Quilting Resources

Blog Switch

2011-07-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

This blog is presently being switched over to Pieceful Living and will not be up for too much longer. All the wonderful quilting resources that you have come to expect here will continue to be available over at Pieceful Living though. Come on over and check out the new blog.

Pieceful Living

Free Quilt Patterns From Andover Fabrics

2010-06-06T05:31:00.000-07:00

This is just four of the more than 70 free beautiful quilt patterns over at Andover Fabrics. I will make a permanent link to them in our free patterns section, so you can easily access them when you need to. Thank you Andover Fabrics for this service to quilters everywhere.

I apologize in the delay getting our May Show and Tell posted here. It has been a hectic month. I will try to get to it later today, so come on back to see what we have been up to in our quilt making.

Quilting Programs on the Internet

2010-05-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

I am so excited about this find. Now you can see many of the programs that they have taken off TV about quilting right on the Internet. They are FREE too. I will keep a link to this to the right for you to access when you want. Go on over and check out the huge number of free programs ready for you to watch when you want to watch them. Just click here or to the right in the sidebar.

Quilting Treasures Free Patterns

2010-05-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

Here are just a few of the 75 free patterns available at Quilting Treasures site. Go on over and check it out. We quilters are SO thankful for all the wonderful free things offered to us on the Internet. Thank you

Quilting Treasures

Free Maywood Studios Patterns

2010-03-05T06:34:00.000-08:00

I came across a bounty of patterns today at Maywood Studios. They are the people who make those luscious flannels that look like wool and many other beautiful fabrics. I found 47 free printable patterns at their site including this wonderful bag pattern:

They have patterns for several large Christmas stockings too like this one:

There are large quilts like this one:

to table runners and notebook covers. Very nice site. While you are there check out all of the new fabrics they have. This is an excellent site. I will file this link in the sidebar under free patterns for future use. To get to this site click on:

Maywood Studios

This will take you to their site. Then click on the Quilts and Projects button. The next step is to click on the Free Patterns button. Enjoy!

Free Quilt Patterns

2010-02-12T06:54:00.000-08:00

Are you looking for a pattern for a quilt to make?

This is one of over 90 free quilt patterns available over at Classic Cottons. They are a producer of beautiful collections of fabrics. They have pictures of their collections and where you can find them. Go on over and check out the designs.

CLASSIC COTTONS

This link will be available in the future in our Free Patterns section in the sidebar.

Tool Time Tuesday Blog and Tutorial

2009-12-22T17:24:00.000-08:00

I have sent you this way before for the Bucket of half-square triangle tutorial. Karen at Sew Many Ways has a post every Tuesday called Tool Time Tuesday. She comes up with the most amazing ideas for uses of things usually from the hardware store. Guess what she used this stuff for.

She uses it to help her get the perfect 1/4 inch seam allowance. Please don't just take this idea and use it though without clicking over there to see her tutorial on setting up your machine. She has some very good pictures and hints at setting it up accurately. Plus, you are going to want to get this stuff off some day, and she tells you how.

Merry Christmas from the Reedsburg Area Quilt Guild,

Debbie

Half Square Triangles Made Easy - Part 2 and Flying Geese

2009-11-24T07:06:00.000-08:00

Remember my last post on half square triangles? I went into a couple of my favorite ways to make half square triangles. One way was the Wondercut Ruler, and I gave you a link to a tutorial on how that works. I love this ruler for a VERY easy and fast way to make many half square triangle blocks when you have larger pieces of fabric. The other was a link to free half square triangle paper in many sizes. If you want to see the details go to the previous post here.

Since then I have found another method that I love. At a class I took from Sharon Rotz we made lots of flying geese in our quilts. This was a wonderful class on her pattern Keep Your Quackers in a Row. The picture below is the one my husband sleeps with every night. It is so soft.

This is a delightful, fast and easy quilt that has no batting, just fleece on the back and extremely easy to quilt. Very nice weight and super soft. I have made four of them and counting. They take me about a day. My family grabs them up as soon as I can make them. So, you know I have lots of leftover scraps of triangles from these four quilts.

The method used for the flying geese was the Mary Ellen Hopkin's method of putting a square in the corner and sewing diagonally on the square, then flipping it over. Mary Ellen Hopkins tells you to never clip off the extra fabric underneath, as this adds stability to the quilt. Many people do clip these extra little triangle pieces off and sew them together later or throw them away, as they add bulk when you want to quilt.

