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Machine Quilting on Your Home Machine – Part 2

Welcome back… I see I haven’t scared you off. If you are joining me today it looks like you are interested in how to machine quilt on your home machine, maybe you even have a sandwiched quilt top after reading last week’s post. If you missed it, read it here. This week I will share tips on preparing to quilt which includes prepping your sewing area and choosing a quilt design. At the end will be one of my mini video tutorials showing the machine quilting technique for the visual learners like me. I also recommend searching for machine quilting tips from other designers. It never hurts to gather more information than you think you need. They may have tips I haven’t covered that will be helpful in your education on machine quilting.

Prepare To Quilt

Step 1: Before you begin it is a good idea to ready your machine and sewing area for machine quilting. If you can, try to have large area to your left and behind your machine (photo below) especially if your project is a larger quilt. This will help to support the weight of the quilt to the side or behind your machine and cause less stress to your arm and shoulder muscles. Also, if you don’t support it, the weight of the portion of your quilt not being stitched can pull on the area you are stitching and create problems with your stitching and design.

If you don’t have a large table where you can set your machine, you can create this extra space by placing another table behind your sewing table or placing an ironing board there, lowered to the same level as your sewing table. 

Step 2: Change your needle. Odds are, you haven’t changed it as often as you should. It’s best to start with a fresh needle when beginning a quilting project so you are assured there will be no fabric snags, larger holes punched in your fabric or snapping thread. All of these things can happen with a needle that has been used too much. I recommend switching your universal needle out with one that is specifically for quilting.

These needles are sharper than the universal needle allowing it to penetrate through the 3 layers of the quilt sandwich.

Step 3: Choose the quilting foot for your machine. I mostly do free-motion, meandering machine quilting. For that, I recommend an open toe darning foot.

With this foot, you drop your feed dogs and move all the layers of your quilt sandwich with your hands. Dropping the feed dogs insures there is no drag on the bottom layer of the quilt sandwich while you are moving it. 

Now this is where you can look for advice from other machine quilters. They may recommend other feet to use. If I want to do straight line quilting, like a grid or stitch in the ditch, I will use the sewing machine’s walking foot. Here’s mine:

Special “teeth” on the bottom of this foot mimic the feed dogs under your quilt to evenly feeds all three layers of your quilt sandwich as you quilt. This helps also to eliminate puckers or rumples on the backing that you could get with just a standard foot on top.

If you do not have one for your machine, I recommend purchasing one. It will be worth it as you can use it for quilting and also for attaching binding evenly.

**I have just recently begun to work with the walking foot so I am not in a position to instruct you on this type of machine quilting yet.  If you want some instruction for this type of quilting, there are many expert machine quilters you can find by a simple google search or a search on YouTube. 

Now here’s a few extra tips:

Tip #1: For the type of quilting I do – free motion with a darning foot – I recommend these quilting gloves:

These gloves help me grip and hold taunt the three layers of the quilt sandwich so I can move it as one under the needle.

Tip #2: This is a time-saver tip. Wind several bobbins with the thread you are using on the project so you can quickly change out a bobbing that has run out. 

Time to Quilt – My Tips

Tip #1: Prepare your design ahead of time. To decide what quilt design I want to use, I have a trick. I either print a copy of one of the quilt blocks in the quilt top or draw one out on a piece of paper. Once I do that, I will draw out a quilt design pattern that I can follow on each block! Here’s an example of one of my drawings below:

Once I have the design I like on paper, I use an erasable marking pencil to mark the blocks. The arrows on my drawing (I do not mark those on the quilt) show which direction to stitch to make this design in one continuous pass. You can also just do an overall meandering pattern like this:

The overall pattern above is often referred to as “loops and stars”. So whether you choose a custom design within each block or an overall motif, it’s good to decide before you have the quilt under the needle to save frustration. I have picked out machine quilting stitches before… and it’s not fun!

Tip #2: Practice quilting on a scrap sandwich. I still do this when it’s been awhile since I have machine quilted. Take two scrap pieces of fabric and sandwich them with a scrap piece of batting and use it to practice designs and the flow of the movement of the quilt sandwich with your hands. To make sure there are no skipped stitches, uneven stitches or “eye-lashing” of stitches on curves you need to match your stitching speed (speed of your machine) with your hand movement of the quilt sandwich.

Above is one of my recent practice pieces where I was trying out a “paisley” design.

Tip #3: Start quilting your project from the center, working your way out. That way any fabric that shifts will shift towards the edges of the quilt top and can be adjusted as needed instead of bunching up in the center.

Tip#4: Take breaks when quilting. About every 15 minutes of quilting, I stand up, stretch my shoulders and hands. You’d be surprised how tensed up your muscles get when you are quilting. If you take breaks to stretch, you will not fatigue quite so much. It will also help you not to make mistakes.

Quilting Steps

 I will now describe the quilting steps. At the end of this post will be my quilting mini video tutorial showing these steps.

