CONTENTS: Announcements -  Ask EQ -  Free Stuff -  Works For Me -  Show & Tell -  Quilter Community -  Quilt University -  A Quilt for Sean -  Club EQ -  Make it Simpler Paper Piecing -  EQ Mac Users Group -  Let's Make Marshmallows -  EQ & HP Sponsor Computer Labs -  Coming Soon from EQ -  Our Booth in Houston

Make It Simpler Paper Piecing

Easy as 1 2 3 -- A Pinless Fold & Sew Technique

a new book by Anita Grossman Solomon

Anita Grossman Solomon has been our friend since taking an early EQ hands-on class, in New York City about 1992. We're pleased to ask her about her first book.

Anita Grossman Solomon has more books coming up. Find out how she "dreamed" this technique up in the middle of the night. And learn how EQ helps her get to bed at a reasonable hour...

Q: Congratulations, Anita! You're just written your first book, about a new pinless, "fold and sew" foundation technique you developed. How would you describe your technique to our readers?

A: It's simplified paper-piecing, but it's not paper piecing as you know it. It's sort of hand-piecing, with a sewing machine, over a paper foundation.

An entire 6" block pattern is meant to be photocopied from the book onto translucent vellum. Most significantly, rather than cutting up the pattern into sub-units, it's scored instead along preprinted lines.

Piece the block without sewing through allowances. Since you never cut the foundation apart, it doesn't have to be put back together. Just refold and sew the subunits together along the printed seam lines. Every intersection and point should be perfectly matched because they were never cut apart.

Anita's Faux Card Trick quilt. Can you believe each block was pieced on ONE foundation? Hint: Anita used squares, rectangles and triangles. Pieced by Anita and machine quilted and finished by Janice E. Petre of Sinking Spring, PA

Because of this new technique, it's possible to design and construct blocks in new ways. I've 'done' a Faux Card Trick that can be pieced, continuously, on one foundation. I've never seen the block done on less than three foundations.

Another block, Jan's Star (named for my fabulous C&T editor, Jan Grigsby) is an asymmetrical star ensconced in an attic window setting. It's unusual because the setting is formed when one of its two seams are sewn. A perfect 45 degree angle is created. It's uncanny.

Q: I know you as someone who usually has dozens of new ideas each day. How did you come up with this one?

A: I wanted to make a 19th-century block that I'd seen on the cover of Terri Zegart's book, Quilts: An American Heritage. Its structure was an "X" so I knew it could be paper pieced. I went to bed and began to think how I might draw the block in EQ. Eyes closed, visualizing the pattern, I realized I could paper piece the entire block on one paper foundation, something I'd never seen or tried before. There was no need to cut the foundation pattern into 4 triangle subunits and then sew them back together again. Eureka!

When I got up in the morning I was astonished to have remembered my thoughts from the night before. Even better, as soon as I printed out the block with EQ, I found the piecing plan worked. Huge smile.

Q: Tell us about the translucent foundation paper you use.

A: Ahh. "Simple Foundations." It's from C&T Publishing. My secret weapon. It makes it so easy to position fabric patches exactly where they are supposed to go. The patches are lightly glued in place without lifting the foundation off the table, turning it over, or holding it up to a light. A far cry from the many papers I experimented with, way back when.

Q: You've been a long-longtime user of EQ — since EQ1. How did you know about EQ so early on?

A: In 1992, I had been watching the PBS television series The Great American Quilt. I really learned to quilt by watching Diana McClun and Laura Nownes teach a lesson during each episode. The host discussed antique quilts with Roderick Kiracofe and profiled contemporary quilters. The quilts, the music and the quilt-speak seduced me. I was entranced.

During the last show, an up and coming quilt program for computers was unveiled. With a tap on the keyboard, the quilt blocks on the computer monitor were rotated like magic. Immediately I was on the telephone, tracking down the software developer, Dean Neumann in Bowling Green, Ohio. I recognized the voice that answered phone. It was the show's host. Need I tell you who that was? None other than Penny McMorris.

Before EQ, every time I had a quilt 'idea' I started to cut fabric. I didn't have patience to lay anything out onto graph paper. I rarely got to bed at a reasonable hour and I wasn't always thrilled, to say the least, with what came of it.

EQ changed everything; I drew blocks, colored them in grayscale and set them in minutes. Been there, done that.

Q: Was EQ5 involved in your book idea?

