Quilting Supplies

Quilt­ing Sup­plies & Tips

Chil­dren and home come first to us, but if you have time to post your projects on our com­mu­nity, we would love it!

Here are some ideas to help you save on supplies:

• JoAnns Craft Stores (if you have one) offer teacher dis­counts. Ask for a card if you are a home­school­ing par­ent, the sav­ings is incred­i­ble! We get 15% of the whole order, sale and reg­u­lar priced items, even when we use a coupon. Also, wait until you have a 50% off coupon to buy some­thing expensive.

• Nice heavy fab­ric can be expen­sive. We will be using fusible inter­fac­ing on any­thing we embroi­der, plus there are 3 lay­ers to a quilt. It is fine to buy the less expen­sive fab­ric. Some of the pret­ti­est fab­rics are in the cal­ico sec­tion and they are nor­mally $2.99 a yard.

• Before you go to look for fab­ric, look through all the fab­ric you own first. I am a fab­ric maniac! I love pretty fab­ric so I have a lot of it. I almost always can find enough for one sec­tion of the quilt, such as bor­ders. So even a 15″ piece of fab­ric might be able to make all the cor­ners for one block, if it is a color you want to use.

• Look in the fab­ric clear­ance isle first. We all walk through and qui­etly think “no won­der it’s on the ugly isle!” Jes­sica and I have found trea­sure under­neath all that ugly fab­ric! Also, go to the home decor sec­tion of the store and look for their rem­nant rack. You will find the great­est lin­ers for just about any­thing. I use dis­counted expen­sive cur­tain liner for pil­lows and skirts for the lit­tle girls here.

• Don’t buy what you don’t need! Some of the lit­tle gad­gets in the sewing isle are tempting!

 

BASICS:

• Sewing machine, with walk­ing foot if available
• Size 80 machine needle
• Starch, we rec­om­mend the brand “Best Press”
• Metal gauge
• Ruler 6″ x 24″ — Quilter’s Sense is a good brand
• Rotary cut­ting mat (biggest you can afford) — use a coupon from JoAnns if you have one near!
• 45mm Rotary Cutter
• Good Iron
• Good cot­ton thread for con­struc­tion (it will say Quilt­ing Thread on the spool, avoid Coats and Clark)
• Glass headed pins
• Small embroi­dery scissors
• Cuti­cle sticks (don’t buy the sticks they sell in the sewing isle, one is $4.99. I use wooden cuti­cle sticks (.89 for 5) found in the beauty isle. I use these to help hold my sewing under the nee­dle of the machine. They work great to guide your pieced fab­ric, small seams etc.
• Chalk marker
• Good stitch ripper

Early on I learned that cer­tain thread will not hold well through the years. You want your quilt to be a keep­sake, so don’t cheap out on thread. It will weaken and break if it has plas­tic it in and your quilt will fall apart. We don’t rec­om­mend Coats and Clark thread.

Good embroi­dery thread (Madeira) has won­der­ful Poly­neon col­ors! Use cot­ton thread for piec­ing; Madeira, Met­tler, King Tut, etc.  Do not use poly­neon or rayon for piecing.

If your mother enjoyed or enjoys sewing, see if she has any extra lit­tle tools around that you could bor­row until you can afford your own. We have two of every­thing, my chil­dren have been known to cut my tape mea­sure in half!

Sup­ply Gallery: A begin­ning mem­ber had asked us to post pic­tures of sup­plies, I’ll do my best. Make sure to use the above list as all sup­ply pic­tures may not be listed!

 

More Notes:

Always brush out, oil and change the nee­dle on your machine before start­ing a project.  It will do won­ders for performance!

Fab­ric Choices:

Color pref­er­ence is strictly an indi­vid­ual choice.

Try not to over coor­di­nate your fab­rics. Con­trast between the light­est and dark­est shades. Solids can be a dom­i­nant color thoughtout. What I’ve noticed in some very eye catch­ing quilts are the solids that com­pli­ment those tiny printed smaller pieces.

Don’t use widely spaced prints on smaller pieces. Be care­ful with stripes or plaids as these could unset­tle the look because of direc­tion, but indeed use them when they fit. Small scale flo­rals with ging­hams, checks and pin dots cre­ate a pretty coun­try look. To test what a piece of fab­ric might look like on your quilt, cut a 3″ x 3″ square out of a piece of poster board. Hold it up to the fab­ric and see how the block ‘shows’.

There are so many choices of fab­ric. Look for 100% cot­ton. The poly/cotton blends shrink and are not as tightly woven (ends shred eas­ily as you han­dle the blocks). Many times I have used the poly/cotton blends to make a quilt for the girls. They are inex­pen­sive and many have very sweet pat­terns (cal­i­cos). They are not as sturdy as 100% cot­ton. Just know the lim­its of choos­ing poly/cotton.

Bat­ting to me is a pref­er­ence also.  If you want to hand quilt, a low loft bat­ting is good for a begin­ner.  This is also a good choice if you want to put the quilt on a bed (has a lit­tle puffi­ness) or couch.

Warm & Nat­ural bat­ting is good for a wall hang­ing, but is dif­fi­cult to hand quilt because it’s stiffer.  I like the look of Warm & Nat­ural bat­ting over a low loft puff unless it’s for a bed.

Feel free to share tips in the community!