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Welcome to the March Edition!
Many of us are greatly looking forward to the arrival of Spring. Signs of it are everywhere including my garden where Snowdrops began blooming the moment the snow melted and tiny tulip shoots are now poking their tips above ground. A woodpecker has been busy chipping a hole in our Birch tree and Chickadees have been examining it as potential home.
Our magazine/newsletter is changing too. When I first began writing it in June of 2002 it was a simple paragraph or two to announce new patterns, included a quilting tip, and was sent as an email message. Gradually, I began adding more content and features until it became too large for some computer users to download, which is when it occurred to me to offer it online instead. |
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The writing and preparations take up a great deal of time and although I thoroughly enjoy doing it all, some health problems have begun to interfere. I will continue to produce this free quilt magazine/newsletter but on a slightly more irregular basis. Every two months is still my aim, but sometimes there will be three or even four months between issues and some may be shorter than others. In between, messages will be sent out to announce new patterns.
I love Kay Mackenzie's name for her newsletter - the Quilt Puppy Occasional - but since "Occasional" is taken mine will just have to remain as it is.
I hope you will continue to subscribe and enjoy it on this irregular basis.
Happy Quilting,
Maria |
An Important Note About the Links on These Pages |
Clicking on them will open new, separate windows. Bookmark the ones you would like to visit again, but then be sure to close each one before clicking on the next. Too many open windows can cause your computer to slow down and some older computer systems to crash.
Note to New Computer Users: You will recognize the links by the fact that each one is underlined. Banners and Ads are also links, or have links in them.
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| New Pattern - Easter Egg Table Runner |
Easter Egg Table Runner
Size: 16 ½ x 44 inches
This runner was made by Diane Felice, Florida
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A Quick, Easy, Fun Project
to Decorate Your Table this Easter.
WARNING!
Making these fabric eggs can become addictive!
This $8 U.S. ePattern is available for immediate download after purchasing.
Goods and services provided by Maria Michaels Designs.
2CheckOut.com Inc. (Ohio, USA) is the authorized retailer.
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| Featured Quilter: Betty Cotton |
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I am pleased to have this opportunity to introduce you to Betty Cotton. I first saw Betty on the PBS show Sewing with Nancy where she was the guest for a three-part series introducing her very exciting, special, new quilting technique and was delighted when she agreed to an interview.
Betty is pictured here
standing in front of a display of her Cotton Theory® projects.
(Photo by Shane Opatz)
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Betty is the first quilter in her family. “In fact I am also the first who had a desire to use a sewing machine. Thank goodness for high school Home Economics where I received my very first sewing lesson. I am a bit taller than the average woman, therefore constructing my own clothes became a necessity,” she says.
During her childhood, Betty’s family made one quilt. All of her eight brothers and sisters had a part in it along with all the members of her family. Because there was no extra money for quilting, it was made from old pieces of worn-out clothing and was what we now know as a yo-yo quilt.
That quilt is still cherished by Betty and her twin brother Bob. “We take turns displaying this quilt in our homes. Our fondest memories are of constructing the quilt, helping the others with threading the needle, and sewing around a circle with the smallest stitches we could possibly make. Nowadays, Bob loves to tinker with the mechanics of a sewing machine, while I love to create a variety of different projects including embroidery and bobbin work,” Betty says.
As a teenager, Betty worked in a fabric store in Chicago. “ Working with fabrics at a young age gave me experience with different fibers, weights, drapeability, and of course, clothing construction. I love a challenge! When you work with fabrics all day, it is extremely hard to resist temptation for that next outfit, whether you are going to get around to sewing it or not. Needless to say, I started collecting fabric in 1970 and still manage to keep adding to my collection.”
“I am a self-taught quilter. Having experience in clothing construction helped me master the basics of quilting with ease. When I was expecting my first child during the winter of 1985, I decided to make the entire baby ensemble, including a quilt design with mixed techniques. It included a matching dust ruffle, curtains, diaper stacker, bumper pads, and pillows. I was hooked the moment I pieced my fabrics together into my design, long before it was quilted. Needless to say, I loved the piecing and learned to like the quilting so that it would be completed in time for the new addition to my family.”
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Two Little Tots Bath Mat
Machine embroidered footprints march along the sides of this
Baby Bath Mat.
One side of the mat is blue and the other side is pink.
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Enlarged Detail of
Two Little Tots Bath Mat
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“Soon after my daughter was born, I found out I was going to be a mother again, so I set out to construct another quilt. This also gave me the opportunity to make larger quilts, including one for my own bed. Before long I had them throughout the house . . . in cupboards, in trunks, on beds, etc.”
“For a while, I did not do any sewing, because raising children, keeping a marriage happy, and supplementing our household income kept me extremely busy. It was teaching my two dear darling daughters how to sew that rejuvenated my desire to quilt again. So I did!” says Betty.
