The answer to this often asked question is “YES”. I would not ask for it if it was not needed. When backing fabric is loaded on a long arm quilting machine it needs to be clamped on both sides. The clamps vary in size but even the smallest works best with 4″ excess to attach to. When I do not have this amount of excess fabric my machine head & needle plate area hits the clamps & causes havoc. It can cause wobbly stitches, stop the machine from working & is annoying as heck for your quilter. I want those things out of my way when I’m working.

I worked on a quilt today that I received that had only 1 1/2 to 2″ of backing fabric for me to clamp to. I have stitched into my nice featherweight plastic clamps twice today!! I actually sewed them to the backing fabric because they were too close to the quilt top & covered by the batting.

I’m showing a photo so its easier to see why the 4″ is necessary. I know its annoying to have a quilt top that is 39″ wide and how it would seem easier to just use a 42″ wide fabric for your backing. Don’t do it!

Please think of your quilter & your quilt & give the asked for amount of backing. A happy quilter makes a pretty quilt! Just add 10″ to the length & width of your quilt top & its easy math.

I’m making some changes on my website which I hope will make things easier to understand and make uploading photos easier.

I am also back from retreat.  I had a great time! If you have never gone on a retreat, grab a friend and go. I finished 2 1/2 quilt tops. It was so nice to set in a room full of quilters and be able to see what they are working on and share ideas. They always have a great variety of works in process. I also picked up some new hand dyed fabrics from Sue Cortese,  http://www.selcfabrics.com. She makes some really beautiful fabrics & is so nice to bring them along for us to pick through.

Ok, so back to work….I’m an amateur at this web work but I hope to get the basics done today & then fine tune.

I’m heading to retreat on Thursday 1/28 and will be home Feb 3rd. If you call while I am away you can leave a message. My husband, Mike, will also take a message for me while he’s home holding down the fort. Retreat is a great time to get some piecing done & rekindle my quilting mojo. I wish I could say I’m heading for a tropical island but will be in northern MI hunkered down with my featherweight & enjoying the company of good friends.

Here is one of the quilts I will be trying to finish at retreat. Its from Edyta Sitar’s Laundry Basket Quilts I started this about 1 year ago & haven’t had it out of the box since. Time to get it done!  Have a good weekend friends !!!

I hear this question a lot when meeting with customers. “I have some fullness in my quilt & I don’t know where it came from or how to correct it?”. First let me say, I not the quilt police and I don’t teach piecing. You’ll find many of my quilts are simple in design. I do see a lot of quilts & yes some have some issues with fullness. It’s not uncommon. It usually shows up at it’s worst in the borders. Thats where I see the biggest exaggeration of fullness.

There are lots of ways fullness can occur. Fabric stretches, seam allowances shift under the pressing foot & alter the size of blocks.  One thing I like to ask people is, have you checked your pieces for size? Most of the time a person can track the problem back to the inner portion of their quilt. Have you squared your blocks & checked your seam allowance?  Accuracy from the beginning of the quilt can make a huge difference in the final result.

Check to make sure your pieces are the size they should be.  I ran across a great tutorial on ‘squaring half square triangles’.  Checking that a 12″ block is really 12″ is a good start but if it is off then you will be looking back to the starting point anyway, so why not begin there? This link takes you to Ambers blog. You will find her ‘Tutorials’ tab & scroll down for her Squaring half square triangles link.

http://www.bloglovin.com/framepost=2170938073&group=0&frame_type=b&blog=2314945&link=aHR0cDovL2FsaXR0bGViaXRiaWFzZWQuYmxvZ3Nwb3QuY29tLzIwMTQvMDEvdGhpbmdzLWktd2FudC10by1kby5odG1s&frame=1&click=0&user=0

Now I’m going to go watch Amber’s tutorial & measure some of my own piecework.  We are getting more snow again today so it’s the perfect day for sewing.

Stay warm!

Penny’s panel wallhanging will brighten the snowy weather we are having. How many months before we see a real sunflower?? Simple outline quilting, piano keys in border, matching threads & Hobbs 80/20 batting for this quilt.

Cathy L made a modern throw with solids which show off the Chinese Crescents design.  Design is by Keryn Emmerson. Cathy chose a pretty coordinating print for the backing.

For the new year I resolve to get a few quilt tops that have stacked up in my closet out & quilted!  As each gets completed I will post photos of them here on my blog.  The first out of the closet for the year is a Carpenters Star quilt I think I might have started piecing back in 2008(?) It’s funny now fast the time passes & how out of mind they can be when behind closed doors.  Here are a few photos of it quilted before turning the binding. I used Hobbs 80/20 batting, a simple musling backing & a butter color thread. The quilting design is Virginia Dogwoods by Christy Dillon of My Creative Stitches.

Debbie K has done a series of Labyrinth quilts. Here are a few of her recent quilts.

Its fun to see them in different color ways.

Even though I’m up to my eyebrows in projects, I love looking around in cyber space for new patterns, tutorials, and just sometimes simple info that I don’t have access to at my fingertips.

Today I found a new site to bookmark that offers lists of shops, quilters, guilds, shows, quilt appraisers and basically all things quilty. I’m definitely putting http://quiltersresources.net in my favorites folder. My memory needs all the help it can get!

I’ve learned a lot of my quilting skills from instructional videos. I was pleasantly surprised at the ease of use of the Craftsy videos! I like the ability of deciding when I have a free moment & a chance to pop up a video and watch a new technique. I can pop some earbuds on & its a no compete with whatever hubby is watching on TV at night. It’s a great way to escape the daily doldrums & learn something new. When I need some quilty mojo, quilting videos are where I find motivation and inspiration.

I like the way they split up the videos into sections so I can watch a portion at a time if I don’t have time for the whole thing in one sitting. The Free Quilt Backs video was great! I learned more about how quilts can be put together freestyle on a design board without all the rules & corner aligning. What a cool new techno world we live in where I can take classes at any time & even in my PJ’s! Whoot-whoot!! Oh & there are other sources of online instruction too which I will mention in future blog posts.