and some don’t even have regular blocks. Anything is possible when you start to play with fabric! This piece by Jill Collins was made for the Modern Quilt Guild challenge last year. She won for that quarter! Read about that set of quilts.

Whole cloth – When you don’t have any of the things mentioned above and the design is created solely by the quilt pattern, which is very beautiful! This one is made by Monika, you can read a bit about it at her blog.

Flimsy or “The Top” – Once you have finished the top, many call this a Flimsy… or maybe the more exotic “Summer Quilt”. Sometimes people stop here and call it done. Because we don’t all feel the need to make a top into a quilt. Monica’s flimsy above did make it into a finished quilt. If you don’t follow Monica’s blog already you should! Visit Monica’s post about the quilt here.

Backings – Once you have the top completed, you create a backing so you can put it all together! Many people like a back that matches the front in some way if the quilt is being used. I like to piece my backing, often with left over fabrics like my quilt back above from “Red Letter Day”. See some creative backs here from American Patchwork and Quilting magazine … including one of mine!

Batting or Wadding – This is the part in the middle of the quilt that makes it soft and creates texture. It can be 100% cotton, silk, wool, polyester, bamboo or a blend. There are a variety of thicknesses so your quilt can look thin and drapey, or fluffy, or maybe very firm for a wall hanging. Lenna of Stitching Cow has a nice page about batting types.

Design Wall – Essential to many quilters after they have tried one! A place to put your blocks, sashing, cornerstones and borders to see how they look from a distance. This is my wall with quilt blocks on point (which means turned).

Additional Resources:

• Quilter’s Acronyms – anyone up for a FART this weekend?
• Even more Quilter’s Acronyms
• Unraveled: A Quilting Glossary 2.0 A humorous post by Megan Dougherty that is sure to make every quilter LOL
• Quilting Terms

Have any questions for this month?

Send us your questions for this month’s Quilting: Back to Basics series. You can leave the questions in the comments or send an email to Pat or Michele directly. We’ll try to answer your questions in upcoming posts.

Reminder:

Share your “After” or “In Progress” photos or answer one of our reader questions in our Studio Organization Wrap-Up post from earlier this week for your chance to win fabulous prizes.

Pat Sloan is owner and founder of the quilting design and publishing company Pat Sloan & Co. She has published over 25 books, more than 100 patterns, nearly 10 fabric lines, and has had her work featured in all the major Quilt magazines. In January 2010, Pat started hosting her weekly Internet Radio show called Creative Talk Radio.

Find Pat here:

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