  • The feed dogs on your machine need to be dropped. See your owner’s manual on how to do that if you have not done it before.
  • Next, pull your bobbin thread to the top of the quilt. To do this, put your threaded needle down in the spot where you want to begin and drop your presser foot. Tap your foot peddle so the needle comes back up, pull on the end of the top thread and this will draw the bobbin thread to the top of the quilt. This is so the bobbin thread does not get caught in the stitching on the back and create a mess!
  • Start with a few small “locking stitches”. Since your feed dogs are dropped, they are not moving the quilt sandwich …. you have to. So to make these small stitches, just move the quilt top slightly while stitching. Since you are only moving it slightly, the stitches will be very small.
  • Once you do these beginning stitches, you can now move on to the motif you have chosen. Be sure to move the quilt top at an even pace matching the speed of your machine. That is how you keep the stitches even (unless you are one of those lucky quilters who have a stitch regulator on your machine!).
  • Once you reach the end of your design or are at a place where you need to stop, end with a few small locking stitches again. Snip the threads as close to the quilt top as you can (be careful!). Now you are ready to move on to the next area!

Mini Tutorial Video

So here it is. My quilting mini tutorial on the steps I described above.

Here are some of my recent quilt motifs:

Well, that is all I have on machine quilting a small project on your home machine. Leave a comment or ask a question below and you will be entered into the drawing for a pair of quilting glove shown above.

The drawing will be on Monday, February 6th.

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Ditch Bad Habits and Adopt Good Practices!

Since we’re only a few weeks into the new year when everyone is already breaking their New Year’s resolutions (LOL), I thought this would be a good time to talk about some quilting bad habits. We don’t realize it, but sometimes we drift into repeatedly doing something as we are quilting that we actually shouldn’t do. I’ll talk about some things I used to do and what I do now for a “good practice”. As the saying goes “practice makes perfect”. If you work on ditching the bad habits and replacing them with good practices… eventually that bad habit will be gone for good…. we hope!

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of all the bad habits we quilters acquired. I’d like you to share in the comments something you feel is a bad quilting habit of yours and how you’ve broken away from that (if you have!). Here we go!

Sewing Machine Habits

Many of us quilters spend a lot of money on a good sewing machine. That’s why it’s a good idea to break all bad habits when it comes to your machine. I’ve done posts in the past about machine maintenance and I’ll repeat it here. Clean and oil your machine, especially after each sewing project.

I even use the little brush to clean above the presser foot. Lint collects up there too. If you get into the habit of doing this after every project, your machine will keep humming along. Also, please bring your machine to the shop for a check-up every year. I consider this a “well check” just like when I go to the doctor for a physical. This will help to catch a minor problem with your machine before it turns into something major. When I just started quilting and had an older, less expensive machine, I didn’t follow this advice but I should have. A machine of any price & quality will last longer with good maintenance.

When you are unthreading your machine, never pull it out from the top of your machine. This is something I did not know could cause a problem until it did for me. Pulling your thread out from the top of your machine can cause problems with the tension disks that are located where my finger is pointing on my machine.

The proper way to unthread your machine is to snip the thread at the top of your machine near the spool and then pull the thread out from the needle area:

Two final tips:

  1. My favorite advice to give is for you to pin all your seams for accurate piecing… that’s a must. But, avoid sewing over pins! I know there are really thin pins that people say you can sew over, but, take it from me, doing this can throw off the timing on your machine. Then you will have the take your machine in for a costly repair. This did happen to me.
  2. ALWAYS remove your foot from your foot pedal when your hands are anywhere near your machine needle. Even if you are quickly readjusting something you are stitching. Foot pedals are very sensitive and if you accidentally touch it when your fingers are by the needle, you can send a needle through your finger and end up with a costly ER visit putting an end to your sewing day.

Fabric & Cutting, etc.

Measure twice, cut once is not only a saying used in construction. It’s important in cutting your fabrics for a quilt project. We all know how expensive fabric is, so making it a habit to measure carefully will end up saving you money.

A tip to help with accurate measuring is to use some painter’s tape to mark the ruler line you are currently using. This has saved me a lot of time when cutting many strips of the same width because I am not searching for the line on the ruler before each cut.

Next tip: before cutting pieces for a project make it a habit to press your fabric well to remove creases and be sure to square it up properly. This will also insure accurate cutting, especially of strips. Here’s my mini video on squaring up. 

When I first began quilting, I wasn’t taught to square my fabric and I ended up with a lot of curved strips. Now it’s a habit that I perform, without even thinking sometimes, with every new piece of fabric I pull from my stash.

Speaking of cutting… make it a habit to never leave your rotary cutter open and laying on your cutting table. It’s easy to knock it off and hit a part of your body or you can accidentally grab the blade portion of the cutter if you’re not looking as you reach for it. The cutter has a lock on it for a reason (photo below)! I made it a habit to close and lock my cutter every time I put it down, even as I move my ruler to cut another strip.

Use other safety items and practices when using the rotary cutter. I speak from experience here! I cut off a tip of my index finger several years ago when my cutter skipped across my ruler. Here’s some additional safety practices to make habits:

  • Hold the cutter and ruler correctly while cutting. This will help in avoiding the cutter slipping and hitting your hand. It also helps with cutting accuracy … so bonus!

