This is not as easy as it may look – but you’ll have the best luck catching catfish if you fish for them at breeding time. During engendering, they are most overactive and simplest to place. You can talk to a local biologist or yet a fishing guidebook to discover when “the best time” for catfish is. Frequently, this “best time” will be during a engender.

2. Fish around areas with rocks

Catfish engender in rocky undersea areas, and lean to hang out around these characteristics as well. If you’re fishing “blind” (without a project sonar or fish finder) you should focus your hunt on areas in the lake or river that seem to offer undersea . If you hit on a breeding site, you’ll catch a string full of catfish in no time.

3. Use a topographic map to find underwater contours

Before you head out for your fishing outing, control any map exhibiting topographic info and fish near peculiarly deep areas – especially if these regions are “valleys”, or pockets of deep water enclosed by shallow water. Depth breaks like this are perfect living space for catfish, who prefer to spend most of their time in the deep. Another hot spot for huge cats is the undersea channel . . . debris tends to build up around these areas of deep water that run across the body of a lake or a big river, and catfish love to make their home around debris.

4. Bait your sharpest hook with something smelly

Catfish don’t go for live hook. Some will argue this point, but in my experience, and in the experience of everyone I’ve ever fished with, you’ll have better luck catching catfish with poor dead bait than anything that’s still wriggling. Rancid bacon, day old grocery store peewees, old bits of fish – I have fishing buddies who coat their hooks and lines in bacon grease or other foul substances and swear by it. If you eschew hook and feel you must use a fishing tackle, use a barrel swivel with a slip sinker about an inch above the swivel – let out almost a foot of line and slap your strongest hook there, a foot below the swivel. Cats will pick up the hook and start to swim off with it Earlier you set, giving you an vantage. You don’t want to just hitch the hook as soon as you get a hit. I recommend a sharp hook because catfish are tough – meaning their skin, not just their fighting way.

5. Move from deep water to shallow water

Moving back and forth like this mimics the behaviour of the cats themselves. Catfish, contrary to popular opinion, don’t sit in one spot all day, they move about and search for food. By casting in deep water as well as in shallow, you increase your chances of finding their feeding grounds. This is kind of like covering a bet – possibly the cats are in the deep water now, maybe they’re in the shallow. Do yourself a favor and cover your butt either way. You don’t want to go home from a fishing travel empty handed.

6. Be patient  and be a little lucky

You’re out there to have fun. Of course you want to catch a few cats, but you may find yourself catching a few other species along the way. It is true, after all, that a bad day fishing is better than the worst day at the office. Sometimes it takes a little good chance to catch the huge cats. Get along a good chance charm or two, or wear your lucky underclothes or your lucky hat. It can’t hurt, and it may be the straw that broke the cat’s back.

Catfish are a delicious and glamorous fish. There’s a lot of myths out there about their behaviour. The tips above have been gathered over many of catfish expeditions, some of it from oldtimers fishing off the bank, and some of it from fancy youngish anglers with fast boats and overpriced rigs. Get out to your localized fishing hole, get yourself ready for the travel, and you’re likely to bring home dinner.

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Draw A Pattern. To make a stained glass work of graphics, you will need  create a picture pattern, first. This pattern should combine to form a piece of stained glass graphics. The pattern should be the same size as your finished piece of graphics. Novices should use basic geometric shapes like rectangles, triangles and squares. Drawing a pattern helps you set the pieces together.

Color Your Pattern. Color every form in the pattern, so you’ll have an thought what the finished art will look like. This lets you experiment with the  color pattern, so your graphics will give a distinct artwork pattern, while your stained glass will together in a pleasurable and stable composition. Think starting with a smaller piece of art for your first stained glass work, so your completed piece of artwork will be sturdier and less complex.

Watch Over Your Pattern on the Glass. Follow the pattern onto the glass, so you can cut the glass consequently. Get certain that you Trace a piece of stained glass for each shape in the pattern. Follow a key to cut the good color figures for all piece of stained glass.

Score the Glass. Score the stained glass by going over the traced outlines on the glass with a glass cutter. Recall to place the glass on a flat surface when cutting the glass. Apply firm and soft-to-medium pressing on the glass. Do not force the glass to cut, or else the glass may break perilously. Do not cut glass when it is off the surface of the table, because the glass will fall when it breaks, and your hand is likely to slip past the broken glass still situated on the table (with the danger you’ll cut yourself).

