Tips for Quilters: A Handbook of Hints, Shortcuts, and Practical Suggestions from Experienced Quilters

Overview

This handbook for quilters is full of hints, shortcuts, and practical know-how from experienced quilters. Reading it is like quilting beside your grandmother and your favorite aunt!

Quilting expert Rachel Pellman has assembled wisdom from a premiere group -- those women who have perfected precise piecing for generations, who learned from their grandmothers how to prevent ...
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Overview

This handbook for quilters is full of hints, shortcuts, and practical know-how from experienced quilters. Reading it is like quilting beside your grandmother and your favorite aunt!

Quilting expert Rachel Pellman has assembled wisdom from a premiere group -- those women who have perfected precise piecing for generations, who learned from their grandmothers how to prevent thread from knotting, who continually experiment with new batting, new tools, new markers.

Offered candidly and clearly, the hints in this handbook are of value for the novice and experienced quiltmaker alike.

"The best quilting wisdom may not necessarily be passed down from previous generations. New equipment (rotary cutters, computer graphics, and high-tech sewing machines) demand new thinking. This is a collection of tips for those who may not think they need them! Recommended." -- Booklist

"This easy-to-read guide isn't fancy, but its 17 organized chapters feature practical know-how that should help novice and experienced quilters alike." -- The Harrisburg Patriot News

Quilting expert Rachel Pellman offers candid, clear hints that will be of value to both the novice and the experienced quiltmaker. Filled with shortcuts and practical knowledge, the book overflows with advice about the whole process of making a quilt--from selecting fabric to adjusting quilt templates to negotiating curves.

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781561480807
  • Publisher: Good Books
  • Publication date: 2/28/2002
  • Pages: 236
  • Product dimensions: 5.56 (w) x 8.48 (h) x 0.72 (d)

Read an Excerpt

Before You Begin

"Quilting wisdom" comes primarily from two sources -- one's own experience, and other quilters!

Hints, shortcuts, and practical know-how are traded at quiltings and sewing circles. But not all of us have access to these gatherings. Grandmothers, aunts, and neighbors have traditionally been reservoirs of quilting secrets. But not all of us have these treasures. Good pattern books have thorough instructions, but few include details about choosing needles or how to stretch or condense a quilting pattern, or what to do about a stain.

Tips for Quilters is a treasure of quilting wisdom, assembled from a premiere group -- those women who have perfected piecing for generations, who long ago learned how to prevent thread from knotting while quilting, who continually experiment with new tools, new batting, new markers.

I hope that you find Tips for Quilters second best only to being in a roomful of quilters! While these experts are not physically present, I have tried to preserve their voices in the advice they so generously offered. In many cases, several quiltmakers submitted similar ideas. The name listed represents a specific rendering of a particular idea.

May be you warmed as I have been by these contributors' generous sharing of their experience. May you grow more confident and find quilting more satisfying because of what you learn here.

-- Rachel T. Pellman

Chapter 1. Selecting Fabrics

"I look for balance, keeping whites, yellows, and extra bright colors interspersed evenly through the whole quilt. I make sure I use enough of an accent color so as not to look like an accident and to make the quilt sparkle." -- Darla Sathre, Baxter, Minnesota

"Sometimes the pattern itself seems to call for certain fabrics; a Grandmother's Fan, for example, would seem appropriate in soft, Victorian-looking colors. Patterns like the Ohio Star or Eight-Pointed Star need bright or dark main colors for the star points which I want to emphasize." -- Marilyn Umble, Atglen, Pennsylvania

"Usually I choose a print first, then pick colors rom the print to match the solids or the smaller design prints I want to include." -- Betty Boyton, Gordonville, Pennsylvania

"When I'm planning to applique, I squint my eyes to see if the colors I've chosen blend." -- Sharon van Meter, St. Charles, Missouri

"Whenever I find a good light color, I buy a yard because it's always harder to find lights. I try to mix large prints, small prints, color values, etc." -- Nancy Wagner Graves, Manhattan, Kansas

