The purple scrap quilt I was making to use up some old quilt squares I’ve had in my sewing room for years has morphed into this purple fleece-backed rag quilt — just finished a few minutes ago! (And I still have quite a few purple squares, which made me buy a little — just a…
Photographs and other images add something special to your quilts, t-shirts, and other sewing projects. Pretreated ink jet printer fabric makes printing on fabric at home fast and easy. You can print your first image on fabric in just a few minutes. Supply List for Printing Pictures on Fabric Here’s what you’ll need to print…
I’ve had a pile of four-inch purple squares lying around my quilting room for a long, LONG time. Making a scrappy quilt out of them is a kind of spring cleaning. It also reminds me of the very first quilt I ever made, a twin bed-sized quilt made from identical purple squares (I had no…
Wow! I was overwhelmed by the number of quilters who entered my Blog Hop giveaway. The lucky winner of the three quilting DVDs (chosen by the random number generator on my husband’s Excel spreadsheet) is Janet of Caribou Crossing Chronicles, who says she loves quilting because she “can create beautiful things and have fun doing…
Like most things in quilting, strip piecing works a lot better if you use a few tips worked out by experienced quilters. Here are nine ways to make your strip piecing go smoothly and quickly. Starch your fabric. Stiff, starched fabric makes cutting and sewing much easier. Use enough starch to make your fabric as stiff…
When a quilt top is done and you’re ready to assemble the layers into a finished quilt, there are several ways to attach the layers together. There’s hand quilting. There’s machine quilting. And then there’s the simplest option, tying the quilt. Hand tying a quilt consists of stitching a tough, heavy yarn or thread through…
That all-important middle layer makes a big difference in how easy your quilts are to make, and how comfortable they are to use. Each type of batting offers a different combination of flexibility, durability, warmth, and cost. This post gives you an overview of the important factors to consider when you choose the batting for…
After getting a [amazon_link id=”B000UUBCNO” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Roomba vacuum cleaner[/amazon_link] for my birthday and experiencing how wonderful it is to have a really clean floor in the rest of my house without lifting a finger myself, I’m making an all-out push to finish enough quilts that I can get my boxes of fabric, scraps, and…
The most popular choice among serious quilters, cotton batting is soft, washable, wears well, and shows off detailed stitching attractively. This quality is what makes it the batting of choice for quilts that will be entered in shows and competitions. Lately, 100% cotton has been getting some stiff competition from bamboo and bamboo blends, which…
I worked on this quilt for a couple of days and was almost finished stitching it in the ditch when I noticed I had sewed one row on backwards. Can you see the flaw in my star in the photo below? Hint: the top two points face in the wrong direction. Aaargh! My loyal kids…
Here’s some inspiration for making quilts with Courthouse Steps blocks. These patterns show the visual effects you can create by laying out your blocks in different ways. Click on the arrows at the bottom of the post to see more patterns. [imagebrowser id=11]
The Courthouse Steps block is a variation on the traditional Log Cabin quilt block. Like other Log Cabin blocks, Courthouse Steps is made from light and dark quilting fabrics arranged in a step formation around a central “hearth” square. The arrangement of the logs in two sets of graduated light and dark “steps” gives the…