How do I get started?
What basic equipment do I need to start patchwork?
Should I pre-wash my fabric?
Any tips about Rotary Cutting?
Why a quarter inch seam allowance?
What colour thread should I use?
How do I attach a Hanging Sleeve?
Glossary: For those technical terms
How do I get started?
By purchasing one of our starter kits, or coming to one of our workshops of course!
Start with projects that are technically simple and not too big. Some people can start a large bed quilt and complete it, but most of us would be overwhelmed and give up. Something you can complete in a day like a cushion, bag or small wall hanging is more likely to get finished and leave you eager for the next project.
Books aimed at beginners can be a great source of both useful techniques and easy projects. We have a number in our shop.
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What basic equipment do I need to start patchwork?
Several pairs of scissors (one small and one large for fabric and one for paper)
Iron and ironing board
Marking tools: pencils, chalk markers, fine-point permanent marker (such as Pilot or Sharpie®)
Needles: package of sharps (for hand piecing), assorted sizes: package of betweens (for hand quilting), size Nos. 8 to 12
Quilting hoop or frame
Pins and pincushion
Rotary cutter and mat (at least A3 - 18" x 24")
Rulers: 6" x 18" ; clear acrylic 12" square; clear acrylic 6" x 24" (for use with a rotary cutter)
Sewing machine (for machine piecing)
Thimble to fit the middle finger of your sewing hand
Threads: nylon monofilament thread, size .004 (for machine quilting); quilting thread (for hand quilting); sewing thread – see the FAQ about thread colours
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Should I pre-wash my fabric?
It is important to pre-wash fabric for three reasons:
- to preshrink it before cutting and sewing.
- to remove any chemicals used to “dress” the fabric that may damage fibres over time.
- to remove excess dyes that may bleed into other adjoining fabrics.
Be sure to wash only similar colours at the same time (i.e. all darks or all lights).
I wash my larger pieces of fabric on a wool wash and then give them an extra spin. Very small pieces of fabric should be hand washed. Use warm water and just swish the pieces around, changing the water often, until the water remains clear of dye. Whichever method you use, you must iron your fabric to complete the shrinking process.
It’s useful to develop a system (such as cutting off a small amount off the corner(s) or a V) so that you can tell the fabrics you’ve washed from those you which you haven’t
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Any tips about Rotary Cutting?
Maintain an even pressure on the rotary cutter downward next to the ruler, but not pushing against it.
The cutter must be completely vertical, not angled towards either side.
Cutting too long a stroke, beyond a comfortable arm's reach can cause the pressure downwards and sideways to vary and result in a moving ruler and irregular fabric cuts. It is better to cut 6 or 12 inches and then carefully move fabric and ruler, realigning cut edge accurately, than to try to cut 18 or 24 inches or more if it requires than you reach too far to maintain the correct angle and pressure on the rotary cutter.
Cutting fabric requires relaxed hands, flexible joints and close attention. It is too easy to let your pressure vary as your mind wanders away from the task at hand.
It is also very important that your rotary blade be sharp. Dull blades, like dull knives, are difficult and dangerous to use.
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Why a quarter inch seam allowance?
This is the standard seam allowance in patchwork. It reduces bulk in the finished work, making it easier to quilt over the surface. It is very important that this seam allowance remain consistent. Variations of even a couple threads often cause blocks that are not square and points that disappear.
There are several ways to sew an accurate 1/4" seam:
1) offsetting needle to achieve 1/4" (you may find your needle position is not that accurate. Test your sewing machine by sewing with your needle and no thread into a piece of paper, until you figure out if you can get a perfect 1/4 inch seam allowance)
2) using 1/4" foot (a universal foot is available in our shop)
3) marking the machine bed with one of the following:
> taped credit card (edge remains stiff)
> masking tape (edge wears away with continual use)
> magic marker (wears away over time and provides only a visual guide)
> piece of card (provides an edge but it will wear away with continual use)
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What colour thread should I use?