Sharon Rotz gave our class the idea of sewing an extra line parallel 1/2 inch away from the first diagonal line before clipping the extras off. This saved lots of matching and work. You cut them apart after sewing the second diagonal line. You then have many half square triangle blocks left over after the quilt was done to square up and use in some other quilt some other day. I love this idea! I did this and had enough to make this quilt. It is not finished yet, but you get the picture. This is my pattern for using up half square triangles. Just two blocks. Sorry for my photography. If anyone wants a clearer picture. let me know, and I will try again.

I was surfing the Internet looking for ideas for you, and I found a wonderfully perfected tutorial of what I just shared with you at Sew Many Ways. Karen's version is much neater and not so hard on you when you go to square up the half square triangles, ie. standing for hours at a table with ruler and rotary cutter squaring up hundreds of HST (half square triangles). As a small preview, she draws the lines before stitching, which makes things much more accurate in the first place, and then she has another secret to square them up, which can be done in front of the TV with a scissors. You will just have to go there and see that part, as I don't want to steal her hard work.

I love it when you can quilt in front of the TV with the family. You will end up with a bucket of half square triangles to go in no time. She gave me permission to copy a picture from her blog and send you her way. You will have to see her blog for all of her secrets to this method. Believe me, you don't want to miss this tutorial. She has wonderful pictures to show you exactly how it is done. Thank you Karen. Please see her tutorial at Sew Many Ways. Karen also has many wonderful posts on how to use tools in ways you never thought of. I love her blog and check there weekly for her endless ideas. I know you will love it too.

Lastly, what do you do with all of the half square triangle blocks? There are a wealth of patterns to use scrap half square triangle blocks at Bonnie Hunter's Quiltsville. You will be amazed.

Debbie

Art Quilt/Fusing-Piecing Quilting Tutorial

2009-11-15T06:20:00.000-08:00

This is the second installment of our November meeting. The above two pictures are the samples that Kelly Kroon brought to show us how fusible qulting is done. This is a fun, fast, and easy technique that is perfect for art quilts and would be wonderful for kids. Kelly learned much of this technique from the book Fuse And Tell Journal Quilts by Laura Wasilowski.

Fuse a sheet of Fusible, like Heat and Bond Lite in this case to the back of all of the pieces of fabrics that you will be using. This is before you cut anything out. After it has cooled remove the paper on the back and KEEP it for a pressing sheet.

This demonstration was of a wompy log cabin block. Put your first piece down on the saved paper backing pressing sheet.

Press it to the pressing sheet.

Add your next piece and overlap just slightly (maybe 1/8 inch). Press to the paper pressing sheet. Cut off anything you don't want. Continue adding pieces.

Keep going until you have your desired block, which in this case was 6 inches.

Fuse onto a square of fabric. Fuse this onto batting. Fuse a backing piece on. She even used a fused raw-edged binding in one of the first two pictures to bind her art quilt. Kelly cut her binding with one of the fancy wavy rotary blades, and it was very cute. It was then machine quilted, and the pieces were permanently kept in place by the quilting process.

Some helpful tips:

1. Titanium needles gum up less than other needles

2. Batiks don't always fuse well. Test your fabrics.

3. Laura Wasilowski's books have many cute ideas for this technique, from arty to traditional.

4. This would be a great beginning project to get a child interested in quilting.

5. This would be a fun way to make greeting cards. Fuse to Cardstock.

6. Kelly used the floss holder box to organize her fused scraps in the picture below for future projects.

As you can see from the last post and this one, we had a really great meeting. Many people can't see the work that goes into putting on a demonstration or class like this. I just want to thank Kelly Kroon for putting a wonderful meeting together and this demonstration and also Lynn Butler for her demonstration on the hexagon stars.

Next post will be show and tell, so come back in a few days to see what the girls have been making. We had some wonderful projects shown this month.

Debbie

As an addendum, the following is a copy of a comment we received from Laura Wasilowski in the comment section below. Thank you Laura for additional tips to this very fun technique:

Hi Everyone!

Thanks for using my book, Fusing Fun, for a tutorial on fusing!

I have a few tips for you when using this book. Wonder Under #805 is the brand of fusible web I use. It will not gum up your needle when stitching. Remember, you always have to steam set the fused quilt top to the non-scrim side of batt before stitching first. Then the hand or machine needle will glide through like stitching in butter. (not that I've ever stitched butter, but you get the idea.)

Have fun!

Laura Wasilowski