On the left, by tenting my hand instead of laying flat on the ruler keeps it from shifting. On the right, holding the cutter flat against the ruler instead of tilted out keeps your cut accurate.

And make it a habit to change your blade! If you notice that you have to press down harder to make a cut go through all the fabric thickness or it skips and cuts some areas but not others, that means you blade is dull. A dull blade can also lead to cutting errors and even accidents.

Final Good Habit to Develop

Always clean up your cutting and sewing areas after finishing a project. This is something I am still working on. As you can see …

These are scraps from two projects. I should get these sorted and stored. If you start with a clean cutting area, you will be focused only on the current project, instead of obsessing over the pile of scraps. Also, you need the space to cut! Another bonus to cleaning your space and organizing your fabrics, you won’t buy fabric you already own… unless you want to.

So that’s it for this week. Share with me some of your bad habits or good quilting practices in the comments below. We may all learn something new.

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

More Handy & Time Saving Tips for All Quilters

Hi, I’m back this week to share more of my favorite handy and time saving tips! These are things that I do when I am working on a quilt project, things that came out of my desire to make my quilting experience more fun and relaxing. Some of these tips will save you from future headaches and assure that you can complete that quilt. Let’s get started!

TIP #1

Have you ever begun to piece some units and either lost your top or bobbin thread or ended up with a jumble at the beginning of the seam? To combat this, use what I call a “leader/ender” scrap. 

This is actually a good use of some of those scraps you accumulate from trimming units like flying geese. Start your stitching with this leader/ender scrap first, then stitch how ever many units you have in your stack and then end with this leader/ender scrap.

This has the added benefit of conserving thread. Instead of pulling the units you’ve stitched out away from the machine and clipping off a long section of thread, just snip the thread behind the presser foot after the leader/ender is part of the way through, and your units are completely through, to release your stitched units!

TIP #2

Staying with the stitching theme, always backstitch at the beginning and at the end of a seam. It takes just a second to do this, but it makes a big difference. All you need is a few back stitches for security.

The unit on the left was stitched without back stitching. Notice how I can pull the seam apart quite easily. This can cause trouble when you are joining units and are trying to nest seams. If one of the seams is pulling apart, you will also have trouble aligning seams for the block you are stitching. The unit on the right shows the strength of backstitching.

TIP #3

Pin units before stitching! Seems like I am being “Captain Obvious” here but I used to skip this step and I advise you not to. Especially if you really want crisp points and aligned seams.

First, align and pin the seams for the units you are joining and then pin the ends of the units. Yes it takes a minute, but if you stitch without pins and then have unaligned seams that ruin the look of your block. Then you will have to rip out stitches and start over, wasting more time.

The pinning also works great in helping to align diagonal seams, like when you are joining half-square triangle squares.

Align those diagonal seams first as shown in the photo on the left. Next, pin that seam before pinning the rest of the HST units together. As you can see in the last photo, the diagonal seams are aligned perfectly and come to an even point 1/4″ up from the edge.

TIP #4

I have a confession. I have never been adept at using a seam ripper without putting a hole in my fabric. So if you do have to rip out stitches, or “un-sew” as we quilters like to say, I have a tip that makes that chore a little easier for those of us who don’t use a seam ripper. All you need is a small, sharp tipped pair of scissors like these:

The smaller and thinner the better to avoid ripping your fabric. Then use these scissors as shown. Insert the tip under a stitch and snip. Snip stitches about 4 or 5 stitches apart. Once this is done, you can carefully pull apart the seam from the top and then snip the remaining threads.

Now for some other random tips:

TIP #5

Use a small notebook stashed by your machine to record when you last cleaned and oiled your machine and also when you changed your needle last. This will help you with the maintenance of your machine and keep you from having unexpected breakdowns. I also use it to record what thread and stitch length I am using for a project in case I need to pull it off the machine before it is finished to do something else.

TIP #6

You know those bookstands they make for recipe books for the kitchen? They work great for holding patterns or magazines. If yours doesn’t have the handy holders on the bottom, use a binder clip to keep the pattern or magazine in place.

TIP# #7

Finally if you have a small magnet laying around, like one of those souvenir magnets you get on vacation, you can use that as a pin corral! Just attach it to your sewing table, with a removable Command strip, by your machine and your pins will go nowhere. 

Another pin solution is to go to an auto parts store and buy the magnetic dishes used by mechanics to corral screws, nuts and bolts. These work great for pins and have a weighed bottom so they’re fairly hard to knock off your table.

Well, that’s it for this week! I hope some of these tips are ones you find helpful and time saving. Enjoy your next quilting project by putting some of them to use. Share some time saving tips with me in the comments below and you will be entered into a drawing for my new pattern Strips & Stars:

The drawing will be on Monday, November 28th. Good luck!**We have a winner! Congrats, Joan!**

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Quilting History: Story Telling & Patriotism

Since this post is on my blog on July 4th, the Independence Day holiday for my US readers, I thought I’d do a dive into a little quilt history to find some interesting nuggets on quilting and patriotism. I’ll also show some of my quilts that have a patriotic theme as well. For non-US readers, I’d love to see some quilt history from your country as well. 

