Posts Tagged ‘quilting’
Many quilters may be drawn to quilt making because of the wide variety of beautiful fabrics available. The choices of colors and patterns seem to be unlimited. What beautiful quilts can be created!
One of the most important elements for choosing quilting fabrics is color. Beginning quilters may often become confused by this topic. Do not be intimated and discouraged from learning about color. Most people are far more adept at combining colors than they imagine.
Learn to trust your intuition (unless you know that you are color blind.) If you think the colors look great together, others more than likely will too. Besides, this is your quilting project. Choose fabrics that you love and that you will enjoy working on. After all, isn’t that really all that matters?
When it comes to quilt making, the color and design or pattern are entirely up to the creator. To insure a beautiful finished quilt, the project must be planned carefully, and an established pattern should be followed.
Making test patches is a great way to experiment with your design. Colors should be sorted into tones - light, medium, and dark. Using assorted tones helps to create depth and design. Textured fabrics also create different effects in your pattern.
It is absolutely necessary to pre-wash all fabrics in warm water with a mild detergent added before starting any quilting project. Fabrics that have a tendency to run should be washed separately. When dry, the fabrics should be ironed, either with a steam iron, or with a dry iron and a clean damp cloth.
The craft of quilt making can involve making a great variety of styles and designs of quilts. One such style is the patchwork quilt. These days, patchwork quilts are traditionally made from scraps which have been left over from previous sewing projects, although pre-cut pieces are readily available in stores.
Something every quilter is aware of is that not all fabric scraps are suitable for quilting. Loosely woven fabrics (for example, muslin) are weak and prone to easily distort. On the other hand, tightly woven fabrics, such as ticking, are not flexible enough and are difficult to stitch.
Cotton is considered to be the best fabric to use, especially for beginning, inexperienced quilters. After quilters become more experienced, they may add additional fabrics, such as silk or lightweight wool.
Express Yourself with a Crazy Quilt
In the world of traditional quilting, a quilt block is a precise and rigidly defined geometric shape that must be repeated. While this sense of structure can be comforting to the creator of the quilt, it doesn’t hurt to try something a bit more spontaneous from time to time. Enter another, less predictable form of quilt making: crazy quilting. As the name suggests, you’re free to be as creative and zany as you see fit while patching together these works of art.
Crafting a visually appealing crazy quilt isn’t as simple as stitching together a few random patches. There should still be a method to your madness. Keep a rough design of the finished product in your mind at all times, focusing on creating a stark contrast between patches. You can use ribbons, lace and even buttons to embellish the quilt along its stitching.
Quilt making has remained a popular pastime over the years. Because there are so many fabrics and designs available to the quilter, we can understand why quilt making and quilt collecting have become a passion with many people. An old, but still popular method of quilt making is the process of making quilt blocks and combining them to form a chosen pattern or design.
The quilt pictured here was made by my mother-in-law when she was over 90 years old. The colors are soft pastels of mainly pinks and a little blue, with various small roses and other flowers. There are 567 quilt squares in this particular quilt, and at the time, she made a total of 9 quilts, one for each of her 4 children, and one each for 5 of her 6 grandchildren. (This quilt is very large. For the photo it was folded in half longways and draped over the clothesline so what you see is only a portion of it.) I have no idea how much time she spent making these as it was quite a surprise when she gave them to all of us. I do know that these are gorgeous and very nicely made. I really love mine.