Book Review: Walking Foot Quilting Designs

One of the problems that many quilters have is how to free motion quilt their projects. If you are one of those quilters, I can reassure you that you don’t have to. What?! Yes, you do have to get your quilt sandwich stitched together, but you don’t have to do this with free motion quilting: you can quilt your projects using your walking foot.

I recently discovered “Walking Foot Quilting Designs” by Melissa Marginet and wanted to share this book with you.

Walking Foot Quilting Designs is a small book that is packed with helpful walking foot quilting designs. As it is coil bound, you can have it right next to your sewing machine so you can easily refer to it as you are stitching out one of the designs. I really like this idea, because it is so very helpful to have the quilting information close at hand.

Melissa includes information at the beginning of the book about using your walking foot to quilt your quilts so you can get yourself and your machine properly set up. The book itself is divided into sections so you can quickly go to the one in which you are interested. You’ll find triangle designs, spiral designs, etc.

Each design is broken into several steps so you know exactly how to create it on your own sewing machine. The first lines that you’ll be stitching are in red in Step 1 and then these lines are shown in black in Step 2 to indicate that they have already been stitched. This makes it obvious which part of the design has already been stitched and what your next stitching will be.

Melissa also includes variations of the different designs as well as designs appropriate for borders and corners.

I think that the book will be helpful for both beginner quilters and more advanced ones: beginners could choose to stitch the initial part of the design, while more experienced quilters could do all of the steps for added complexity.

To see more of Walking Foot Quilting Designs, you can watch the video below or on my YouTube channel.

Using your walking foot to quilt is a great way to become familiar with the technique of quilting a project and to build your confidence so you are ready to eventually tackle free motion quilting… or you might just stay with walking foot quilting.

You can get your own copy of Walking Foot Quilting Designs from Melissa at http://www.melissamarginet.ca/.

Creatively,

Download the free Get Out of the Ditch! guide to learn how to start free motion quilting by clicking here.

P.S. Did you know that you can sign up to receive FREE emails full of quilting goodness? Just click here to receive FREE content directly in your email inbox every few weeks from Chatterbox Quilts. I know you'll be glad you did!

Revised Blogpost: Best Quilting Gift Ideas for Christmas

There was a bit of a problem with the links in the initial blogpost, so I'm resending it to you with everything corrected. Sorry about that!

Ho Ho Ho!

With Christmas fast approaching, I'm sure you are almost done your shopping, right? I'm not hearing a lot of positive responses. I am still at the beginning of my Christmas shopping, but as long as I have a list, that's okay. It's when I haven't a clue what to get anyone that things become stressful. Like this year...

If you're struggling to come up with ideas for the quilter on your list, stress no more. I've come up with a selection of gifts to fit every budget and every quilter. 

If you're looking for a practical stocking stuffer, you can't go wrong with a set of snips or a magnetic pincushion. There never seem to be enough of these around my house.

Maybe your friend loves quilting books. I've included a few of my favourites for the holiday season. Whether they love to paper piece or appliqué or just plain piece, I've got you covered.

For the free motion afficionado in your circle, you can't go wrong with a set of Machingers or a Supreme Slider: both essential to make free motion quilting the easiest technique ever.

Now, maybe you don't need to get a gift for a friend, but want to hint at a gift for yourself. Just direct your favourite quilter enabler to the list.

I hope this helps you with some quilty gifts for Christmas. Happy shopping!

Creatively,

I am an Amazon affiliate and as such will receive a small amount of monetary compensation should you purchase products by clicking through the links in this blogpost. Thanks for helping me to continue to create free content and videos.

Best Quilting Gift Ideas for Christmas

Ho Ho Ho!

With Christmas fast approaching, I'm sure you are almost done your shopping, right? I'm not hearing a lot of positive responses. I am still at the beginning of my Christmas shopping, but as long as I have a list, that's okay. It's when I haven't a clue what to get anyone that things become stressful. Like this year...

If you're struggling to come up with ideas for the quilter on your list, stress no more. I've come up with a selection of gifts to fit every budget and every quilter. 

If you're looking for a practical stocking stuffer, you can't go wrong with a set of snips or a magnetic pincushion. There never seem to be enough of these around my house.

Maybe your friend loves quilting books. I've included a few of my favourites for the holiday season. Whether they love to paper piece or appliqué or just plain piece, I've got you covered.

For the free motion afficionado in your circle, you can't go wrong with a set of Machingers or a Supreme Slider: both essential to make free motion quilting the easiest technique ever.

Now, maybe you don't need to get a gift for a friend, but want to hint at a gift for yourself. Just direct your favourite quilter enabler to the list.

I hope this helps you with some quilty gifts for Christmas. Happy shopping!

Creatively,

How to Make Hanging Tabs for Your Wall Hangings

You know I try to avoid extra work when I'm quilting whenever possible, right? This thinking also extends to what I use to hang my wall hanging. I could add a hanging sleeve to the back of my projects, but this would mean that I would have to hand stitch the bottom of the hanging sleeve to the back of the wall hanging. I try to avoid this if I can...and I can!

How do I avoid this extra hand stitching? By adding hanging tabs, rather than a hanging sleeve, to the back of my wall hangings.

These are really quick to make and work for a lot of different sized projects. While I typically use two tabs for a project, you could always add more, depending on the size of your wall hanging. 

Watch the video below or on my YouTube channel to see how to make these easy hanging tabs.

View fullsize

Do you use hanging sleeves on the back of your wall hangings? Leave me a Comment below to let me know what you use to keep your projects on the wall.

Creatively,

P.S. Did you know that Chatterbox Quilts provides FREE content to those on our mailing list? Yes, we do! Sign up here to receive FREE content directly in your email inbox every few weeks from Chatterbox Quilts. You'll be glad you did :)

Decorative Stitches on the Janome 9400

Almost every sewing machine that you can buy has decorative stitches on it. Some have only a few of these stitches on them while other sewing machines have lots of them. The Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP has hundreds of decorative stitches on it and the ability to create more of these by not only altering the length and/or width of the stitches, but also by flipping them horizontally and/or vertically. 

There are so many decorative stitches on the Janome 9400, that it could be quite confusing, but it's not since the stitches are arranged into categories, such as Appliqué, Heirloom, Utility and so on. This categorization makes it quite simple to find a stitch the will suit your purpose. 

Watch the video below or on my YouTube channel to learn all about selecting and altering the stitches on the Janome 9400.

Do you use decorative stitches in your sewing or quilting projects? Leave a comment below to let me know how you use these types of stitches in your projects.

Creatively,

P.S. Did you know that Chatterbox Quilts provides FREE content to those on our mailing list? Yes, we do! Sign up here to receive FREE content directly in your email inbox every few weeks from Chatterbox Quilts. You'll be glad you did :)