Cheryl Sleboda DVD Blog Hop

Welcome to the Heirloom Sewing Techniques for Today's Quilter - BLOG HOP.  Here is the link to buy the DVD or get the digital download

I was both honored and excited to be able to review my friend, Cheryl's DVD.  I enjoyed watching her talk about and demonstrate her passion for heirloom sewing.  She talks about fabric selection the why and why nots.  What works, what doesn't.  The kind of fabric, the weave and why that is important.  Thread, needles, templates, straight pens, micron pens, pencils and white marking pen, and thread conditioner.  I appreciate all of her reasons for what she uses to create these works of art.  

I love how she explained all the different feet of the sewing machine and what they are used for...I had no idea about some of these things, especially the pintuck feed with the double needle.  Cheryl has her own template for grids in smocking - very clever!

Everything is very easy to follow with step by step instructions.  I was amazed at the patterns these simple stitches made on both the front and back of the fabrics.  She not only explains the stitches, but then adds all kinds of project ideas of what you can do with them, like for pillows, quilts, sampler and clothing.  Totally thinking outside the box on this one!  I would highly recommend this DVD for anyone who wants to go a few steps further into creating their own works of art!

and of course I wanted to know how she became interested in heirloom sewing.  Cheryl - While I was doing a quilt project with LED lights in it, I thought I would create a piece with both high-tech lights and these vintage heirloom sewing techniques.  It was a juxtaposition of old and new.  After that project, I did a piece for the Rituals Dinner @ 8 exhibit, with 44 different fabric manipulations in a 4 x 11 grid.  I love to look at vintage dresses and try to figure out how they made the pleats and ruffles to look the way they did.  I have dozens of vintage sewing books on dressmaking techniques but they all assume some level of sewing knowledge that make the instructions hard to understand.  Unfortunately, that Rituals piece was not selected, but it traveled to other shows, and eventually there came requests for how each of the techniques was made.   Eventually I just redrafted them in a new way that was easy for me to understand, and hopefully for everyone else too.  

You can buy Cheryl’s new DVD, her “sewing skull” merchandise – t-shirts, tape measures, mugs – as well as her Heirloom Smocking Template and other goodies, on her Etsy shop. From the Quilting Daily Shop, you can purchase a copy of the DVD for $24.99 here, or a digital download for $19.99 here. 

Heirloom Sewing Techniques for Today’s Quilter DVD Blog Hop

June 9 - Susan Brubaker Knapp - http://wwwbluemoonriver.blogspot.com/

June 10 - Maddie Kertay - http://www.badassquilterssociety.com/

June 11 - Faith Jones - http://www.freshlemonsquilts.com/

June 12 - Lynn Krawczyk - http://smudgedtextilesstudio.com/blog/

June 13 - Julie Creus - http://www.latodera.com/blog

June 16 - Catherine Redford - http://catherineredford.com/

June 17 - Megan Dougherty - http://thebitchystitcher.com/

June 18 - Pokey Bolton - http://pokeysponderings.com/

June 19 - Jamie Fingal - http://www.jamiefingaldesigns.com/

June 20 - Cheryl Sleboda - http://muppin.com/wordpress/index.php/blog/