All Your Quilting Questions- Answered

All (or at least, some…) of your quilting questions answered in one place! 

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I’ve been getting lots of questions from readers on a variety of sewing topics.  These are just a few of them.

What supplies do I need to make my very first quilt?  Are some brands better than others?

I am not the brand expert, but I can certainly tell you what I use and what I like.

In addition to fabric for your quilt, the three most useful items for your quilting arsenal are a rotary cutter (like a fancy pizza cutter), an acrylic ruler and a cutting mat to do your cutting on.

• Cutting Mat

I bought a new cutting mat this year, as my old one was beat up.  Now, the best cutting mats are self-healing, so you don’t get deep grooves where you repeatedly use the rotary cutter.  That isn’t what was wrong with mine.  It had a shoe polish stain on one side and was lime green on the other.  It was still perfectly functional, but was looking pretty tacky in photos (see above- for proof of tackiness).  I chose this one by Fiskars, because it is dark gray on one side and light gray on the other, and I thought it would be the most versatile for photography.

• Rotary Cutter

I’ve been happy with both Fiskars and Olfa rotary cutters.  I like the ones with 45mm blades, but otherwise have no preference between the brands.

• Rotary Blades

I like rotary cutters with 45mm blades, and replacement blades are most cost effective when bought in a multi-pack.  Be careful when changing blades, and when working with new-ish blades- they are sharp!

• Acrylic Ruler

Omnigrid makes rulers in all shapes and sizes.  The ones I use most are 6” by 24”, 6” square and 12½” square.

• Scissors

Embroidery scissors are a must.  Many new quilter tutorials will tell you that you need a seam ripper too, but I think scissors do the job just as well.  Now, I’m not implying you aren’t going to have to take apart a seam now and then, you definitely are; but I use scissors for this step, as well as cutting thread and things.

• Thread

There are all kinds of threads, that do all kinds of different jobs.  This is what I use most, both for sewing the blocks together and for quilting all the layers together.

I want to make my very first quilt, but I am unsure about cutting fabric.  What is rotary cutting and how do I do it?

First of all, be careful with a rotary cutter, especially when it has a brand new blade, they are sharper than you are imagining!  All of those tools mentioned above, the cutter, the ruler and the mat are super easy to use, this How to Cut Fabric for a Quilt tutorial has lots of good information for you before you make your first cut.

This whole series of blog posts and tutorials will help walk you through all of the steps of making your very first quilt, or of helping you to troubleshoot problems.

As I sew strips together, and especially if I sew a lot of strips together, the fabric starts to curve, wrinkle or otherwise become difficult to sew with.  How do I solve this problem now and how do I prevent it in the future?

Make sure to alternate the directions that you are sewing.  Don’t just add additional strips to what you already have.  Fabric has a bit of stretch to it (some more than others) and alternating the direction of sewing helps keep everything straight and flat.  There is more information HERE on the specifics of how to do this.

I want to use a bunch of strips for this project, but they are all different lengths, can I still use them?

The short answer is YES!  Take a look at this baby quilt tutorial where I address that specific concern, and a bonus- this tutorial is basically a free quilt pattern, it’s got every thing you need to make this adorable quilt.

My seams don’t match up as nicely as they should.  How do I get crisp corners and edges?

• The rotary cutting tutorial might be helpful here too, are you using the lines on your quilting ruler the same way every time?  For example, are you always lining up just inside or just outside of the correct measurement line?

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• Using the rotary ruler the same way every single cut will make your pieces exactly the same size.  Using an accurate ¼” seam allowance means that your pieces will still be exactly the same size after they are sewn together.  This quilt block tutorial will help you test your specific machine to ensure accurate seams.
• Pinning your fabrics together before sewing them is another important step to take to achieve perfectly matched seams and have the finished quilt look crisp and professional.  Remember when we talked about how fabric is a little bit stretchy?  Pinning fabric when sewing long strips is another way to mediate the problem, and pinning so that two seams match up is critical, even when sewing small pieces.

These are just a few of the questions that might come up when you are learning to quilt, or troubleshooting a problem.  Have another question not addressed here?  Feel free to leave a question (or two or three) in the comments and I’ll see if I can answer it for you.