"I try not to use a dead white background. Instead, I find a neutral fabric with a slightly textured look for the background." -- Shirley Liby, Munci, Indiana

Chapter 8. Tools of the Trade

"I use a tiny washer I got in a store with a tiny hole in the center to trace outside a marked line. Larger washers can be used in the same way to mark wider spaces. I place my pencil in the center hole and "roll" the edge of the washer against the previous line. It makes another line outside the marked line, the exact distance as the width of the washer." -- Katie Esh, Ronks, Pennsylvania

"I sometimes use Scotch tape that is sticky on both sides to prevent the fabric layers from shifting." -- Diana M. Garrison, Silver Spring, Maryland

"I've used a metal shisk kebab skewer, heated in the flame of my gas stove, to melt a small hole in the corner of plastic templates so I can mark corners for accuracy." -- Julie McKenzie, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania

"I use a toothbrush to get rid of eraser dirt after erasing pencil marks when I've finished quilting." -- Joan Vanover, Easton, Pennsylvania

"I sharpen chalk pencils and other soft pencils with an emery board." -- L. Jean Moore, Anderson, Indiana

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Before You begin
1. Selecting Fabrics
Coordinating Fabrics
Quality Checks
A Case for 100% Cotton
A Case for Other Fabrics!
Helpful "Tools"
Fabric Bargains
Cautions!
Additional Tips
How to Shop!

2. Prewashing Fabrics
Methods for Prewashing
Ways to Save a Bleeding Fabric
How to Prevent Raveled Edges
Pressing after Prewashing
Additional Tips

3. Making Templates
Materials and Methods for Making Templates
Quilting Templates
Adjusting Template Sizes
Organizing Templates
Additional Tips

4. Marking Fabrics
Marking Tools
Applique Marking
Maintaining Accuracy
Making a Light Table
Additional Tips

5. Cutting Fabrics
Using Bias and Straight of Grain
Tips for Accuracy in Cutting
How to Use Fabric Efficiently
Additional Tips

6. Tips for Doing Piecework
Efficiency at the Sewing Machine
Efficiency in Hand-Sewing
Precision in Piecework
Organization Tips
Additional Tips

7. Tips for Doing Applique
Preparing
Work in Process
Organization
Additional Tips

8. Tools of the Trade
Tools for Marking
Tools for Cutting
Tools for Piecing
Tools for Applique
Tools for Quilting
Organizational Tools
Tools for Basting
Tips for Pressing
Additional Tips

9. Preparation for Quilting
Choosing Quilting Designs
Marking Quilting Lines
Removing Marked Lines
Sources of Inspiration
Batting Choices
Additional Tips

10. Quilting
Frame Options
Putting Quilts in Frames
Quilting Without a Frame
Techniques for Starting and Stopping
Recording Yards of Quilting Thread
Making Knots
Additional Tips

11. Sore Fingers
Prevention
Cures

12. Needles and Thimbles
Choosing a Thimble
Choosing a Needle
Threading Needles
Additional Tips

13. Planning Color Layout
Preplanning with Fabric
Preplanning without Fabric

14. Binding Quilts
Preparation for Binding
Measuring for Binding
Applying Binding
Straight Bindings
Bias Bindings
Negotiating Curves
Square Corners
Mitered Corners
Additional Tips

15. Signing and Dating Quilts
Documentation with Pens
Documenting with Embroidery
Documenting with Cross-stitch
Documenting with Quilting
Other Methods
Additional Tips

16. Storing Quilts and Wall Hangings
Storing While in Process
Storing Completed Quilts Rolled
Storing Completed Quilts Flat
Storing Completed Quilts Folded
Additional Tips

17. Removing Spots
Blood
Grease
Rust
More Ideas for Spot Removal
Additional Tips

Index
About the Author

"This easy-to-read guide isn't fancy, but its 17 organized chapters feature practical know-how that should help novice and experienced quilters alike." -- The Harrisburg Patriot News
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