I recently was working on a super secret project, and found I needed a pretty background fill that enhanced the overall design. I wanted something that looked like a budding flower, or opening petals, something organic, easy and consistent since the other details were more like thread painting and I wanted a nice contrast. Based […]
Staple a backing to your longarm leaders, now on youtube!
When I was filming for Craftsy in October, we also made some shorter videos about different tips and techniques. One of them was how to staple a quilt backing to the leaders. I think it came out great! And I have a youtube channel! Craaaazy. Let me know what you think!
Quick tip for giant freezer paper templates
I seem to be making these giant templates with freezer paper at least twice a week lately, and while I had been using double stick tape to keep the long edges together, I have gone through a roll of that and a roll or two of freezer paper. I need to get the current project […]
Some thoughts on prewashing
I usually prewash all my fabrics, for various reasons mostly related to assuring they don’t bleed and are preshrunk. Lately, though, I have had so many projects with tight due dates that I haven’t had a chance to follow my usual routine, and I noticed two things that convinced me even more that prewashing is […]
Today–batik prep!
Fill a bowl with the hottest water you can stand, and add a few drops of detergent. Squish around. Let sit, and watch the water turn colors. Rinse. Squeeze. Repeat until water turns clear. Dry on hot. No surprises on your quilt top this way!
“Binding”, the Greatest Hits!
I’ve been working like crazy to get some customer stuff done so that I can get a piece of my own finished for the Modern challenges at MQX (Have something to enter? You can see all the rules and deadlines here for the display section and here is a link to the catalog where you […]
Technique of the week: How much quilting should I do?
This post is in response to The Finer Nation’s “Ugh–Crappy Modern Quilting” because, really, she makes a good point about the role of quilting and what it does. I know by now you’ve seen all sorts of modern quilts and the quilting on them. From dense to sparse, quilting itself covers a wide range of […]
Nose to the grind stone
I’ve been working to finish up some designs and things, and the kids are out for the summer, so… Yeah. But, I do have a mighty useful tool to share with you, and one that I think every quilter would appreciate. It’s this graph paper by Edward Tufte (it’s there, but you have to scroll to […]
Prepping Batiks–technique of the week
I have been pulling together some really lovely batiks in autumn colors for a friend who has commissioned a queen-sized tree of life quilt. This is going to be a bed quilt, and the background is going to be Kona snow or eggshell. Because it will see real use, it will also be seeing the […]
Sometimes a girl just likes things super tidy–technique of the week
I’ve been doing a great deal of reading on exact and precise piecing over the last year, and just came across this post over at Ivory Spring about piecing a 4×4 block with 1″ squares. Yeah, that’s a 16-square 4″ block. I’ve always set my seams before I iron them open, but reading about her […]