Telling Stories

Throughout history, women have expressed themselves through quilting as an art form. From telling a family story to expressing a political view, quilts were the canvas. They are still that way today in many ways. Many of us have made T-shirt quilts. That’s telling a story! Collecting T-shirts from a child’s activities through their school years or from an adult’s vacation trip and putting them in a quilt is a recording of their history and a snapshot of the family history.

Here’s my version of a family history quilt. For both of my kids, I made picture quilts for their graduations from high school.

There are photos in the star blocks of all 4 years of high school. Hopefully in the years to come, they will look at those photos in the quilts and will be able to tell stories to their kids about their school experiences.

Here’s one of the most famous story quilts from history. I wrote a bit about it in my book, Blooming Patchwork:

This quilt was made by former slave, Harriet Powers and can be found at the Smithsonian’s Nation Museum of American History.

Have you made some quilts that tell a story? I bet you have!

Patriotism in Quilts

From the beginning of the country woman have expressed their patriotism and their political views through quilting, mostly because that was their only outlet. On viewing quilts in quilt history books, you will find everything from appliquéd eagles and flags to fabrics actually printed with patriotic symbols. You’ll find block names like “Whig Rose” and “Yankee Puzzle” to name a few.

A lot of patriotic quilts can be found in the Civil War era. Quilts were often made and raffled to raise funds for soldiers. Quilts were even made to raise funds for gun boats. Read Barbara Brackman’s blog post from 2014 with some interesting history about these quilts.

Quilts were also part of causes like the women’s suffrage movement. This movement for the women’s rights grew out of the abolitionist movement, which was often headed by women. Did you know Susan B. Anthony, a leader in the suffrage movement, was a skilled quilter even as a young girl? She often used quilting bee quilters as her audience for speeches on the movement. Here’s a link to a suffrage quilt, although not one of Susan B. Anthony’s. If you want to look at a lot of historical quilts and find out more information about them, the Quilt Index is a fantastic website to keep bookmarked on your computer!

My Quilts

So, here is a patriotic quilt of mine that is actually my first quilt pattern I designed. It was inspired as a memorial for 9/11.

You can’t see it too well from the photo, but I have written the words to America the Beautiful in the white portion of the stripes. I liked the stars & stripes motifs so much that I made 2 other patterns:

I then designed a quilt pattern (below) for quilters to use for Quilts of Valor quilts. 

I have a new pattern coming out soon. It’s at the quilter’s now and I hope to have it out by mid- summer. I call it Liberty Square:

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little quilt history interlude. It’s fun to delve into the history of quilts and see how they played a roll in some of the big events in this country’s history. Leave me a comment below and I will enter you into a drawing for my quilt pattern for Liberty Star Shine.

If you want to share photos of some of your patriotic quilts or family quilts, feel free to post them in the comments on this post on my Snuggles Quilts Facebook page. The post will be pinned to the top of my page beginning on Monday mid-morning. The drawing for the pattern will be on Monday, July 11th. Good luck! ** We have a winner! Congrats, Shirley!**

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Quilting Tips & Mini Videos

Hi everyone! This is my vacation week blog post. I’m going to review some quilting tips that I have shared in the past and have made into mini video tutorials. I get asked questions about these things I’m covering here the most. That’s why I made a lot of these tutorials to begin with. Since I’m heading out for a few days, I thought this would be a good time for a refresher. Enjoy!

Pressing v. Ironing

We all know how to iron clothes. You run the iron back and forth across the item to remove wrinkles, sometimes using steam. Well, when it comes to quilt blocks and pieced quilts, we need to press not iron. The difference is not moving the iron back and forth across your seams (whether you press open or not). Ironing can distort your seam and end up distorting your unit or block(s). Here’s my mini tutorial:

A cool trick I was shown by a student who was a Home Ec. teacher is to to press a piece of wood down on the seams after pressing. It holds in the heat and creates flatter seams.

Looking at my ironing board pad in photos shows me I need a newer, cleaner one… yikes!

Stitch & Flip (or Folded Corners)

This technique is used to create angles in block designs, like the snowball block. It’s important to do this accurately because picking out a bias seam can distort the pieces you are working with since the bias of the fabric is not as stable as the crosswise and lengthwise grains.

The key to making these units successfully is careful stitching and measuring as you go. Here’s a unit I was working on recently.

Once you stitch the unit on the diagonal, flip the corner open and see if it matches up with the corner of the larger square.

Once you visually see that it matches up, measure the whole unit.

For this unit, it was a 4 1/2 x 4 1/2″ square made of strips to start. After I stitched the smaller square and flipped it open, it still measures 4 1/2″. That means my stitch and flip was a success and I can now cut off the excess fabric in the seam allowance. Here’s my mini tutorial on this:

 

Crisp Points and Matching Points

A few of the problems encountered by quilters when piecing blocks and quilt tops are getting crisp points, aligning seams and matching points. All of these can be solved by carefully pinning units together and also using an accurate 1/4″ seam when stitching.