This is a personal choice like everything else in quilting, but here are some suggestions:
For piecing:
Use a neutral colour such as tan, brown, black, white or gray, whichever looks best with your fabrics, unless there is a dominant colour when you may prefer to use a matching thread.
For applique:
Use the same color thread as the dominant color of the applique fabric, not the background fabric. You may need to change thread to match each patch.
For quilting, hand or machine:
If I am quilting in the ditch, I use a matching thread. Otherwise, I like to use a variegated quilting thread that either matches or compliments the colour(s) of the quilt.
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How do I attach a Hanging Sleeve?
1) Cut a 10"-wide strip of washed muslin or cotton fabric, making it 1" shorter than top edge of quilt.
2) Turn under and press 1/2" at each short end, then turn and press again. Stitch in place.
3) With wrong sides together, stitch long edges together 1/4" from raw edges. Press seam open and centre it in the tube you've created.
4) Slipstitch the top edge of the tube to the quilt backing about 1" below the inner edge of the binding.
5) Pin lower edge of sleeve to backing, placing pins 1/4" from lower edge. Turn the folded sleeve edge up and slipstitch sleeve to quilt backing, catching only the lower layer of sleeve. This allows for a little slack so the sleeve takes the weight of hanging, not the quilt. Make sure that the stitches go through only the backing fabric—they should not be visible on the quilt surface.
6) Slip a rod or pole through sleeve and hang in desired location on nails or decorative brackets.
That was simple wasn't it - don't forget the glossary for those technical terms!
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Glossary
Appliqué: The term "appliqué" literally means to apply one layer of fabric over another. The underneath fabric is called the background and the patches sewn onto the background are called appliqués.
There are a variety of techniques for hand appliqué, and some designs better suit one or another of these techniques. Appliqué that is constructed over paper templates gives good edges especially for curved edges. This technique was often used for Baltimore Album quilts.
However, nowadays many quilters prefer the "needle turn" technique that has narrow seams and no paper templates. The aim of both these methods is to create invisible stitches. Therefore the stitches are tiny, placed vertically rather than the traditional rope-like stitches of hem-stitch.
Another technique that has become very popular is the "Blanket Stitch" technique. This technique is usually associated with country style and naive style quilts. This can also be done on your sewing machine provided your machine has this stitch.
Bearding: This describes the migration of wadding fibres through the quilt backing or quilt top; it can be particularly noticeable on dark solid fabric.
Between Needle: It is a short needle with a small eye that is used for hand quilting. It comes in several sizes 7-10 and 12, with the higher number denoting the smaller needle.
Bias: It is the diagonal grain of the fabric which has considerable stretch.
Blind Stitch: often used in sewing appliqué in place by hand. It leaves only a tiny bit of thread showing on front of the quilt; stitches should be no more than 1/8" apart.
Binding: A strip of fabric which is folded over the edge of a quilt. The binding encloses the raw edges of the quilt top, back and batting and is the finishing step in completing a quilt. Bindings can be cut on the straight of grain of the fabric or on the bias if the binding is to cover edges which are curved.
Block: The pieces of fabric that are sewn together to form one design element; usually it is square.
Border: When all the squares of a quilt are sewn together to form a top, usually another strip is sewn to the edges of the top to either make it larger, frame it, or add design elements.
Charm Quilts: Usually a quilt made using only one shape, such as a triangle or hexagon, where every single shape is a different piece of fabric. No fabric is repeated in the quilt.
Charm Square: A square of fabric exchanged by quilters who wish to make a charm quilt. While the size of the charm square may vary, 5" tends to be the most common size square exchanged.
Colour Wheel: colours arranged in a circle in such a way that the colours blend in sequence; a simple 12-step wheel is arranged in the following order: blue, blue/green, green, yellow/green, yellow, yellow/orange, orange, red/orange, red, red/purple, purple, blue/purple.
Crazy Quilt: popular in the late-19th century and constructed on a muslin foundation fabric, it consists of random shaped pieces of satin, silk, velvet. It can be sewn by hand or machine. The seams are usually embroidered and the patchwork is often embellished with lace and/or beads. It does not usually have wadding.
Crib Size: a crib mattress size is 28"x52".
