I’ve been blogging for QUILTsocial since June 2014. For 20 years I designed and published quilt patterns under the business name Fairfield Road Designs. Since 2004 I’ve also designed patterns with my friend and business partner Nellie Holmes, under the business name Upper Canada Quiltworks. Our patterns range from fusible applique and pieced quilts to felted wool applique and punchneedle. We sell our patterns on our website www.uppercanadaquiltworks.com where we also offer a variety of hand dyed wools, wool applique kits, Valdani threads, punchneedle and embroidery supplies and much more.
Walking foot versus free motion – it’s all about the feed dogs! There are different ways that you can quilt by machine. One way is to use your walking foot which has feet dogs that work with the sewing machine feed dogs to help keep the quilt layers from shifting…
Using Spagetti for machine quilting Yes, you heard that right – I’m going to try machine quilting with Spagetti – the THREAD that is!! I’ve already used the Spagetti and Fruitti threads on my home sewing machine (and they worked beautifully) but I do most of my machine quilting on…
Measure and trim Well, today is Friday, so I need to get this pillow done so I can use it on the weekend! There are just a few more steps to do and then the sewing will be finished. The first thing that we need to do is to measure…
My final design Although I liked all of the design versions that I came up with yesterday, when I placed the appliques in a line down the side of the pillow, I was most happy with the way it looked. Because the quilting lines were on an angle, it was…
My quilted top After stitching one direction with the blue variegated Fruitti thread and the other direction with the teal variegated Fruitti thread, my 2” grid of quilting is all finished. Now I just need to prepare my fusible applique hexagons and decide where to place them! Preparing the fusible…