How do you avoid cutting off points? Here’s a few handy steps:

Tip#1: If you are joining a unit with a point to another piece without a point, my first tip is to keep the unit with the point on top when you pin them together. This way you can see the point as you are stitching the units.

Tip#2: Keep your eye on the point as you are stitching. I am using a pin as a pointer in the photos below to identify where the point is as I stitch. You want the seam that you are stitching to pass right above the point.

The photos below show how the seam looks on the back and how your point looks on the front once you press the unit open:

Now that you know how to achieve crisp points, what happens when you join two units or blocks together that have points you need to match up? Here’s a few tips before you watch my mini video tutorial:

Tip#1: When pinning the units together, you want to start by lining up the points of each unit and pinning there. Once you are confident the points are matched, you can pin the rest of the unit. 

Tip#2: Like in the tip above on crisp points, keep the seam above the point as you are stitching. Since you took such care in aligning the points, the seam should be above the point on the back unit too.

Below is my video on matching points. You’ll notice that aligning your block seams also helps in matching your points when joining blocks.

Well, that’s it for this week. I’ll see you next week with more fun tips that are hopefully useful to you! If you have any questions, ask away!

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Random Scrap, Fabric & Other Random Tips

Are you tired of me talking about scrap quilting yet? I hope not! I never tire of making scrap quilts so I never tire of talking about it. From teaching classes, doing daily posts and from other communications with quilters, I often get questions that I haven’t covered yet in a post, so I figured I’d do this one today sweeping a lot of that information into one place. Maybe I will answer a question you have asked or have been wanting to ask. So, sit back and enjoy the fun!

Strip Storage

I talked about storage of strips a few weeks ago, but since then guess what I did? I updated how I store my strips! I used to use these deep tubs:

However I have found that, just like with the large zip loc bags I used to store strips in, the deeper the stacks of these strips got in the tub, the more jumbled they became. Towards the bottom of the stacks, I would have crumpled strips with fraying sides. Some were frayed bad enough that they no longer measured the size I wanted.

My solution? A great shallow tub from Sterilite that I partitioned off with acid free cardboard cut to size.

These tubs are only 2 3/4″ deep as opposed to the almost 6″ depth of the deeper tubs. I think I’ll be able to maintain control of my strips better in these! 

Here’s how they look in my cabinet by my sewing machine. They are clearly labeled with color(s) and size so when I am looking for a strip for a scrap quilt, I can pull out the right tub quickly.

I still have a few deeper tubs with strips that need to be switched out, but I am making progress!  These tubs are also shallow enough to store charm squares or squares that you cut from scrap fabric, if you collect those.

Now it’s time for me to start my next scrap quilt.

On to Random Scraps

So what do I do with a scrap like this?

Yes! I keep these scraps. If you have followed me a while, you know I love to do fabric appliqué. Scraps like these go into tubs like the one below, labeled with colors. This way, when I need a small piece for an appliqué motif I don’t need to cut into a larger piece of fabric.

I just reach into the tub and find the perfect scrap of fabric that will complete my design. Now if there is a fabric in there that I feel I may not use, or perhaps its fairly old, I may then cut it into squares that can be used in a later project. 

Random Tips

Some of these random tips tie into my strip and scrap talk above. 

Tip#1: Use your scraps to audition colors for blocks. If you are not sure what fabric colors you think look good for your new project, make what I call “test blocks”. Here’s a few I made for a project:

By doing this, I can get an idea of what color combinations look good for my project before I cut into some expensive fabric. I pull out scraps from my bins that hold the appliqué scraps to make these blocks. Or I use some strips from my strip stash if the block pieces can be cut from the size strips I collect.

Now, what do you do with all these test blocks? I actually create small quilts from them to give as gifts. And to make those, I use…. you guessed it… my stash of strips! Here’s one of mine:

As you can see, I framed the star block with a series of borders made from strips. Once I quilted it, I had a cute mini table mat/candle mat to give to a friend.

Tip#2: If you don’t do appliqué like me but still save those odd scraps of fabric, consider making crazy quilt blocks or crumb blocks. I made a brief mention of those in my blog post of April 25th.

A quick google search of both of these terms will lead you to designers who make these types of quilts and who may have some really fun patterns for you to try.

Tip#3: If you go through your fabric stash and find a piece of fabric that makes you say “what was I thinking!” Consider cutting it down into smaller pieces. If it’s a 1/2 yard, you can cut it into a fat quarter and then cut the rest of it into strips. Here’s an example:

Keeping this piece big and using it as a background would be hard to do since it’s so busy. However, when I cut it into strips or squares (below), it tones down the pattern and makes it perfect for a scrap quilt. Since it’s a small strip or square, the pattern won’t overpower other fabrics.

If you really, really don’t like a piece of fabric and don’t think it would even look good in a scrap quilt, consider doing a fabric swap with quilting friends or members of your quilt guild. Someone else might really like it! Or, donate it to a group that makes quilts they give away to needy families or sick children. They’re always looking for fabric donations. Then you know your money spent on that fabric is not going to waste.