Groze the glass to make it blend. Formerly your stained glass shards are cut, make dig or buff them to make them fit together. This process is called grozing. Try to fit your glass pieces together the way they will in the final product. Those parts that are too rough to fit together perfectly should be trimmed.

Choose Your Binding Materials. Tin and lead can be soldered to bind your stained glass pieces. Copper foil is also used in some cases. Cement is used to weather proof stained glass, but can be messy.

Get Advanced techniques later. Formerly you have mastered fundamental techniques of stained glass art, you can move on to advanced proficiencies. These might include the use of circular shapes, the use of smaller designs than the finished product to save time and Materials and the internalization of finer items, like facial characteristics and hair.

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Materials needed:
· Freezer paper
· Pencil
· Paper scissors
· Fabric scissors
· Applique or sequin pins (extra short pins with small heads)
· Background fabric block
· Applique fabric and matching thread
· Size 10 applique needle called sharps (not the needle called betweens which is a hand quilting needle)
· Iron and pad

1. Draw a reversed template of the shape on the paper side of the freezer paper.

2. Cut out the template on the line and press the plastic side of the paper to the back of the fabric you will use with an iron.

3. Cut out the shape from the fabric leaving a 3/8” seam allowance around the template.

4. Clip the seam allowance around the template almost to but not touching the template. Clipping around curves are essential to getting
smooth curves. The inside corners should be all the way to the paper template as shown in the heart below:

I usually clip every 1/8” to get smooth curves. Clipping too close to the template can cause fraying when you turn back the seam allowance. I’ll
tell you how to handle that problem later in the troubleshooting section.

5. Load your needle with white thread and knot it with a single knot.

6. Let’s assume you are holding the heart shape in your hand with the paper side of the template facing you.

7. Fold over one of clipped sections to the back of the shape. I like to start on the side of the heart. Push your needle from the right side of the shape through to the back facing you and pull through to the knot through the clipped section you just folded over.

8. Fold down the next section and stitch through it to the other side. Continue to baste all around the heart shape.

9. The point of the heart is handled a different way. Fold over the end of the seam allowance to the back at the tip. Make a mitered fold on both sides of the point and baste down.

10. Press the shape front and back to get a good edge crease all around the shape.

11. Position the applique shape where you want it to be and pin down with a short pin.

12. Start sewing it down with an applique stitch on one long side of the heart. Continue sewing until half way around the heart. Stop and remove the basting stitches. Pull out the basting thread and freezer paper template. Continue sewing down the rest of the heart.

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· Quilting Safety Pins
· Masking Tape

1. Iron your quilt top making sure the intersection points are pressed open and that the seam allowances are flat.

2. Mark your quilt with quilting designs after all the ironing is done. The lines from wash out markers will become permanent in the fabric if ironed.

3. Piece your backing and press open the seams.

4. Lay the backing with the seam allowances facing you on the floor or a large table. The batting will cover the seam allowances.

5. Tape the corners and several places along the sides with masking tape. Stretch the backing taunt as you tape the edges. Stroke your hand across the backing. If it doesn’t move then you have made it taunt enough. This will prevent wrinkles from forming on the back while you machine quilt.

6. Lay out and center the batting on the backing. Smooth out the wrinkles.

7. Lay out and center the quilt top on the batt. Smooth out the top but not enough to distort the shape of the quilt. That can be easy to do
with cotton batts.

8. Pin the layers together every 2” to 3”. Placing the pins close together keeps the quilt layers from moving while you are machine quilting.

9. Remove the masking tape from around the backing edges. Your quilt is now ready for machine quilting.

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2. I have found using curved needles made for tieing quilts are very useful as the tip of the needle dips into the layers and curves back out again. It saves your fingers underneath the quilt from getting pricked so often as you stitch the length and width of your quilt.

3. You will be stitching a grid across the quilt with stitching lines 8” to 12” apart. The lines don’t need to be closer because you will be using a quilting frame to hand quilt. Start at the center edge of one side and baste with long stitches to the other side.

Add the second line the length of the quilt. Then fill in the grid across the width and length every 8” to 12” according to the size of your quilt.

