August 29, 2016
The Complete Quilt Design Planner is here!
I have been hinting at this new pattern on Instagram and Facebook for several weeks, and am so happy to announce its official release today. The Complete Quilt Design Planner booklet is something I’ve been working on for a long time, and thinking about for longer. You want an to design a quilt the easy way, this is it!READ MORE
May 16, 2016
Pink Log Cabin Pillow #myquiltcouldlivehere
A new pink log cabin pillow is also newly added to the shop! All of these log cabin pillow covers are pieced completely randomly, using scraps of all of my favorite fabrics. I store my fabric scraps in my studio, by color, in plastic bins. When I am playing around with new ideas, these scrap bins are the usually where I start, pulling, cutting, and piecing improvisationally. Its my favorite way to play around with color and shape in quilting.
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May 10, 2016
The Signet Baby Quilt- A Free Pattern for You
Quick and fun, that’s what this baby quilt is. Sized to be either a wall hanging or a stroller quilt, it can be scrappy or made nice and uniform with three of your favorite colors. If you want to make a scrappy version, just pick a few different shades for each color, instead of using all one color. That’s how I made the warm-colored version, pictured above. The cool version, below, has a more limited color palette and some more elaborate free motion quilting on it.
Keep reading for the how-to, and be sure to tag your versions on social media with #wisecraftsignet so we can all share!READ MORE
April 30, 2016
Tie or Knot Your Quilt Layers Together
The quilt above, Summer Sherbet, from my first book, was tied at the center of every 4 patch.
Be sure to subscribe to the Wise Craft YouTube channel. It is where I will be adding several how-to videos, mainly about quilts, but there will also be some other things as well. I get asked basic quilting questions often, and wanted to have a place where I could directly those wanting to learn specific steps in quilt making.READ MORE
April 17, 2016
Scrap Quilting
Scrap quilting is the most ingenious trick I play on myself. You see, sometimes I need to clean out and organize my fabric shelves. Well, actually, most of the time. Patchwork is messy, especially scrappy patchwork, because it uses lots of different fabrics. I have found I can trick myself into getting my shelves organized by incorporating some sort of scrap piecing project. The ones that require the most fabrics cause me to pull all my fabrics off the shelves, cut from them, refold them, and tidy everything up. And I do love scrappy quilts!
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April 4, 2016
Custom Quilt Made From Baby Clothes
I created the above quilt pattern and sewed the custom quilt made from baby clothes for a client a while back. This is now a downloadable quilt pattern available in my shop, called Nuts and Bolts. I have since made a few more, including one that will be published in my upcoming book Wise Craft Quilts: A Guide To Turning Beloved Fabrics Into Meaningful Patchwork (YES! we have a real title for my formerly unnamed child!). I wanted to talk a little about these quilts, I realize I haven’t said a ton about the different versions I’ve made here on the blog. There is something incredibly special not just to the family, but to me, in making these particular kind of quilts. The “honored to be asked feelings” loom large for me where these quilts are concerned; cutting into special little baby clothes is not easy for any quilter, skilled or newbie. There’s not more of any one piece, what you have is what you have. There are stained areas to cut around, seams to cut off, special areas to keep in, deciding the right quilt design that will utilize the tiny clothes the best, and also show off any special areas that are meant to be seen in the final quilt. For example, in the quilt above, there is an “O” from a letterman’s sweater worn by the Dad that the client wanted to use, so its size needed to fit within the overall block design. I also added an extra row at the top of the quilt, knowing that it would be used on a “big boy bed” and it would help show a child learning to make their bed which side is at the head or foot of the bed (a sneaky trick to also allow more of the special scraps to be used).READ MORE
March 11, 2016
Quilting for Beginners: How to Baste Quilt Layers Together
I do not like quilt basting- and I am referring to making the “quilt sandwich”. Which is basting the backing, batting, and quilt top layers smoothly together so that they can be quilted together without pleats or puckers on the front or back. Early on when I started quilting, I struggled with this process quite a bit. A pleat(s) would show up on the back of the quilt every single time I machine quilted any of my quilts by machine. This is why I hand quilted several of the early quilts I made. I always have my hand on the back of the work and could catch a pleat as soon as I feel one. I began to think maybe I just didn’t have the patience necessary to baste the layers thoroughly.