I hate the statement “Quilt As Desired”!

If you’re like me, you shudder when you hear the words, “Quilt as desired” in the pattern instructions. This is so not helpful for someone who has never quilted a quilt before. How could you be expected to know what you should quilt on your first project? You would think that the pattern design would have some idea about what would look good on their design.

So not fair!

Choosing a quilt motif can be intimidating for even experienced quilters. I recently was talking with Sharon Blackmore of Love Shack Quilts about just this topic when we were doing some filming at my studio for my online club, The Quilter’s Way. One of the most surprising comments that she made to me was that even the most proficient quilter, like Sharon, still feels some uncertainty and anxiety when deciding how to quilt a show quilt. Fortunately, Sharon has lots of experience and she can fall back on her tried and true formulas to get amazing results. She has a system that she uses that helps her make these choices.

I also have a system you can use to help you decide what quilt motif to choose and I’m going to share it with you now. It’s very simple, but it works for most situations:

Contrast Works in Quilting

Use a quilt motif that is contrasting to the type of piecing or designs in the quilt. This makes for a much more interesting finished quilt even if you are just adding the quilting for texture. If the quilt has straight lines in it, try some curvy quilt motifs. If the quilt has curvy lines in it, try some straight-line quilting or could even do walking foot quilting.

Consider the Fabric

If the fabrics in the quilt top are really busy, there’s no point in doing custom quilting with a variety of motifs and quite dense quilting. You won’t see it, so don’t waste your time doing it. Stick to a simple repeating design.

Consider the Use

I also like to consider the use of the quilt before I decide on a quilt motif and even how much quilting I put into the project. A child’s quilt doesn’t merit dense custom quilting, but you do want to be sure that the quilting you do will stand up to multiple washes and lots of dragging around the floor. A 50th anniversary wedding quilt is one of those special, once in a lifetime projects, that definitely merits dense, custom quilting, but only if you don’t expect to use it on a bed.

It isn’t as hard to choose a quilt motif for your quilt when you have some guidelines in place. If you would like to browse some books for ideas you should visit my Free Motion Quilting Books kit where I have gathered together all my favourite books about free motion quilting. Just click here.

Keep practicing!

Creatively,

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

P.S. Do you strive to improve your quilting skills? Do you want to have fun doing it? Do you want to meet other quilters in a supportive, safe environment?  If you answered “yes” to these questions, you need to join The Quilter’s Way. The Quilter’s Way is the only quilting membership site that includes both training and an active, supportive online community. It’s not your grandmother’s quilting circle! Don’t wait another day! Join now.

P.S. I am an Amazon affiliate and, if you purchase items by clicking through the links in this post, I will receive a small amount of commission. This doesn’t cost you any more $$$, but helps me to continue creating free content for you. Thanks!

Invest In Your Quilting

Everyone loves a great deal! The exhilaration of acquiring something at a good price can be addicting but can also lead to shortchanging yourself when you apply it to quilting. Everyone has a budget when it comes to the amount of money they can spend on quilting. Being frugal with your $$$ is not necessarily a bad thing, however you need to invest in your passion instead of cost cutting yourself to death.

What do I mean by this? You need to change your mindset.

Stop thinking about your quilting in terms of how much money you spend on quilting – a cost - but rather how happy it makes you – an investment in your well-being. This means being cost effective but not stingy. Invest rather than spend and be frugal rather than a penny pincher. Invest your time, your money, and yourself wisely: assess your investments by their value rather than solely by their cost/price.

Time

In some ways time is the greatest investment that you will make in your quilting but it is often the most misunderstood. Your time is valuable, you have a finite amount and can’t make any more, but so many people use it poorly. Why do we think it’s good value to spend half an hour driving across town to save a few cents on gas at a cheaper gas station but get impatient with ourselves when we are taking “too long” to complete a quilt? The decision to drive across town is basically saying that your time is “free” (i.e. worthless) while your impatience with your quilting is saying that your time is more “valuable” than the quilt that you are making.

