My favorite tip(s)! – day 9 in blog writing challenge

Good morning!

Now this is one of my favorite topics! I love sharing tips that I learned over time that can help anyone in their quilt making. And here is a bit of a shameful confession: some years ago I started to do a regular blog posts every Tuesday, called “Each One Teach One Tuesday” and somehow I … ran out of steam doing it? I don’t know really what happened… but as I said, I really love sharing those, and I just might get that back on the schedule in 2021!

But for now, I will bring back some that I know were useful to many before and among the most basic, but perhaps most widely useful is my tip about 1/4″ seam allowance and how to achieve it. Of course many of you might already have a 1/4″ foot and even the one with the guide, like one here

I do use this one and like it but not all the time. And here is the thing – not everyone has one of those or the machine brand that you can get it for, specially if you just started quilting. However in my book – everyone should be able to do that coveted, accurate and really needed 1/4″ seam, specially if you are beginner.

HA! – just as you might think I accidentally have a wrong photo in this blog post, I am here to show you this little “gadget”. (can you even call this a gadget? LOL!) But this is the best tip I ever learned, when I just started quilting and took a great class from one of the master quilters, Sharyn Craig. Dr. Scholl’s Molefoam Padding, cut into strips, makes an excellent 1/4″ seam guide!

Everyone can get it (of course it doesn’t have to be Dr. Scholl’s brand!), it is self-sticky and can be re-used many times and in my tutorial I wrote many years ago, I will show you how you place it accurately on your machine and have that exact 1/4″ seam allowance or the “scant” 1/4′ if needed.

What I like the most about this, besides being available to ANYONE, regardless of the machine you have, is that it provides a longer guide ahead of your presser foot, that is specially helpful in strip-piecing or if you are new at all this. I gave this to each and every of my absolute beginner quilting students and they all found it very, very helpful.

So if you think you might want to try it out, click HERE to find out exactly how to put it on and test that is it good and accurate.

In writing this blog post I was also prompted to start working on my blog organization more – see that page (tab) on the very top that says “free patterns and tutorials” ? It did say “under construction” until now since I am trying to learn all ins and outs of the WordPress and how to make this really good, but I decided I can at least start a page that simply has all the links to the older posts that have tutorials and tips – that I know how to do! So just click on that tab on top of the page, or simply HERE to see what I have listed so far. Fair warning – these are older tutorials, made before I knew better about good photography and some even done with my small digital camera (before smart phones! really? how did we live then? ). But I hope they are useful and informative for you – you will find my tips about basics of rotary cutting, strip-piecing, machine stitched binding and more to come soon.

I hope and am working towards making many more tutorials and sharing tips I know and learn with you. Let me know if there is something specific you would like to see?

See you all back here tomorrow,

Love,

Marija