Quilting Tips

The Hardware Dept. is your best friend

Laser Level and Square

When The way I square my quilts up is by using this handy tool found right in Home Depot, Lowes or your fave hardware store. The laser beams shoot out horizonally and vertically. I take a chalk pencil and make dashes where I need to rotary cut if the quilt isn't square. Voila!

 

Bias Minder

 

 

When traveling to your quilt guild, sewing group, a class, or just about anywhere that requires you to take along bias tape, you may experience your freshly made tape becoming wrinkled. I have found a handy solution to that problem. While at the local hardware store with my husband, I always peruse the aisles to see how I can adapt a "hardware thing" into my quilting life. When I discovered PVC pipe and caps to fit the end, you would have thought I had won the lottery.

 

Materials Needed

  1. 2" Plastic PVC pipe cut to any length suitable for you needs. Mine is 13" long. Many times someone at the hardware store will cut it to any length you ask for.
  2. Plastic PVC cap ends
  3. Sandpaper, to lightly sand the rough edges of the pipe.
  4. Pretty contact paper, if you would like to cover the end caps and pipe.

Inside the tube, you can store your bias-tape makers, celtic press bars, pins, rolled fabric, small scissors, and tape. When you make bias tape simply wrap it around the tube and pin the end to keep it wrinkle free, and it travels very nicely.

Just a Few Applique Hints that Have Helped Me

  • When sitting in the evening and sewing, I like to have on my lap, either a pillow or one of those writing trays that have a bean bag adhered to the underside. It is better than balancing everything on your lap!
  • A nice tip from Doreen Speckman on a "Math-magical" formula for bias binding strips:
    1. Measure the number of inches around the edge of the quilt.
    2. Multiply that number by the width you wish to cut the binding strips.
    3. Calculate the square root of this number by pushing the square root key on your calculator. This number tells you what size fabric square will give you bias strips in the width you want.
    4. Add 2 or 3 inches to this number to make up for the seam allowances. Then cut the square of fabric this size from
    which you can prepare the bias binding strips for the quilt or project!

Fabric Calculator - Let this little machine do the work for you, just click here.