Cross-Hatching: parallel lines of quilting that run in two directions, forming either a grid of squares or diamonds.
Crosswise Grain: sometimes called weft or filling threads, this refers to the fabric threads that go from selvedge to selvedge. It has very little stretch.
Echo quilting: This is where the quilting outlines the block pattern or appliqué shapes (often on Hawaiian quilts) in concentric rings or shapes, usually about 1/2" apart.
Embellish: to add decorative stitching, lace, buttons, etc...to a quilt; Crazy Quilts are lavishly embellished.
English Piecing: A traditional hand technique for piecing where a freezer paper is cut the exact size of the finished patch and the fabric (a quarter of an inch larger) is tacked over the paper. Patches are then placed face to face and joined with an overcast stitch. The tacking is taken out and the paper removed once the patches are joined.
Fat Eighth: A fat eighth measures about 25cm x 11", (rather than a 1/8 metre cut across the full width of the fabric, measuring 12.5cm x 44").
Fat Quarter: It is the most common fabric measurement for patchwork.
A fat quarter is a piece of cloth, taken from one metre of fabric, cut in half lengthwise, and in half width wise, rather than lengthwise. This is often a more useful shape (50cm x 22”), than a normal quarter cut, which would be 25cm x 45”. Quilt instructions will often state fabric requirements in terms of a number of fat quarters.
Finger Pressing: Making a crease by running your finger along a fold. This makes a temporary line to measure from.
Finished size: The measurement of a completed block or quilt. This doesn't include the seam allowance.
Foundation Piecing: Fabric is sewn onto a paper pattern specially made for this technique. The points come out sharp every time and there is no matching of corners.
Also known as Paper Piecing.
Free Motion Quilting: machine quilting that is done with the feed dogs lowered and the quilt is moved by hand in any direction (without turning it). It uses a darning type foot on the sewing machine.
Freezer Paper: Paper designed to be used for wrapping food in the US. It has a shiny, waxy side and a dull side. When the shiny side is ironed onto fabric, it temporarily sticks to the fabric making English piecing and appliqué much easier. It can be reused a number of times before it loses its stickiness.
Freezer Paper Appliqué: appliqué using a freezer paper template which is cut to the exact size of the patch. If cut with shiny side as right side of the patch, template is pressed to the wrong side of the fabric and the fabric is folded over the edges and removed after stitching in place. If cut with dull side as the right side of the patch, template can be pressed to the right side of the fabric and patch is appliquéd with needle-turn appliqué or placed on wrong side of fabric and seam allowances are pressed to the freezer paper, patch and template are pressed to background, stitched in place and removed after stitching.
Fusible web: A special fabric used to bind two pieces of fabric together. Used in quick appliqué pieces. It is placed between the two fabrics and ironed to adhere the fabrics together.
Fussy cut: Cutting a piece of fabric for a quilt so that a feature of the print on the fabric is in the centre of the piece. For instance, if you want your quilt to have lots of frogs on it you centre the frogs from the print on the piece you are cutting.
Grain or straight grain: Along the woven threads of a fabric. This is the desired way of cutting pieces for sewing together. If you cut along the grain, stretching while ironing or sewing is minimized. Cutting across the grain produces a bias edge, which stretches easily.
Hanging sleeve: A tube of fabric sewed to the wrong side of a finished quilt or wall hanging. When a dowel is slipped inside the sleeve the quilt can be hung more easily onto the wall.
Lengthwise Grain: This refers to the fabric threads that run parallel to the selvedge and has less stretch than the bias but more than the cross grain.
Meander Quilting: a quilting that just moves around with no set pattern, mostly not crossing quilting previously done. It can be done very close together to highlight something like feathers, or quite far apart to just completely quilt something that is going to be well used. There are no rules for Meandering.
Mitering: Sewing two pieces of fabric together by cutting a 45° angle on the end of each piece and sewing them together. This is also done at corners of borders, which makes the corners look like the corner of a picture frame.
Mystery Quilt: a quilt design that has been broken down into sections that are posted/presented one at a time such that the quilter does not know what the final design looks like until the last part is available.
