How to Quilt: Quilting Tips and Tricks

Welcome to our NEW Quilting Tips & Tricks page!  We'll be sharing ideas and tips for all your quilting needs here and will update and change them often, so be sure to check back.  You never know when you'll find just the tip you needed!

Hand Quilting Tips:

When hand quilting the borders of your quilt, try basting a piece of scrap fabric to the edge of your quilt.  This helps keep the edges of your quilt smooth and tight in your hoop.

Try using a couple of 'thumb picks' (the kind you get at a music shop for playing guitar). Roughen the flat edge of one and use it on the finger underneath the quilt to keep the needle from continually pricking it. Next, glue a piece of leather on the second pick to help grab the needle and use it instead of a thimble. You will be amazed at how easy it makes things.

Having trouble pulling your needle through your quilt?  Try wearing fingercots on your fingertips.  They are available at medical supply stores and in some pharmacies and make pulling stubborn needles through a breeze!

Piecing Tips:

Need to rip out a long seam?  Try pulling the fabric apart to expose the threads and then using a personal trimmer to quickly, safely and easily "snip" through the threads!

To help in transporting block layouts to your sewing machine, make a portable design wall by covering an inexpensive vinyl floor tile with thin batting or flannel.  This way, you can layout and audition fabrics for your block and then carry them to your machine for sewing without getting the pieces out of order!

Miscellaneous Quilting Tips:

With a black marker, mark the spot on the thread spool where the thread hooks in to secure it from unwinding. This makes it very easy to see where to start the thread from and where to hook it back on.

If you tend to loose track of time while sewing, try using a clock radio to pace yourself. Hit the "sleep" button which will, on most clock radios, play music for about an hour.  Then, when the radio shuts off, get up and stretch, walk around and get glass of water or something before sitting back down and starting all over!

Try storing your smaller plastic templates in those "AOL" CD tins!  Dress them up with fabric swatches small crazy-stiched blocks!