UK Quilters
Did you ever wanted to stitch something onto your work, but needed the guidance of a drawn line and didn’t know how to get the lines onto a fabric? There are lots of tools and pens which you can use to mark your fabric, but sometimes it’s difficult to mark dark fabric or you may…
Whilst making the circles for my Sample Block Quilt – I was having trouble needle turning the edge of my central circles. I was trawling through the ‘net’ and came across this suggestion. I thought it was clever – what do you think?? Using a piece of kitchen foil about 1inch bigger in diameter than…
Perfect points make your patchwork look so great. It’s what we all want, but how do you achieve it? Read on – and download a free summary or a free one-page try-out pattern if you would like to keep this for future reference. Catherine Wheel – pattern available from my Shop Pressing diagonal seams It…
Been asked a lot of questions over a Bloggerati and thought this is as good as place as any to answer them all, as most don’t require a lengthy and boring answer, I’ve decided to do them all in one go as I don’t think there would be enough to make several blogs or hints…
Let’s talk bobbins….unfortunately one size doesn’t fit all, so here’s the most common ones used along with a few odd ones at the end! One of the most common used. For front loading machines like Janome, Brother and Toyota. …
This unit is sometimes called Diamond in a Square as it essentially a square, turned on point (hence ‘diamond’) inside another square. It is found in a wide variety of blocks, usually in the corners or the centre, and is useful as a ‘spacer’ block between busier blocks and as a border unit – either…
Have you ever started sewing together your quilt only to get cracking and then run out of thread on the bobbin? Then you have to unthread the machine to load another bobbin, rethread the machine and off you go again. Well, to stop this from happening, I load 4/5 bobbins at a time and…
Always a good idea to have the right needle for the job, nothing worse than starting a project and the material is snagging, machine may make a thudding type noise, change that needle! We always recommend Schmetz needles over any other brand as they go through more than others in the manufacturing processes. The difference…
The Rocking stitch is the most common method of hand quilting, and once mastered produces beautiful results. If you are struggling to produce neat even stitches, then watch how Carolyn Gibbs breaks the process into steps in this short video. It does take practice – see how Carolyn’s stitches improved on the first project…
Wadding comes in all shapes and sizes; by the roll, by the metre, pre-cut, cot, queen, king… In this post I am breaking it all down to help ensure you get the correct sized wadding (or batting to those from the US) for your project. I will look at how to work out how…
For those of you completely new to patchwork and quilting perhaps you might be interested in how to get started with the very basics. I am rather new myself so it’s all fresh to me and I’ve learned what it’s possible to do with simple tools. At the beginning you just don’t know if you…
And finally, some lesser known sewing machine feet to complete my short series. Lo shank straight stitch only, teflon foot. Straight and zig zag teflon foot. My four part series has covered the more common feet used,and whilst some are generic, here are certain machines, like the Bernina ranges, that will only work with their…
Vendulka Battais
Sue Burford
Carolyn Gibbs
Mandi
Chris Franses
Anna Sewell
Ingrid Papaphilippopoulos