Showing posts with label tutorial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tutorial. Show all posts

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Crazy Star Patch Runner Tutorial

Merry Christmas!

I wrote up this tutorial for a fun star runner table runner. Flag Day Farms by Minick and Simpson is one of my all time favorite fabric lines so I had to make my runner with it. It would make fun Christmas or Winter Stars as well.

It is similar to other off kilter stars blocks online with a couple exceptions. First I, of course, used a charm pack to make mine. Second, I make my stars just a little differently because, well, just because I'm funny like that.

I love how the narrow red border sets off the blocks. The finished size is 27" x 53-1/2." It is a 13-1/2" finished block.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Scrappy Hourglass Tutorial

The hourglass is a fun block that is pretty simple to make, and it looks fabulous. It can be used on it's own or as an alternate block. It works great as an alternate block with both simle and complicated blocks.

In this tutorial, I show how to make this hourglass block, and I use it as an alternate block with just a plain square. The finished size of this block is 6", but I explain how to make this same quilt with any size block. It's easy. It is also easy to vary the size of the quilt by increasing or decreasing the number of blocks in the quilt.

Here is a link to the tutorial:



If you make an hourglass quilt, I would love for you to post your pictures on my flickr group that I just set up.

P.S. It really bugs me that the quilt isn't quilted. My quilt machine is broken. (Ughh!) I will take a new picture when the quilt is quilted and bound and washed.

This tutorial was inspired by SewMamaSew's Scrap Buster contest because, "When life gives you scraps, make quilts!"

And now. . . . off to make more quilts!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Machine Binding Tutorial

After picking up quilting as a hobby a dozen years ago, binding was one thing that took me a few years to learn. First I put a separate binding strip on each side of the quilt so there were raw edges on the corners. I only did that once.

Then I folded the back around from the front and top stitched it. (I still do that occasionally, but not too often.)

Then I discovered making a separate continuous binding. Corners were still a problem, but at least they were raw edge. Where the beginning and ending of the binding overlapped, I just showed one end underneath, turned the other end under and slip stitched it closed.

After someone showed me the corners, my bindings started looking MUCH better, but there was still the beginning and end. Another kind quilting soul (fortunately there are many kind quilting souls in the world) showed me how to take the quilt out from under the sewing machine and cut the binding just enough longer to finish off the binding with a straight seam. THEN my bindings finally looked good. You couldn't tell where I stopped and started because it looked like every other seam.

That was really a good method, but using a diagonal seam works even better. The problem was I had trouble figuring out how long the binding tail at the end should be. I used the Fons & Porter method successfully, but I always had to refer to their "cheat sheet" to remember how to do it. Enter another kind quilting soul -- she showed me this method. . . .

I have seen it in a few places now. It is my all time favorite way to bind a quilt. That was the long way to say "Here is a free tutorial on Machine Binding. Enjoy!"

Give it a try and let me know what you think!


Friday, May 1, 2009

Row Quilt Tutorial

I have been trying a new style of quilting. Smaller quilts that you quilt as you go so you don't have to send your quilt off to a quilter. I have just uploaded a tutorial that I made, with a little help from my sister, of a fun baby or child's quilt.

This Row Quilt is a fun quilt to make even if you don't have much sewing experience. It is very simple and lets the fabric do all the work of making the quilt look great. It's so easy these days to get super great fabric that it is easy for anyone to make a super great quilt!

Click on the link below or at the right to see the tutorial. It is a pdf file.

This is a quilt that you can modify as much or as little as you want. Have fun!