Category Archives: Quilt Therapy Quilt Tip

Fabric Color Can Make All the Difference in a Quilt Design

Quilt Therapy Posted on by

As I sat designing quilts in EQ7 the other day, I was amazed at how just a simple color change could make a quilt design look completely different – but also that it could change the depth of a quilt.  Depth?  Definitely.  Perhaps the closest example I can come up with is that a color change can take a one dimensional quilt and make it appear to be a two dimensional quilt.

If you’ve ever gone to a quilt show, you may see some folks looking at a quilt just as a person would look at a piece of art at a gallery.  Some quilts are worthy of our time to just look at them, absorb their beauty and craftsmanship…and those that truly draw our attention are usually those that appear to be two dimensional.  You turn your head one way, then another…you go off and look at other quilts…but always return to the one that strikes you as amazing.  And you stand there and wonder how it was made or how the designer and quilter were able to take a one dimensional quilt and make it appear to be a two dimensional quilt.

Let’s try a few simple designs and I’ll attempt to show you what I mean:

D1

This is a very one dimensional-appearing design.

D2

This design appears to be more two dimensional – with the blue nine-patch centers “popping” out of the quilt.

D3

Again, a two dimensional-appearing design with the nine-patch centers fading into the background and the ‘frames’ of the centers standing out.

I hope you can see the difference between the fabrics that make a quilt appear to be one dimensional or two dimensional.  Many times, it’s just one fabric that can do this for a quilt and sometimes it takes more than one fabric.  The goal, as is often suggested, is to buy your fabrics in the light, medium and dark fabrics.  They do NOT have to be all matchy-matchy…but, they do all need at least a single color that coordinates with another fabric.  Find a focus fabric you want to use and then choose the remaining quilt colors that will pull the color from the focus fabric – that’s the best way to create a two dimensional-appearing quilt, with the lights, mediums and darks coordinating with the focus fabric.

Play with this, see if you get the same results!

Quilt Tip for Beginners #595: Binding Preparedness

Quilt Therapy Posted on by

If you are a beginning quilter, or even a long-time quilter, I am sure you have been learning some tricks from the quilt masters.  Unfortunately, as a quilter becomes more well known, they seem to quit sharing their tips that brought them where they are today.  I don’t understand this philosophy because most of the tips folks learn as they grow in their quilting is not theirs in the first place – it was shared with them by someone a bit more experienced at whatever time in the quilter’s quest to grow in quilting.  And after they are advertised or promoted as professionals, they write books and want paid for their expertise – much of which came from free tips they’ve learned over the years!

Since I write all the time, ya’ll already know that I freely share the tips that I have learned over the years.  It’s the right thing to do, in my mind!

One of the absolute BEST tips I have received over the years is about binding.  I will admit, though, that I do not always follow this advice but when I do, I just get giddy with anticipation and pat myself on the back a bit.

Once you finish a quilt, you either quilt it yourself or you send it to a quilter.  Next comes the binding.  For some, binding a quilt is a challenge – for others it’s quite easy and not a chore at all.

My tip is to get your binding ready the minute you complete a quilt top.

Sounds simple but it’s not an easy tip to remember…especially if you have made a rather large quilt and you just want it out of your site for a while before you jump back in the quilt ring with it again.  But, if you have your binding ready, it should allow you some breathing room (for the time it takes to quilt the quilt) and you’ll have everything you need to bind the quilt when it’s ready.  It makes a quilt you’re tired of completed quickly…and it makes a quilt you love ready for you to finish it quickly.

I recently made a baby quilt.  When it was complete and sent off to my quilter, I was cleaning off my cutting table.  When I reached the pile of leftover fabric from the baby quilt, I realized I’d better make sure I had enough scraps to bind the quilt.  Thankfully, I had one fabric that was just the right size for the binding so I cut the binding out and decided not to wait to make the binding because I would either forget where I put the fabric or would use that nice piece of fabric for some other project – and then smack myself in the head because I didn’t use the fabric for the binding (has happened many times for this quilter!).

Here are some photos to show the process:

IMG_0343 (299x450)

If you are using directional fabric, with due diligence, take the time to make sure that all of the fabric goes in the same direction.  In this photo (above), I am creating my 45 degree angle to make one long strip of binding.

IMG_0344 (299x450)

Here’s my binding, all pinned and ready to sew.

IMG_0345 (299x450)

Time to sew the strips together!  Then cut off the excess fabric at the quilt junctures.

IMG_0346 (450x191)

I now have this long piece of binding cut and ready to bind the quilt, once it gets back from my quilter!

By being patient and taking the time to pre-cut and piece your binding, you save tons of time later on.

Quilt on!

Quilting Correctly: Clipping Your Corners

Quilt Therapy Posted on by

A number of years ago, I was learning to write patterns of some of the quilt projects I had designed.  I was working with a lovely woman who had been writing patterns for her website for a number of years.  I wrote my first draft and sent it on to her.  She looked at it and sent it back to me (without markups) and told me I’d missed a step.

Let me tell you, I got totally frustrated over what step I missed.  I went through piecing that quilt top in my head and even went back to my sewing table, duplicating a step that was sort of difficult to write about.  But, I could NOT find what it was that I was missing.

When I emailed her about it and my frustrations and recreations, she laughed at me…then gave me a hint as to what I missed.  I still didn’t get it.  This went on for three or four days and she would give me hint after hint and I STILL couldn’t figure out the error of my ways.

She FINALLY told me that I needed to put a visual in the pattern for clipping your corners.

“What?  I don’t understand, I didn’t clip my corners.”

“EXACTLY!” she said.  Go to your quilt top and run your hands on the front.  If you feel little lumps that you know aren’t seams that you didn’t press in the opposite directions – those are the corners you didn’t clip.

So, I went over to my quilt top and did what she said an whoa, did I ever feel little lumps!!!  Since then, I have read information from licensed jurors or quilt competitions that clipped corners is something that judges really look for.

I then asked her what to do about it because I had never had anyone tell me to clip corners – and she sent me a little image that showed how to clip corners.  Without further instructions, I went and re-made that quilt top…this time including clipping the corners.  Then I ran my hands over both of them and noticed a very distinct difference.  Here’s the same type of image she sent to me, showing me what corners I needed to clip on a half-square triangle (and any seam of a quilt that involved triangles):

IMG_0299 (450x252)

Do YOU clip corners?