Tag: Resources

Quilting Tools

We all need tools to work our quilting magic. Please leave a comment with the tool you use the most!

Bias Binder Calculator: Ever wonder how big to make your square to make bias binding? So Sew Easy has published a free excel sheet where you put in the length and width of your trimmed quilt and the width of your biased binding, et viola! It spits out how much binding you need and how big of a square you’ll need to start with.

How to Make Continuous Bias Binding: If you’re anything like me, you always forget which sides of the triangle to connect. Here are some links to on-line tutorials.

Craftsy: These instructions include clear photos with each step.

McCalls: Includes a video demonstration and clear written instructions.

Anjennette Klinder shows a unique way of doing continuous bias binding, without the long tedious cutting process on the end. The video is a Periscope, so it’s a live, unedited video, but be patient to see the magic!

How to Connect Binding: This is another area where I always have to quadruple check instructions.

OCMQG’s own Janet Crothers did a demonstration at a prior guild meeting. Watch the magic happen in this video.

Palette Builder: Play Crafts has a palette builder – upload a photo and the builder will show you the hex colors or the Kona solids or Aurifil colors that are the closest matches to the photo.

Randomized Quilt Top with Triangles! Play Crafts also has tools to help chose a random color palette or if you want to make a triangle quilt, this Equal tool randomizes the triangles and the colors in the palette in the size quilt you choose! Screen Shot 2016-05-29 at 11.40.46 AM.png

Navigating the Mother Ship (or how to find stuff on The MQG site)

Hi, All – At the last meeting, there was a question regarding where to find links to the latest webinar on The MQG website. And then there were questions on how to navigate through the site…

First some quick links you may find helpful:

Mary Fons’s Webinar, “Definition: Modern Quilting” This was fabulous. Worth at least two viewings

The MQG free Quilt of the Month Patterns (member Mary Anne found inspiration for a surf themed quilt from Nov 2014 QoM Plumage)

List of past webinars

Here’s a short How-to-Find-Stuff on The MQG website.

Tip #1: Log in. When you joined the OCMQG, you should have received information on how to sign into The MQG.

Tip #2: When you first “land” on the site, there’s a menu along the top of the site. Hover over the menu word to see what’s included. For example, if you hover over Education, you’ll see Events, Teacher & Lecturer Directory, Blog, and Resources. If you hover over Events, you’ll see QuiltCon East, QuiltConWest, Webinars Future, Webinars Past, and Calendar

Tip #3: Once you’ve clicked a menu item, scroll down. Under Events, the top portion looks like it’s only a list of events. If you scroll down, you’ll see links to past webinars

Tip #4: Be patient and be prepared to click on every menu item to find what you’re looking for….(possibly have your beverage of choice handy)

Tip #5: BE AWARE THAT ONCE YOU LOG IN AND GO INTO COMMUNITY, THE MENU CHANGES.

Notes on The MQG landing page:

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Screenshot of MQG landing page

  1. About: Basic answers about what The MQG is all about
  2. Education: The education landing page shows upcoming events, then past webinars
    1. Events:
      1. QuiltCon East: Takes you to the QuiltCon East website
      2. QuiltCon West: Takes you to the QuiltCon West website
      3. Webinars Future: Take you to the Events Page
      4. Webinars Past: Takes you to the Resources Page, but only if you’re logged in
      5. Calendar: Takes you to the calendar page
  3. Design
  4. Community: This is where the menu changes, if you’re logged in. See below.
  5. Sponsors
  6. Shop
  7. Join

Notes on the Community Site:

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Screenshot of the Community landing page

  1. Home: This does NOT take you back to the MQG site. It takes you to the home page of Community
  2. Galleries: Photos of pretty modern quilts. 😀
  3. Events: This is DIFFERENT than the one under Education. This is a list of upcoming events (oddly, from most future event to most near event) and includes webinars and other guild events (if the guild posts their events through The MQG site; OCMQG does not)
  4. Groups: List of modern guilds
  5. Forums: Place to ask and answer questions.
  6. Resources: Links to Quilt of the Month, Past Webinars, Webinars for Businesses, Materials for guild officers, Annual Reports

Tips for Making a T-Shirt Quilt

At our September meeting, Janet solicited members’ knowledge on how they’ve approached making a T-Shirt Quilt. As usual, our members came through!

If you have a suggestion for making a t-shirt quilt, regarding design elements or construction, let us know in the comments.

Helene’s Tips:

img_8385
Helene made this quilt from her son’s tshirt collection
  1. This quilt has t-shirts, stabilizer, batting, and backing.
  2. Use iron-on stabilizer on all tshirt material (Karen recommends Pellon SF101); this allows using a 1/4″ seam and makes the material feel like quilting grade fabric
  3. Save scraps from the t-shirts, in case gaps need to be filled between the blocks

Trudy’s Tips:

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Trudy made this quilt from her Camp Tshirts
  1. This quilt has t-shirts and flannel (it’s really soft)
  2. Instead of using interfacing and batting, sew flannel to the back of the t-shirt blocks
  3. To create a boarder around the t-shirt block, piece the blocks so the seam is on the t-shirt side. Sew seam allowance open and down – a flannel border with raw edges is now visible on the t-shirt side of the quilt

Gail’s Tips:

Gail’s tshirt quilt is of her sisters work tshirts
  1. This quilt used t-shirts, stabilizer, batting, and backing
  2. Use stabilizer

Holly’s Tips:

Holly’s tshirt quilt in memory of a lost friend
  1. This quilt used t-shirts, stabilizer, batting, backing, and pieced blocks from quilting material
  2. Use a block pattern that can easily be adjusted in size to fill in any weird spacing issues due to different t-shirt block sizes.
  3. This type of pattern allows the quilt to be customized to the owner’s color preferences

Other tips:

  1. If the t-shirt has a plastic-y decal, do not iron over it! It will melt. Iron around it.
  2. Check Pinterest for ideas. Shannon found a schematic for using different block sizes.
  3. Use unique features of the shirt – special tabs/buttons – in the quilt design
  4. Browse Craftsy for classes on making a t-shirt quilt
  5. If the quilt will be a wall hanging, use flannel instead of batting to lighten the quilt. press the seams open, if you have to piece the flannel to make it big enough.

Suggestions for Making it Modern

  • Use all the same color t-shirts to create more negative space in the quilt
  • Cut t-shirts into strips, circles, hexagons, etc and piece back together randomly
  • Use different sized t-shirt blocks
  • Use a few t-shirt blocks as part of the overall design of the quilt
Lucinda’s in-process tshirt quilt in hexies