I think that we are wrong in both cases. All you have to do is think about a charity quilt to see that your time is worth more than “free” and that the time you invest in a project is worth every minute. A charity quilt is worth much more than just the fabric you used. You put your time, heart, soul and hard-won expertise into it. Imagine what it would have cost if you had to pay someone to make it from scratch including buying the tools, etc. Think about the value to the person who’s getting it. It isn’t just a large piece of fabric to them so why do we sometimes begrudge the time we invested in it. Stop wasting time on low value activities and invest it in your passions, one of which is your quilting.

Money

A quilter’s relationship with money can be weird. Often we spend too much thinking about cost and not enough about value. We worry about costs but then get tempted by a “sale”. We build up a stash that we will never use, accumulate tools that are of minimal use and then we worry about spending money on good quality tools, thread or fabric. Think about the value of tools fabric, threads or other investments in your quilting in the context of time saved, improved quality, and the beauty of the final product instead of the cost. Being frugal is good but often spending a little more on something of better value or quality is a better investment in the long run. I am sure you have all experienced the frustration of working with a poor quality, tool, machine, fabric or thread. It sometimes is enough to make you question whether you should quilt at all! Why put yourself in this situation just to save a little money? Focus on investment rather than cost.

Yourself

Your greatest quilting asset is you so take care of yourself! You need to invest in yourself the same way you invest in the other tools in your studio. You should consider ergonomics when buying tools and equipment. You need to maintain yourself physically and mentally with a healthy lifestyle (chocolate is healthy!). Perform your quilting in ways that don’t injure your body or affect your mindset in negative ways. There is only one of you, so invest in yourself so that you can pursue your passion for a long time.

Invest

As an example, I recently invested in a course on precision piecing. It wasn’t exactly cheap (about $200) but it was amazing. I wish that I had made the investment in time and money at lot earlier. Although I am an experienced quilter I still occasionally have trouble getting my blocks to line up. After this course I now know that an investment in time early in the project (i.e. cutting) will save me time, frustration and even money later in the project. I have used the tips I learned in my course already as I work on my Half Square Triangle Quilt Along and the quilt is coming together so much easier. I know that this knowledge will pay off for the rest of my quilting “career”. I wish I had done it sooner!

Remember, look at quilting as a long-term investment rather than a costly hobby. Treat your time as valuable and use it accordingly. Use your money wisely but make buying decisions that consider the long term. Invest in your mental and physical well being so that you can enjoy your passion for many years.

Quilting is your passion, so make the investment!

Creatively,

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

P.S. Do you strive to improve your quilting skills? Do you want to have fun doing it? Do you want to meet other quilters in a supportive, safe environment?  If you answered “yes” to these questions, you need to join The Quilter’s Way. The Quilter’s Way is the only quilting membership site that includes both training and an active, supportive online community. It’s not your grandmother’s quilting circle! Don’t wait another day! Join now.

P.S. I am an Amazon affiliate and, if you purchase items by clicking through the links in this post, I will receive a small amount of commission. This doesn’t cost you any more $$$, but helps me to continue creating free content for you. Thanks!

Lack of Time is Just an Excuse!

“There is never enough time!” is a common refrain that I hear from most quilters. While it would be fun to quilt 24/7, the sad reality is that we all have other demands on our time. That leaves us with two choices: carve out more time to quilt or make better use of the quilting time that we have. There are only 24 hours in a day and you have many demands on your time so the hard-to-accept truth is that something has to give. If you are serious about making more time to quilt, you are going to have to make some changes in the way you approach your life.

Make Quilting a Priority

If you truly want to quilt, then you have to make it a priority. You can make room in your schedule for quilting by reducing the time spent on other less important activities in your life. Identify the time wasters and eliminate them. This may mean turning off the TV or Netflix (one of my biggest time wasters), closing that oh-so-hard-to-put-down book, getting off the phone or at least limiting the time you spend on each call, or turning off the computer (but not while you are reading this article!). Eliminate time wasters and only do the things that are at least as important as quilting. It’s your life so you will need to decide what specific activities you will eliminate, but be brutal – remember, every minute spent on an unimportant task is a minute that you could be creating something wonderful in your quilt studio.