That’s it for this week’s post. Comment below or ask any questions you may have. I will enter you into a drawing for my pattern, Follow the Stars:

This pattern uses a lot of scraps and strips! The drawing will be on Monday, May 16th. Good luck! **We have a winner! Congrats Barbara Jansz!**

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

More Scrap Quilting Tips for Fun!

Last week I talked about quilting with strips and scraps and shared some links to some history, including a look at the quilts of Gee’s Bend and crazy quilting. Here’s the post if you missed it. This week, I thought I’d continue with the scrap quilting fun by showing you two ways I scrap quilt. Making what I call “planned” scrap quilts and true scrap quilts. I’ll show you examples with my quilts and explain how I either plan a scrap quilt or just “fly by the seat of my pants”! 

How to Plan a Scrap Quilt

Sounds kind of funny planning a scrap quilt, right? Well, I know some quilters do not like the complete chaos of a scrap quilt and want to still have some harmony among their fabrics. Here’s an example of how I teach people how they can turn any quilt into a scrap quilt.

I use a simple 3 color quilt as an example. To make it easy, let’s say this quilt takes a yard of each color fabric (not including the background) and has 12 blocks from each color. Here’s the 3 colors:

Here’s what a quilt would look like with those 3 colors in separate blocks.

Pretty quilt, huh?

One way to make a scrap quilt from just these three fabrics is to mix and match the colors within the blocks. For example, make some blocks gold/blue and some blocks red/gold and some blue/red:

This makes it a little scrappier! However, you can turn this even scrappier by substituting three 1/3 yard cuts for each yard of fabric from above. I’ve done that here:

To the dark blue fabric, I added a light blue and a purple. To the red fabric, I added pink and brown (both fabrics have red accents) and to the yellow fabric I added green and orange. So, now I have 9 colors which I can distribute through 36 blocks giving me 4 blocks from each color. Or I can mix and match those colors within each block.

The quilt on the left is scrappier than the 3 color quilts from above. And the quilt on the right is even scrappier when you mix the colors within each block. So that’s the basics to a planned scrappy quilt.

Color Mapping

So how do you plan a scrap quilt using any one block pattern? First choose a block design, then how many blocks you want and then how many colors you want to use. Then I make a diagram using a drawing of the block. I call this method “color mapping”.  I number the colors I am using and then on a printout of the blocks in the quilt, I place the color number(s) in units of the blocks. Then I note how many blocks from each combination.

Here’s an example of one of my color maps showing that I am using nine different color prints that are numbered 1-9:

Once I have this done, then I can figure out how many pieces I need to cut from each color based on the diagram above. It does take a little time and math, but by doing this planning first, you end up with a beautiful scrap quilt. My Scrappy North Stars is an example of one planned this way (although I had more than 9 different fabrics in this one):

Unplanned Scrappy and Color Fun

Now for the unplanned scrap quilt or what I call “chaos”. That’s when I sit beside my tub of assorted strips and make one block after another. As I am making each block, I put them up on a design wall and try to avoid putting the same color strip into a block, at least not in the same place. The two quilts below are examples of some unplanned scrappies.

CrissCross Cabin Blooms
Hugs & Kisses

Yes, I do have colors repeated, but when that happens, it’s generally a different print from one in another block.

As you can see from some of the quilts I have shown in this post, I’m not afraid of putting interesting color prints together. That’s the fun of scrap quilts. You may think certain colors do not belong together, but in a scrap quilt you can get away with it!

Don’t be afraid to play with all different color fabrics and prints in a scrap quilt, whether it’s a planned scrap quilt or an unplanned scrap quilt. You’ll often be surprised with the results!

I hope you enjoyed this scrap quilting discussion and a look into my process. Comment or ask any questions you may have below and you will be entered into a drawing for my Scrappy North Stars quilt pattern (shown above)! **We have a winner… congrats, Ariel!**

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Machine Quilting a Small Project – Part 1

Welcome! I thought this would be a fun topic for the next few weeks. We have all struggled with getting our quilt tops quilted. If you have access to a lot of long-arm quilters in your area you are so lucky! But many of us are in areas where there are not a lot of long-arm quilters available. That’s my problem. Scheduling in a quilt takes some time because the quilters are so busy, especially if they are really good at it! I reserve using my long-arm quilter for my large projects. So what do I do? I quilt anything that is under 48″ x 48″ on my home machine! That’s why I decided to talk about quilting smaller projects on your home machine. Now, you may not want to set your maximum quilt top size as high as mine and just stick with quilting tops that are smaller. That’s up to you. For those of you who are up to the challenge, this is the series for you. So let’s get started!

Preparing the Quilt Sandwich

To start, you need to make what is referred as a quilt “sandwich”. Funny name… but this is what quilters call it when you layer your quilt top with batting and backing. When doing this, I like to cut my backing and batting about 1-2″ larger on all sides than my quilt top (photo below). This guarantees that my whole quilt top will have coverage to the edges. If you cut the backing and batting exactly to the size of your quilt top, you could accidentally shift things while basting and/or quilting and end up with an area along the edge of your quilt that does not have batting and backing. Believe me, you don’t want to pick out machine quilting stitches!

