So you want to make a Quilt Part 4 The tie that binds - Thread OK now you have a pattern and you have your fabric, type/color and you have it all cut up into the pieces (that’s another whole post) you need as dictated by your pattern. The next item you”ll need is some thread to hold the whole thing together with, and as in you fabric type you can’t go to far wrong with cotton thread. When making your quilt it’s best to try and match your thread type with the type of fa... Read Full Story

So you want to make a Quilt Part 5 The Fluff & Back Crust for the Sandwich Batting and Backing The Batting: OK we have chosen a Pattern, we have Fabric in the Type & Color that we want for our project and we have the Thread to hold it all together. In all most every instance we’re now going to make a sandwich with our Top-using the pattern, the middle with Batting, and the back with a Backing fabric. Lets start in the middle. Batting-Padding-Wadding, as it is know as, gives ... Read Full Story

I Love the Fabric, but what do I do with it? 2005 Wall Hanging, Machine pieced, Hand Quilted Patter: From article in Oct, 2003 Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine This is a two fabric quilt. One is a large print Japanese Cat pictorial or novelty fabric, and the second a co-originating print. The quilts in the magazine article show various ways the basic units can be arranged. Also showed what could be done with more “second” fabrics and boarders. I am currently working on a Wizard... Read Full Story

The Fabric - Types Now that you have a pattern, you’ll need some fabric to make it with. If you found a pattern to fit the fabric from your stash your ready to go-but if you have a pattern and now need the fabric, well that’s a little different. There are two things to consider when choosing fabric, type of material and color. We’ll deal with Types of Fabric now and address Fabric color another time. You can’t go wrong with 100% cotton fabric, whether it’s solid ... Read Full Story

The Golden Years Quilt Original Design: Ellen Marie Mislo Block Quilt, Machine Pieced and Quilted including 12 Embroidered Blocks The Quilt is made up of 21 - 10″ blocks. 12 of those blocks where made by starting with a 6″ embroidered rectangle. A 2″ red patterned border was sewn around the block and then another 2″ block of background fabric was added to create the 10″ block. The other 9 - 10″ blocks were cut from a repeating design patterned fabric,(They ... Read Full Story

So you want to make a Quilt - Fabric Part 2 Color In my last post on Fabric we looked at some basics in types and texture of Fabric. Perhaps a bigger part of choosing Fabric, whether we realize it or not is in the color of the fabrics we choose to use in our quilting projects. There are people who devote entire life times to doctorial studies on color and its affects in painting/fabric etc. I plan to touch on a few areas to hopefully help - not muddy,  in choosing Fabric colors for you next ... Read Full Story

Lady of the Lake 1980 Wall Hanging: Machine Pieced, Hand Quilted Pattern: Georgia Bonested’s Lap Quilting and More Lap Quilting Georgia Bonested’s books have a similar basic pattern called Saw-Toothed Square. The Lady of the Lake uses more colors. This wall hanging predates, rotary cutters, and any easy half-square triangle sewing tips or aids. With today’s easier more accurate way of constructing the half-squares you can get a much more uniform resulting squares. I know if ... Read Full Story

The Quilt Pattern-Where it begins I have been trying to come up wit h a theme in Quilting, since starting this site over a year ago, to give me something to write about for these posts. At the moment I have caught up with all of the quilts that my wife and I have made, a wall hanging and bed quilt still in the works. So what I am going to attempt to do is walk through the making of a quilt from beginning to end. Along the way I hope to provide you links to other sites I have found in my sear... Read Full Story

I Spy Kids Quilt Pattern: Original Design by Ellen Marie Mislo Material: Fussy Cut Blocks collected for about 5 years Quilt size:  28″ x 36″ Machine Pieced and Quilted Ellen Marie always wanted to make a I Spy Quilt but could never find one that she liked so she designed one herself to incorporate the blocks she had been collecting for years. The Quilt was inspired by a friend in her vet”s office and so she made it for her. The pattern is 42 - 4-1/2″ by 4-1/2″ fu... Read Full Story

Sunny Bunny X Crochet Stuffed Animal 24″ Tall Featured in March/April 2009 Creative Home Arts Club Magazine Designed by Deb Richey First off I think Bunny X is larger than 24″ - more like 26-28″. The direction in the magazine for the legs are not entirely correct as an Email correspondence  proved. Supplies: * 6 skeins of yarn (I used multi-colored instead of multiple colors, that way no need to change during crocheting. *Size G-6 crochet hook *A stitch marker - since you ar... Read Full Story