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When I finish making a bed-size quilt, I always have a lot of leftover fabric. I use it to make a small (lap size or larger), scrappy companion quilt...
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As much as I love giving a quilt away, it can be a little sad. To remind me of quilts I’ve given away, I sew scraps and strips left over from...
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On my miniature quilts, I always use single-thickness binding because it has less bulk than the double-fold binding often used on full-size quilts....
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When I select fat quarters for a project, I iron them, sort them by color, stack a few at a time, roll the stacks onto foam rolls (swimming pool...
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When I am working on multiple quilts, I put fabric samples from the different projects into trading card sleeves. It keeps the project swatches...
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If you want to see how fabric will work in a quilt design, make color copies of the fabrics. Cut the copies to the pattern sizes and lay out the...
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To sew on the go, I use a plastic film canister that has a hole drilled in the lid. I put my bobbins in the canister, pull the thread through the...
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We travel a lot so I often have to use hotel ironing boards that have little padding. Because of that, I travel with two pieces of batting cut to the...
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When pressing a bed-size quilt top, I place a large clean sheet under my ironing board to prevent the quilt top from coming in contact with pet hair...
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I attach a wide loop of masking tape to my ironing board. As I iron, I clip threads and press them onto the tape so I don’t have to trim them...
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As a way to relax after a day of sewing, I take the scraps from that day and prepare hexagons for English paper piecing. I store the hexagons in bags...
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I once sewed a button to a pincushion I had made just for decoration. I quickly found out that by sticking needles into the buttonholes, my eyes were...
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When rotary-cutting fuzzy fabrics like plush, fleece, or chenille, I hand-vacuum along the cutting line. The vacuum sucks up all the tiny fuzz and...
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After I finish piecing a quilt top, I take a picture of it, type a description that I save on my computer, and place the quilt top in storage. When...
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When I give a quilt as a gift, I make a set of pillowcases to go with it. Sometimes I make the pillowcases out of material left over from the quilt....
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The floor under my long-arm machine is not carpeted. To keep it clean, I cut pieces of leftover batting the size of my sweeper mop, place one under...
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Before I start hand sewing, I like to run my thread across a bar of soap. The soap residue helps keep the thread from tangling and washes out when I...
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When I cut out pieces for a quilt, I also cut out the borders and binding. I press the binding in half and wrap it around an empty paper towel roll....
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I use a hair dryer to remove the lines made with a Frixion marking pen, which requires heat for removal. Using a hair dryer is fast and I don...
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After I complete a quilt I always clean my sewing machine and sewing room. Only then do I feel like I am organized and ready to begin a new project...
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I take a picture of every quilt I make, print the picture, and label it with the date the quilt was made, for whom it was made, the fabrics used, and...
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If you are short on space and assemble your quilt layers on the floor, use a batting scrap to dust the floor first. Anything that would otherwise...
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I use an inexpensive glass vase to collect scraps. On the occasion of squaring up 48 blocks that contained 24 different fabrics, I noticed how...
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After my father passed away, I kept many of the shirts he was so fond of and used them to create small memory collages for my family. I cut the...
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I use my clothing steamer to remove the wrinkles from a new package of cotton batting. Giving the batting a light steaming gets out the wrinkles...