When her two daughters were still in diapers she used their nap times for her creative outlets. Betty’s mother (who does not sew) wanted a Betty Boop doll so Betty surprised her by making and giving her a truly one of a kind Betty Boop. Her mother loved it. Betty then decided to supplement her husband’s income by sewing and selling her original doll designs locally and at church bazaars and craft shows.
”Selling my dolls gave me the opportunity to expand my giftware line into many items with a country flavor. Small craft shows turned into larger craft shows, and selling my wares turned into a very lucrative business. A promoter approached me at a show and asked me if I would be interested in joining the wholesale gift market. Reluctantly I decided to lower my prices and sell to the wholesale trade. Surprisingly, the orders were phenomenal after only one trade show. Soon afterwards, I hired and trained seven employees to keep up with the supply and demand. I was working out of my home, so it came as no surprise that I needed a much bigger work environment,” Betty says.
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She purchased an old school to accommodate more employees, a larger work space, a shipping department and a holding area for her greatly needed supplies. Her staff quickly grew to number 22 and in the fall of 1996 she opened her quilt shop - the Quilt Yard®. The former school provided her with 10,000 square feet of space and she used a 1,000 square foot corner area for her new quilt shop. Betty says that she had the best of both worlds, a retail quilt shop and wholesale giftware shop: Something Old – Something New.
Betty ran both businesses from that location for two and a half years and expanded the Quilt Yard® by rearranging Something Old – Something New to give the Quilt Yard® an additional 1,000 square feet. She soon had to separate her two businesses in order to make even more room for the Quilt Yard® so she moved it to a new location in Osseo, Wisconsin, just seven miles away from the first one, and there it remains.
Betty explains, “It was not long after the move that President Bill Clinton signed a trade agreement with China and the gift industry took a different turn. Instead of the items being made in the cottage industry in the United States, many of the artisans decided to have their items made in China for a much better price point. I did not want to go this route so I continued to make my Something Old – Something New items until I could no longer compete with the price point. I sold the old school building in 2002.”
“Quilts give you a warm and comforting feeling and bring so much joy in creating as well as giving, so I knew at a very young age that quilts interested me and that some day I would make one or two,” says Betty.”
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After quilting a queen-size quilt on her sewing machine, she decided there had to be a better and easier way of quilting. She played with quilting smaller pieces and then figured out a clever way of assembling those quilted pieces. Betty discovered that enlarged seam allowances provide enough fabric to fold them on the outside of the quilt, creating an extra dimension. She did not immediately think about the appearance of the back of the quilt, so used the same fabric on both front and back. After assembling the quilted pieces and finishing the quilt, she realized she had made it a reversible one and that she could back the quilt pieces with different fabrics from those on the front, creating a different look entirely.
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This enlarged detail of Betty's
Fly Away Home Lap Quilt
shows a Cotton Theory® technique called the
Overpass. Folds on the front of the quilt are pulled upward and tacked into place, giving the entire quilt a lift.
Photo by Shane Opatz
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Her knowledge of clothing construction and tailoring, helped Betty tremendously with finishing the seam allowances in Cotton Theory® quilting. Garment sewers are more familiar with larger seam allowances and with grading seam allowances, than quilters generally are, unless the quilter happens to make clothing as well. As Betty explains, Cotton Theory® folding techniques are modified versions of some seam-finishing methods such as the self-bound seam.
“The simplicity of sewing quilted pieces together allowed me to create many new designs like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The creativity is endless, and the quilting possibilities are only limited by what your sewing machine can do for you,” she explains.
Betty loves and enjoys being able to design, select fabrics, and choose the quilting appropriate for the design. The actual quilting did not appeal to her and was her least favourite part of constructing a quilt. That changed when she developed Cotton Theory® quilting!
Betty did not set out to teach quilting. It began when she brought a quilt block using her Cotton Theory® to her shop to show her staff what she had just created. She did not realize that customers had come in and were also listening. They began signing up for classes without even knowing what they were going to make. Betty’s waiting list for classes was soon over a year long! Everyone was eager to learn her new, simpler, easier way of constructing a quilt that eliminated all handwork and made matching seams worry-free. She soon had quilters coming to her from a wide radius and from as far away as the Twin Cities, Minnesota.
Betty’s teaching expanded to include small quilt shows and church guilds, and then large, international quilt shows with 30 to 50 students per classroom. Before long she was asked to become part of the faculty at major events. Shop owners and independent sewing machine dealers began approaching her with requests to teach at their stores. Magazine editors asked her to write articles and projects for their publications. Distributors wanted a product to sell to shop owners and Betty found herself in the wholesale market once again. She began teaching quilters who want to teach her Cotton Theory® quilting and certifying them as instructors. National TV celebrities wanted her to show their viewers her Cotton Theory™ quilting. She has appeared with Nancy Zieman on Sewing with Nancy, with Kaye Wood on Kaye’s Quilting Friends, and with Sue Hausmann on America Quilts Creatively. In June 2006, Betty and Kaye Wood taught quilting on an Alaskan cruise. |
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