A: Yes, big time, in every conceivable way. Not to mention BlockBase which was invaluable for research purposes and blocks. As I wrote in the book, without the Electric Quilt, I wouldn't be where I am or who I have become.

Q: How did you propose your book to C & T — what did you send them to help them understand your technique. Did you use EQ5 printouts for this?

A: I showed my friend Sylvia Hughes the technique with samples printed of course, from EQ. I saw her a few months later and she asked if I had sent the proposal off. The truth was that I hadn't even put a word to paper. I had experience writing workshop handouts and preparing my guild's Block of the Month with EQ and WordPerfect, so I had the computer know-how.

Sylvia nudged me on a Friday and twenty-four hours later I had printed out the a preliminary proposal featuring the Zegart block and sent it off to C&T Publishing by Federal Express. Every foundation, template and virtual quilt through the proposal stage to the manuscript came from EQ. I can't imagine having to draft all the templates, let alone figure the rotary cutting information. It was just me and the EQ mouse working together in the middle of the night.

I even used EQ to create illustrations for episode #935 of Simply Quilts.

Q: You had many friends make blocks for the book. Can you describe how you organized them into your "sewing team?"

At work on the book proposal, Summer 2002, The City Quilter, NYC Left-to-right: Emily Klainberg, Denise Bradley, John Willcox, Anita, Susan Stauber (Not pictured: Robin Strauss who took the photograph.)

A: The fairy godmothers. I had made only the Zegart block and didn't know if the technique would work for other blocks. With less than three weeks to create a more detailed proposal, at the request of C&T, I asked other quilters to help by making blocks on the foundations.

We met behind closed doors at The City Quilter in New York City. Everyone was pretty much on their own, figuring it out at the sewing machine. The technique did work and we all filled a 3 1/2" binder with the proposal. That baby weighed just under 8 pounds. The proposal was thorough, right down to the table of contents. C&T chose to do the book and wanted the manuscript sooner rather than later.

The original posse, more dear friends and new acquaintances pitched in to make the blocks. The technique evolved as the blocks were made. The ultimate quilting posse is pictured in the book but there were many others who stepped in to help with assorted phases, just for the asking. I relied mostly on email so my dear friend Georgette likened the process to an electronic quilting bee.

This is one of Anita's printed Sampler quilts. Each block in the quilt is printed from a photograph of the block as it appears in her book.

Q: Can you tell us more about the quilts pictured here?

A: I was frustrated. When the blocks came back from C&T they looked so precious. No one expected theirs returned, but reluctantly I felt they belonged home with their makers. I considered scanning them for a remembrance when it dawned on me that Luke Mulks at C&T had already photographed them for the book. The 2003 Quilt Market in Houston was less than a month away. Tick Tock.

Luke copied fifty of the blocks to a CD for me, digitally adding attic window sashing to each as I had done physically for the book's cover blocks. My sashing was actually part of the block, not an added setting.

By printing the blocks, Anita could return the "real" blocks to their makers, and still have some quilts to display. Like having her cake and eating it too.

I was given a box of "Printed Treasures" by Milliken and I printed all fifty images onto the fabric sheets with my DeskJet. There were exactly fifty fabric sheets in the box, which tells you the process went very smoothly.

It was a very hectic time for me so I called my friend Emily Cohen, at the Timeless Treasures Fabric Company downtown. She dropped off fabric for the borders, binding and backing.

Janice Petre sewed the fifty blocks together into the two tops and went on to quilt and finish them. The Sampler quilts went to market and the real blocks went to their homes. I share the scenario with you so you'll understand how the sampler quilts and book came into being—with the generous help of extraordinary friends.

Q: What's next for you? I know you have several other book ideas in the works. Is it too early to tell about them?

A: Well, I'm too superstitious to say much, but the posse has of late, been afoot. I still plan on making a Zegart quilt but in the meantime I've been toying with some classic blocks and Making them Simpler.

For more about Anita's book, visit the site: www.MakeItSimpler.com

CONTENTS: Announcements -  Ask EQ -  Free Stuff -  Works For Me -  Show & Tell -  Quilter Community -  Quilt University -  A Quilt for Sean -  Club EQ -  Make it Simpler Paper Piecing -  EQ Mac Users Group -  Let's Make Marshmallows -  EQ & HP Sponsor Computer Labs -  Coming Soon from EQ -  Our Booth in Houston