So many people have written asking how I manage to get a quilt made a week.
So here's my top ten hints on how I get quilts done!
1. I have a room just for sewing, right next to the kitchen and away from
the bedrooms. I can dash in there and sew a few seams whenever I find
(literally) a minute. I bound a quilt during the commercials on a movie on
Sunday night - the TV was on in the kitchen, so I knew when to go back.
2. Put your sewing pressing on the ironing board at the end of each sewing
session, alongside your clothes ironing. When you iron some clothes, get
your sewing pressing done too.
3. Put a small table next to your favourite comfortable chair and ALWAYS
have some hand-sewing on it. So if you sit down for even a few minutes you
can get a little hand-sewing done without having to hunt for something to do
first.
4. Make up an attractive bag with a full sewing kit and a small hand-sewn
project in it. This is your "take anywhere" project, and you pick it up
whenever you think there is any possibility that you could be stuck
somewhere and can get some hand-sewing done. I keep mine on my small table
next to my chair, so that I only have one hand-sewing project to worry about at a time.
5. Keep all your sewing tools (scissors, rotary cutter, etc) in a central
place like a basket (I use a big pencil case). And keep this basket next to you as you sew so that you always put the tools back in it. That way you
will never have to waste time searching for tools. Also, you can grab this
quickly as you rush out the door late for a class! Also, I keep my bobbins
in three separate bobbin cases - marked "polyester", "cotton" and
"quilting". The plastic bobbins have "p", "c" or "q" written on them too,
so I always know what I have in my hand.
6. Use zip-lock bags to store all the bits and pieces of each project.
Even if you have to pack it all away at the end of the day, you won't waste
time searching for anything. If you are using any special threads, trims,
etc, put these in the zip lock bag too.
7. Binding can be almost completely sewn on by machine (sew on the front as
normal, fold it to the back so that the binding overlaps the first seam by
about a quarter of an inch, pin well, then ditch-stitch from the front). It
doesn't give as neat a finish as hand-sewing, and you might have to finish
off the corners by hand, but it is quick.
8. When you buy the fabric for the quilt top, or when you start a project
from stash fabrics, buy or set aside the fabric for the backing and the
batting as well. Store these with the top while it is in progress. When
the top is finished, the next step - without stopping for breath! - is to
baste the quilt and then start quilting. If you pack the top away because
you have to go out and get batting and backing you might never get back to
it. A quilt is not a quilt until it is a quilt - it is a quilt top and,
unless you want to use it for a tablecloth, it is not finished!
9. Keep your tools in good condition. When you put a new blade in your
rotary cutter, buy the next one. Nothing slows you down like a blunt cutter
(two cuts instead of one). Have your scissors sharpened regularly. Keep
your different types of pins in different containers so you don't have to
hunt through one big pin tin for the right sort of pin. Change your sewing
machine needles regularly (I use a new piecing needle and a new quilting
needle for every second quilt). Clean the fluff out of your sewing machine
after every quilt.
10. Look after your patterns. The small zip-lock bag most patterns come in
are seldom large enough to keep it all in after you have opened it up and
pored over it, and never big enough to hold all the templates and little
scraps of paper you add when it is an applique pattern. Put the pattern in
a large zip-lock bag and keep it all together, rather than trying to squeeze
it all back in the original bag (trust me - it's hard enough for me to fit
my paper-hungry patterns in the original bag before you buy it, let alone
after you have opened it up! ). If you can't fit all the bits and pieces
in the bag you might leave some out and then that wastes time in looking for
them later.