4. Remove the safety pins from the quilt. You are ready now to handquilt your quilt.

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· White or a contrasting thread color to the quilt
· Masking tape
· Quilting safety pins
· Long basting needles or curved needles
· Scissors

1. Press your quilt top front and back making sure that intersection seam allowances are pressed open and that seam allowances are flat.

2. Mark your quilt top with quilting designs if desired. Don’t press the top after marking because the heat from the iron can set the marks permanently into the fabric if you are using wash out markers.

3. Piece your backing and press open the seams.

4. Lay the backing with the seam allowance on the top facing you on the floor or a large table. It will be covered with the batting.

5. With masking tape, tape the corners and along the sides in several places. Stretch the backing tight enough as you tape it so that when you stroke the backing with your hand it doesn’t move. Making the backing taunt will prevent wrinkles from forming on the back as you baste the layers.

6. Lay out your batting on the backing centering it and smoothing out all wrinkles.

7. Lay your quilt top on top of the batting centering it with equal widths of batting and backing beyond the quilt’s edges. Ease out the wrinkles but make sure you are not distorting the shape. That can be easy to do with cotton batts.

8. Pin the layers with quilting safety pins every six inches.

9. Remove the tape around the edges of the backing. If the quilt is on the floor you can move it to a table surface now for basting.

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· After the quilt is quilted and the binding is on you can completely remove the marks by soaking the quilt in a cold water bath in the washer. You may also agitate the quilt for a short time. Run the washer through the spin dry cycle. Check the quilt to make sure all the marks are gone. Dry the quilt in the dryer under delicate heat.

Squaring Your Blocks

· This is an important step to do if you want your quilt top to be square and flat when the borders are added. Make a sample block. Check the measurement of the block to see if it is the size required for your quilt. If it’s not then find out the reason why. Are the corner triangles not full enough? Then maybe you can increase the size of the triangle by an 1/8” so that it fills up the corner. Maybe the size of the triangle is right but you haven’t centered it when you added it to the block. The seam allowances should be ¼” all around the block. If they are wider then ¼” then you can trim the excess away. Sometimes half square triangles will iron out of shape and need to be trimmed. You can get away with a seam allowance that is between 1/8” and a ¼”. It it’s less then 1/8” then you need to fix the problem now or your seams will pull apart during quilting or after when the quilt is used or washed.

Washing Your Fabric

· To decide whether to wash your fabric or not can be a struggle for quilters. Dark colors can run when wet and it ruins the look of your quilt if that happens. I have found that solids or tonals have that problem more then prints. I like to rub a wet cutip on the fabric. If fabric dye is going to run when wet then the white cutip will pick up the dye. If it runs then you can wash your fabrics separately in a dye stablizer in the washer before any cutting is done. You can also stablize fat quarters or charm pieces by soaking them in a bowl. I personally like the antique look of a quilt when the fabric is not washed before sewing and then washed after the binding is on. The fabric shrinks slightly around the quilting lines. But I only do that if I am sure that the fabric dye won’t run or bleed. Some quilters don’t want to take any chances with their quilts and always wash the fabric.

The choice is up to you!

Seam Allowances

· Using a ¼’ seam allowance in quilting is standard in all patterns. A quilter new to the craft can find that difficult when using her sewing machine and trying to follow the engraved marks beside the needle and foot. I have found the best solution is to purchase a ¼” foot from the maker of my sewing machine and use that for all my quilting seams. It takes away all the frustration of keeping your seam width even as you feed the edge of the seam allowance along the side of the foot.

Setting Triangles

· It is very important to keep the grain of the fabric correct when you cut out the setting triangles for your quilt. Just remember that you need to cut out four triangles at a time instead of two for setting triangles. Here is how setting triangles should be cut for your quilt:

Because the bias cuts are inside the square the outside long edge of the triangle keeps the straight of the grain and won’t wave when the borders
are added. The squares are usually cut oversized so when the triangles are added to the quilt you can trim the edges envely all around the quilt.

So how do you figure out how big to cut the squares? The pattern you are following will give you that information. But if you are creating your
own pattern then just take your block measurement and add 3” to the number. Cut your square and make the two bias cuts and add the setting triangles to your quilt.

Corner triangles need the bias along the long edge so just cut the oversized square down the center:

The long bias edge is sew to the end of the block row to make the corner. When all the rows are sewn together then you can trim the outside edges
to a ¼” seam allowance.

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