Organize Your Life

Now that you have decided to make quilting a priority, organize the other aspects of your life so that you can arrange to set aside good-sized chunks of time to focus on quilting with no distractions. Batch tasks together so that you can get them accomplished at the same time. For example, run all your errands on the same car trip so you don’t waste time driving back and forth. Automate tasks so that they happen with minimal supervision. A good example of this is programming your washer to start early in the morning. That way when you wake up you can put the wet clothes in the drier and have them drying while you eat your breakfast. There are thousands of ways to organize your life to free up time for quilting: it just requires making the effort to step back, find efficiencies, and then change your habits.

Enlist Your Friends and Family

Your friends and family are going to notice when you start prioritizing quilting and reorganizing your time so you may as well enlist them in the process. They will have to make adjustments as you become more jealous of your quilting time and more organized in your schedule but if you let them know why you are doing it they will eventually come around. Spouses can be resistant to change, especially if you have spoiled them by arranging your life around their interests. You may need to have the “talk” about why it is okay that they disappear for 3 hours at a time to play golf, hockey, soccer, etc., but it is not okay when you schedule 3 hours of quilting. You may need to have this talk more than once but most people that care for you will be willing to make the necessary adjustments. Be persistent, but realize that it may take them a little time to adjust to the new schedule. Be selfish – you are worth it! One easy example is to pick a day of the week where dinner is take-out or, even better, delivered. This allows you to use the time you would have spent preparing dinner to quilt and your family can have a treat for dinner. A win all around! It may not be the cheapest way to eat but if you order out occasionally anyway then do it strategically so that you can use the freed-up time to quilt.

The key to getting more time to quilt is to make quilting a priority, organize your life to allocate more time to quilt, and enlist your friends and family to support you. You will be amazed at how much time becomes available once you make a determined effort to find it.

You may be interested in the guide “Time Saving Tips for Quilters” where I have compiled a list of time saving tips. Click here is you want more information.

Creatively,

P.S. Do you strive to improve your quilting skills? Do you want to have fun doing it? Do you want to meet other quilters in a supportive, safe environment?  If you answered “yes” to these questions, you need to join The Quilter’s Way. The Quilter’s Way is the only quilting membership site that includes both training and an active, supportive online community. It’s not your grandmother’s quilting circle! Don’t wait another day! Join now.

P.S. I am an Amazon affiliate and, if you purchase items by clicking through the links in this post, I will receive a small amount of commission. This doesn’t cost you any more $$$, but helps me to continue creating free content for you. Thanks!

You Deserve to Quilt!

The reason people don’t find time to quilt is that they don’t prioritize it … and the reason they don’t prioritize it is that they don’t believe they deserve to spend time quilting. Your hobby is as important, or more so, than many other things in your life that take up your time.

You deserve to quilt!

It is your calling, your passion, your creative outlet. It brings you satisfaction, fulfilment, and joy. It’s good for your mind and is relaxing as well. You work hard every day, so why shouldn’t you have the opportunity to do your craft? It isn’t fair that you can find time to do lots of other things, but can’t find the time to quilt. If quilting were a priority, you would make time for it.

Everyone has responsibilities and sometimes they seem to suck up all your available time, but the reality is if something is important enough, you would find a way to do it. We always find time for our priorities, don’t we? We just don’t make quilting a priority as we do with other things in our lives.

When quilters say that they don’t have time to quilt, what they are really saying is that they don’t make quilting a priority in their life. This article is your call-to-action to make quilting a priority in your life.

Why should your creative passion take a back seat to other, and sometimes other’s, priorities?

Let’s explore a few examples which might sound familiar to you:

A person decides to spend at least $50 and 4 hours every Saturday to pursue their passion. They meet with their friends, share the experience and may even have lunch as part of the time away from home. If this person is your husband (the golfer) he probably arrives home happy and fulfilled and ready to start his weekend. If this person is you (the quilter) then you probably arrive home feeling guilty from shirking your family responsibilities and may encounter at least one family member who is complaining that someone did not make them their lunch. Okay, maybe that’s just in my household.

What is wrong with this picture?! First of all, it is unlikely that you spend $50 every weekend on quilting (hopefully you’re not like me!) and secondly, the time spent on your passion results in a beautiful creation whereas all the golfer has to show for his money and time is a (hopefully) good score and a sunburn.

