Good ideas for quilters, gleaned from around the blogosphere.
I like making seasonal quilts, but I rarely get the quilt finished until after the season is over. This little rag quilt is a happy exception! I saw a set of fabric panels featuring girls with sewing accessories in a springtime palette I just couldn’t resist, then found a cheery border fabric in peaches and…
It’s that time of year again in the Northern hemisphere — the season when the dark lingers longer every day, when going outdoors makes you give an instinctive little shiver, when you feel the need to snuggle up in something warm and soft (and drink something hot and steamy.) It’s rag quilting season. I will…
Rag quilts are the simplest kind of quilt-as-you-go quilt — which means just about the simplest and easiest of all quilts you can make. Learn how to make one here. I like making them because they are really easy to cut and sew, forgiving of mistakes, and are often made of flannel, which makes the end…
The very first quilt I ever made was a four-patch quilt. I knew nothing at all about quilting. I hadn’t taken a class or even read a book on how to quilt. I had never heard of strip piecing or a scant quarter-inch seam (which cost me some anguish later on.) I just knew that I…
19th-century American Amish women made their quilts simple and “plain,” typically from the same wool and cotton fabrics they used to make shirts, dresses, pants, and coats for their own families. The bold colors and abstract, geometric designs of these early Amish quilts prefigured trends in twentieth-century abstract painting, yet they were created by women who lived far…
Rag quilts have several unique features that set them apart from traditional quilts: Rag quilt blocks are layered with batting and backing and quilted one at a time, before you sew all the blocks together. This quilt-as-you-go method is a lot easier than forcing a bulky quilt through the throat of your sewing machine. You…
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…
Here’s some Log Cabin inspiration for you. Each of these patterns is made entirely from classic Log Cabin blocks. One of my quilting ambitions is to make every last one of these quilts before I hang up my sewing machine. How about you? Click on any pattern to see the complete image in a larger…
Don’t you love the way so many quilt patterns got their names from everyday scenes in pioneer life? The Rail Fence quilt pattern got its name from real fences like this one at the Pea Ridge National Military Park in Arkansas, United States. Zig-Zag Rail Fence Pattern The classic Rail Fence pattern is made from…
A quilt is like a sandwich, with a top layer of fabric, a middle layer of batting, and a bottom layer of fabric, all joined together by your stitches. Binding a quilt means covering the raw edges of the quilt sandwich to give the quilt a finished look and protect its edges from wear. Binding…
This is a story about taking a design that’s rather plain and adding a few extra touches to make it uniquely your own. I finished this quilted wallhanging the week after Christmas. (No, I was not late for last Christmas — I was getting a really big head start on next Christmas!) Here’s how it all…
When you make a quilted wall hanging, one thing you need to decide on is how you will hang the quilt on the wall. There are several different ways to do this: 1. Use Quilt Hanging Clips These clips fasten onto the edge of the quilt and get mounted on a nail in the wall….