**Extra Tips: If you are not going to quilt your own large quilt, confer with your long arm quilter on the amount of overlap of backing they prefer. I generally cut a backing 6″ larger on all 4 sides for a quilt that will go to my long arm quilter. And if you need to seam together fabric for your backing, be sure to iron the seam open and flat to relieve bulk (photo below). This is a backing tip I received from my long-arm quilter.

To prepare your quilt top to be “sandwiched”, make sure all your seams are all pressed flat, whether you press them to to the side or open. Flat seams make for a flat, less bulky quilt top for quilting. Also, remove any stray threads from the quilt top. Especially the ones that are in the seams. When you’re piecing a quilt top, threads often get caught in the seams (see below).

Moving on, make sure your backing is pressed and as wrinkle-free as possible. Find a large table and tape the backing, right side down, to the table top to keep it smooth and tight without stretching it out of shape. Start on one side and make your way to the other side while smoothing out the backing as you go. If you are lucky enough to have a large, hard floor space to do this, that works too.

Once the backing is secured, lay the batting on top, smoothing it out. Be careful not to wrinkle the backing below.

Now, center the quilt top on top of the batting. Smooth carefully so wrinkles are not created in the batting and you do not stretch the quilt top out of shape. Use a ruler to make sure you did not stretch it out of shape. Place the ruler on the corners to make sure they are still 90 degrees and not stretched.

The final step in the sandwiching of a quilt is to baste it together to hold everything in place. You can either do that with thread or with safety pins.

Thread Basting Method: You can use white thread and a long running basting stitch in a grid pattern. Space the stitching 4 to 6″ apart. Start in the center of the quilt sandwich and work your way out.

Since the stitches are long and widely spaced, you can clip and remove the basting from each section you are quilting as you go.

Pin Basting Method: This is the method I use. I pin 3 to 4″ apart, starting in the center of the quilt top and working out to make sure the quilt top remains smooth and flat. I also like to stagger the pinned rows. I like to use curved safety pins made specifically for quilt basting.

So that’s the quilt sandwich. Now you are ready to machine quilt your project. Next week, I will share tips on the quilting process and my mini video tutorial. My main goal with this post and next week’s installment is to make machine quilting on your home machine a bit less intimidating.

Comment or ask questions below. You will be entered into a drawing for my quilt pattern, Twinkle, Twinkle!

The drawing will be on Monday, April 18th so you have 2 weeks to enter! ***We have a winner! Congrats, Sharon M!***

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Using Directional Prints – Part 2

Last week, I talked about what a directional print is and how to use them when making half-square triangle squares and also units for straight seams. Find the post here. These tips are useful if you are wanting your directional prints to all go in the same direction in a block or unit. This week I will talk about using these fabrics when making flying geese units, specifically those you will use to make a star block. I’ll also show you block examples where I followed these tips and where I didn’t. Let’s get started!

Directional Prints in Flying Geese Units

Below are the fabrics I picked for a star block using flying geese units. I purposely chose only one directional print fabric, the grey, to keep things simple.

The secret to using directional print fabrics for flying geese is this:  if you position the directional print square face down on the tan rectangle with the print running horizontal, the print will run vertical after stitching and pressing the piece open. The photos below show this:

Notice how I turn the square so the print is horizontal (center photo) before laying the square face down on the rectangle.

To finish the flying geese unit, I need to lay the next square face down on the other side of the rectangle with the print running horizontal so when I’m done stitching and pressing that side open, the print runs vertical like on the other side.

But now here is the tricky part …. if you are using the directional print for the center square of the star and if you make all 4 flying geese with the print going vertical… this will happen:

If you make all four flying geese units with the print running vertical, the units on the side of the square will not have vertical stripes. So, you need to make two of the geese with the print running vertical and two of the geese with the print running horizontal.

See how having geese with the directional print going in different directions now works when you place them with the center? See the photos of the block before and after piecing below:

Now the directional print is going in the same direction in the star block! 

Fuss with Directional Prints or Not?

So now that you have my tips on using directional prints and tips on how to make units where the design runs in the same direction, here are some blocks from scrap quilts I made where I followed my tips:

And now here are some blocks where I just pieced blocks without paying attention to the direction of the fabric print:

As you can see above, the prints don’t all run in the same direction in these blocks. But they still look good. Especially in a scrap quilt where so much is going on.

Like I said in last week’s post. There are no quilt police. If you want to match up your directional prints, go for it. If you don’t, then enjoy the fun!

Here’s a few handy tips:

TIP #1: If you are making a block and want to use a directional print, decide up front if you want to have the print run in the same direction through out. That way you can figure out how to cut the fabric pieces and stitch them together to achieve this. This will save you a lot of “un-sewing” headaches.