Needle Turn Appliqué: Using the needle to gently turn under the seam allowance on hand-appliqué patches. Once turned under, use the thumb to finger press turned under fabric before blind-stitching.
On Point: term used to define the orientation of a quilt block when its corners are at the top/bottom and left/right.
Outline Quilting: quilting that outlines patches about 1/4" away from the patch seams putting it just beyond the extra fabric layers.
Patchwork: Fabric that is cut up and sewn together in various ways. Usually is in straight lines, to form the top of a quilt.
Piecing: The act of sewing patchwork pieces together.
Pressing: lifting and placing the iron to flatten seam allowances and fabric.
Quilting: The small running stitches that hold the quilt top, batting and bottom fabric together.
Quilting thread: A stronger thread that is used for hand quilting.
Reverse Appliqué: the cutting, turning under, and blind stitching of a top layer of fabric to reveal a shape created by exposing the under layer of fabric.
Rotary Cutter: This tool revolutionised patchwork because it enabled far more accurate cutting. It looks like a pizza wheel and contains an extremely sharp blade capable of cutting through multiple layers of fabric. It must be used with a rotary ruler and self healing mat.
Rotary cutters come in several sizes with the most popular being 45mm. Rotary cutters and replacement blades are available in our shop.
Rotary Ruler: Made out of thick plastic, these rulers when used with a rotary cutter to give an accurate straight cut of the fabric.
They come in a variety of sizes, mainly in rectangles or squares. They should be marked down to 1/8" increments to assist with accuracy. You will probably find it helpful to have a number of rulers – 6”x12” for small projects/taking to classes, 6½” X 18” or 24” and a 9 ½” or 12½ ” square which is particularly useful for neatening up your completed blocks. Again these are available in our shop.
Satin stitch: A close zigzag stitch that is used on the edges of fusible webbing appliqué to hold the layers of fabric together.
Sashing: strips of fabric that are sewn between blocks. It is also known as lattice stripping.
Seam Allowance: the fabric between the edge of the fabric and the line of stitching. It is usually 1/4" wide in patchwork and most often pressed in the same direction rather than open.
Self Healing Mat: Used with the rotary cutter and ruler, this mat protects your table surface during cutting.
They seal themselves after use for several years. They must be stored flat, not in sunlight or around a heat source, and should not be rolled or bent. The best mats have a semi-hard finish so that the blade of the rotary cutter does not feel like it is sinking into the surface while in use. Again they come in a range of sizes. We stock 12 x 18” and 18 x 24” size mats in our shop.
Sharp Needle: a longer needle than a Between, still with a small eye, that is used for hand appliqué.
Sleeve: a tube of fabric sewn to the top edge of the back of a quilt to slide a pole through for hanging the quilt.
Stained Glass Quilt: a picture design that uses black bias strips to imitate the leading that is in real Stained Glass windows. The bias stripping is appliquéd over the edges of the picture sections to "finish" them.
Stash: Your fabric collection.
Stipple Quilting: quilting that moves in meandering lines to heavily quilt and area. The quilting lines usually do not cross.
Stitch in the Ditch: Used in both hand and machine quilting. In this technique, a quilting line is sewn right next to the seam in a pieced block - in the "ditch" that is formed by the turn of the cloth made when the seams of a pieced block are pressed to one side. This type of quilting is normally not very visible after the quilt has been completed.
Sunbonnet Sue: a traditional folk art appliqué block of a girl in a dress and large bonnet; has been done in many ways other than traditional.
Trapunto: the insertion of stuffing or yarn between layers of a quilt to give height/texture to a specific area.
UFO: shorthand for Unfinished Object...any quilt project that is not completely quilted and bound.
Wadding: The filler between the top and the bottom of the quilt. Traditionally it was cotton or wool fibres, a blanket, a piece of flannel. Today it is a special filling of made of cotton and/or polyester and/or wool bought especially for this purpose.
Walking Foot: a foot attachment that feeds both layers of fabric evenly through the feed dogs. It is used for straight line.
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