Let’s look at another example.

It is the day of your bi-monthly quilt guild meeting and you are really excited about tthat evening’s program. Around 4 o’clock your son/daughter phones and asks if you can babysit the grandkids because there is a movie he/she wants to go to with their spouse. You say yes because you love your grandkids, but why should you have to make this choice? Being a grandparent doesn’t mean you are an unpaid babysitter on call 24/7 and why should your passion take second place to everyone else’s priorities?

And my last example:

As a special treat, you spend a weekend at an out of town quilting retreat. You have a great time and get an amazing amount of work done. Your project is coming along perfectly and you have had a wonderful time with your quilting buddies. You walk in the door and your good mood evaporates as you realize that nothing has been done since you left. All the housework is still sitting there unfinished and your family is waiting for you to prepare dinner.

Why do we put up with this?

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar to you? You will always have responsibilities, but if you’re tired of never finding time for your quilting, it’s time you took control of your life and managed it so that you can find that time to quilt. No one else is going to do it for you so you need to learn how to organize your life so that you can carve out the time you need for quilting.

There is no guilt in wanting to spend time doing what is important to you and feeds your soul.

Less Guilt – More Quilt!

Creatively,

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

P.S. Do you strive to improve your quilting skills? Do you want to have fun doing it? Do you want to meet other quilters in a supportive, safe environment?  If you answered “yes” to these questions, you need to join The Quilter’s Way. The Quilter’s Way is the only quilting membership site that includes both training and an active, supportive online community. It’s not your grandmother’s quilting circle! Don’t wait another day! Join now.

P.S. I am an Amazon affiliate and, if you purchase items by clicking through the links in this post, I will receive a small amount of commission. This doesn’t cost you any more $$$, but helps me to continue creating free content for you. Thanks!

How to Quilt as You Go

Have you tried the Quilt as You Go or QAYG (try and pronounce that acronym!)? If you haven’t, you’ll have to try it. It is fun and, while you can create a regular block with it, I like to use an improvisational approach to this technique.

We’re going to work on a QAYG block together and you’ll need:

• Batting - cut into a square, whatever size you prefer (I used a 9 1/2” square)

• Fabric Scraps

• Scissors or rotary cutter and mat

• Seam roller (I loved using my Violet Craft seam roller in this project) or iron

• Sewing machine

What you’re going to be doing is adding fabric scraps onto the batting ala log cabin technique, either adding each new scrap in a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction. You’ll be sewing the fabrics right to the batting and doing additional quilting on them too.

Lay your first scrap down on the batting, right side up and then add the second scrap, right side down, being sure to align the raw edges that you’ll be stitching together. Piece them together with a 1/4” seam, just as you would for any block. The nice thing about this technique is that you don’t have to be too accurate with your 1/4” seam, but don’t let this stop you from using this to practice achieving an accurate one.

After you have pressed open these pieces, you will be adding additional quilting stitches to them. Traditionally, quilters would add straight lines of stitching, parallel to the seam line. For my block, I wanted to utilize the stitches on the Janome MC9450 and while I could’ve chosen from the hundreds of fancy decorative stitches, I decided to see what utility stitches would look like when used as quilting stitches. Guess what? They looked really great!

To see exactly how to create this improvisational QAYG block, click on the image below.

Have you ever tried QAYG with decorative or utility stitches? Let me know in the Comments below how your block/project turned out.

If you’d like to get your own Violet Craft seam roller, click here.

Creatively,

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

P.S. Do you strive to improve your quilting skills? Do you want to have fun doing it? Do you want to meet other quilters in a supportive, safe environment?  If you answered “yes” to these questions, you need to join The Quilter’s Way. The Quilter’s Way is the only quilting membership site that includes both training and an active, supportive online community. It’s not your grandmother’s quilting circle! Don’t wait another day! Join now.

P.P.S. Did you know that you can sign up to receive emails full of FREE quilting goodness? 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!

P.S. I am an Amazon affiliate and, if you purchase items by clicking through the links in this post, I will receive a small amount of commission. This doesn’t cost you any more $$$, but helps me to continue creating free content for you. Thanks!