TIP #2: If you choose to use directional prints, I recommend only using one of those fabrics within a block or unit. For example, if your block has three different fabric with prints, use only one that has a directional print  (the others can be solids or non-directional prints) especially if you want to have the print run in one direction.

So, that’s all for this week. Leave a comment or ask a question in the comments and you will be entered into a drawing for my pattern, Barn Dance:

The drawing will be on Monday, April 4th. Good luck!**We have a winner. Congrats, Darlene!**

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Using Fabrics with Directional Prints

The last few weeks, I have covered useful piecing techniques like matching seams and points, stitch & flip and making multiple flying geese and HSTs. The fabric you use is not always a solid fabric or one with a random print. Sometimes, your fabric will have a print that goes in a single direction. You’ll hear these referred to as “directional prints”. Directional print fabrics can present a challenge and, many times, quilters will shy away from using them. But don’t be afraid of using these types of fabric. It can actually be fun to play with directional prints. Also… there is NO quilt police. If your directional prints go in different directions, who cares? I think it adds to the charm of a quilt, especially scrap quilts. I’ll talk about using these prints over the next two weeks. Let’s get started!

How Do You Identify a Directional Print?

A fabric has a directional print, sometimes referred to as a “one-way” print, when there is a clear up or down to the pattern on the fabric. Here are a couple of examples of that.

As you can see above, the pattern goes in one direction. It’s especially evident in the fabric on the left. Compare these fabrics to the ones below.

The design on the above fabrics are considered not directional because which ever way you turn the fabric, it looks the same. You can see it clearly in the fabric on the right. The “starburst” design is symmetrical and looks the same no matter which direction you turn it.

There can be one-way, two-way, three-way and even four-way directional print designs. If I use a directional fabric and want the design to all go in the same direction within the block, I try to stick with a directional fabric that isn’t too complicated.

Using Fabrics with Directional Prints

Units with Straight Seams

So, if you want to use these fabrics and have the directional prints go in the same direction within a unit or block, there is a way to do that and it’s not too difficult. It just takes a little more attention to detail than if you are working with random print fabrics.

Using these fabrics takes planning when you are cutting the pieces for your unit or block. The first example I will show you is a unit made up of a square and bordering strips. This the easiest to do because you are working with straight seams. Here’s the fabric I chose for this example:

As you can see, the solid lines with stars runs in one directions. If I were just to cut all the pieces to frame the center square (see below), from the same 1 1/2″ strip, here’s how it would look:

Notice with the strips on the sides the print runs vertically and with the strips on the top and bottom the print runs horizontally. In a scrap quilt, with a lot of different units made from different fabrics, this unit would be just fine. In fact, scrap quilts are usually what I like to call a “chaos” of fabrics and prints and this would add to the fun.

However, if I am making a two color quilt and I want more uniformity, here’s what I do.

Cut the longer side rectangles from the 1 1/2″ strip – in this case, the rectangles need to be 1 1/2 x 4 1/2″. As you can see in the first photo, the print is vertical. Now, to get the top and bottom rectangles, which each measure 1 1/2 x 2 1/2″, to have the print vertical, cut a strip from your fabric for these pieces 2 1/2″ wide and then cut 1 1/2″ segments for 1 1/2 x 2 1/2″ rectangles. (see the last two photos below)

When you lay out the pieces to make this unit, you can tell right away that the print is all going in the same direction (photos below).

Units with Bias (45°) Seams

Using directional fabrics in making units or blocks with bias seams, like half-square triangle (HST) squares is a little more difficult than with straight seams.

Below are the pieces to make 4 HSTs. Lay them out as shown and then lay the tan print face down on the color print. Stitch diagonally a scant 1/4″ on each side of the diagonal center beginning from the same direction on both square sets (see where my finger is pointing).

Once you cut the units apart and press open you will get 4 HSTs where, no matter how they are arranged, the directional tan print will not go in the same direction. 

If you want the tan fabric directional print to go in the same direction in the unit, follow the above steps, BUT stitch each set of squares starting in the opposite corner (see where my finger is pointing in last two photos).

Once you stitch the seams (first photo), cut the units apart, press and arrange them in the pinwheel, the directional print is all moving in the same direction.

Putting it all Together

Now, use the straight seam and the bias seam lessons from above and combine that knowledge to make a block that uses both types of seams. Like the churn dash block below:

So, with this lesson, will you feel more comfortable using directional prints? Give it a try. It takes only a little more effort and attention to detail while you are cutting out your pieces, but if your goal is a unified look, then it’s worth it.

Next week, I’ll be covering using directional prints in flying geese units and showing how you can get them to go in the same direction if you want. I’ll also show you examples of the look you can achieve by just letting the prints go where they may.

Like I said earlier, there are no quilt police that will tell you what you are doing is wrong. The main goal in working on a quilt project is to have fun!

Leave a comment or ask a question below and be entered into a drawing for my pattern, Barn Dance.

You get some practice using directional prints with these blocks if you choose! Drawing will be on Monday, April 4th so you have 2 weeks to enter. **We have a winner. Congrats, Darlene!**

Happy Quilting!