Nancy Rink Blog

Quilt maker, pattern designer, fabric dyer, and lover of all things quilting.
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Applique Time

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This week I've made some progress on the applique blocks for the the Mill Girls book.  The quilt is a medallion style book and has four applique blocks at its center.  Here is the main block with the applique prepped and glued in place.  The "factory building" is sewn down as is the sun and the moon.  All of the fabrics are from the new Mill Girls fabric collection Judie Rothermel designed especially for this quilt, plus another quilt I've designed for a block-of-the-month program with Marcus Fabrics (more on that later once I start making that quilt!)

 

The "brown thing" both girls are holding are shuttles, a tool used in textile manufacturing.  Once I start sewing the patches down, I'll cut out the center of the shuttle patches, so it better resembles a shuttle, not a loaf of French bread. 
 

A shuttle is a tool designed to neatly and compactly store weft yarn while weaving. Shuttles are thrown or passed back and forth through the shed, between the yarn threads of the warp in order to weave in the weft.

 

The simplest shuttles, known as "stick shuttles", are made from a flat, narrow piece of wood with notches on the ends to hold the weft yarn. More complicated shuttles incorporate bobbins or pirns.

 

Originally shuttles were passed back and forth by hand. However, John Kay invented a loom in 1733 that incorporated a flying shuttle. This shuttle could be thrown through the warp, which allowed much wider cloth to be woven much more quickly and made the development of machine looms much simpler.

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Mill Girls my first book Away From Home
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About the author

Nancy Rink

Nancy Rink

Nancy Rink is a dedicated quilter, pattern designer, and dye artist who has won numerous awards for her quilting. At the 2004 Houston International Quilt Festival, Remembrance of Nanny and Desert Star were both given Honorable Mentions. Also in 2004, Dogtooth Violets earned one of the top awards in the Kaufman Quilt Quest. Most recently, Emerald Spring won a first place in Mixed Techniques at Road to California.She has won awards at other national shows including the Pacific International Quilt Festival, the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza, the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, and the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show. And Desert Star, the first place winner in the 2002 From the Mills Contest, was on display at the American Textile History Museum.Nancy’s quilts have been featured in magazines such as Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine, Quiltmaker, and Quilt.
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