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Penny Halgren - EzineArticles.com Expert Author
Penny is the author of 9 books for beginner quilters and a self-taught quilter of more than 27 years who seeks to interest new quilters and provide them with the resources necessary to create beautiful quilts.
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- What Can You Do With a Quilt Block?
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Do you find yourself with a bunch of left over quilt blocks? Don't throw them away! There are so many things you can do with left over quilt blocks.
- How to Make and Sell Baby Quilts
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] If you have made and given baby quilts as gifts, chances are that you have given some thought to selling baby quilts. Making and selling baby quilts is a legitimate business and it can be as big or as small, as part time or as full time as you would like. If you have had some complements on your baby quilt creations and want to turn those kudos into profits, you have some options.
- Get Away and Quilt
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Most avid quilters have more than one project going at a time. Often, there's one quilting project that gets put aside so long that it seems almost impossible to complete. If you find yourself in a quilting rut, maybe it's time to consider quilters retreats.
- Making Rag Quilts
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] If you are a beginner quilter looking for near-immediate gratification or an old pro who wants to create a different look, why not try making a rag quilt? Frayed seams are a characteristic of rag quilts. Fraying the edges give a rag quilt a soft, vintage look simply by clipping the seams and washing and drying the quilt.
- Gift Ideas For Quilters On Your List
[Shopping-and-Product-Reviews:Gifts] Christmas gifts for quilters are abundant and can fit into any budget. Give a gift card or certificate to the quilter's favorite craft, hobby, or fabric store. The gift recipient can use the gift for whatever quilting supplies he or she needs.
- How To Buy A Gift For A Quilter
[Shopping-and-Product-Reviews:Gifts] To pick the perfect gift ideas for quilters you know, it's important to know what kind of quilting they enjoy. It's easy enough to ask if you don't already know.
- Christmas Art Quilt Patterns
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Once you find the right Christmas art, quilt patterns to showcase it generally fall right into place. If this is your first attempt to use art to appliqué a Christmas art quilt pattern, getting started may seem a little overwhelming. It's really easy when you keep these tips in mind.
- Personalizing Quilts with Letter Applique is Easy
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] There are thousands of fonts available free of charge on the Internet. Starting your letter appliqué quilt pattern search on a free font website is a good idea.
- Use Your Embroidery Machine to Quilt? You Bet!
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Quilters who are not already a machine embroidery enthusiast just may find themselves engrossed in the craft once they realize they could incorporate machine embroidery into their quilting. Embroidery is a traditional way to add special decorative touches to quilts. Whether by hand or machine, a quilter may accent his or her creation with embroidered flowers or other accents.
- Custom Applique Quilts are Simple to Create
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Creating a custom applique is easy. Simple drawings can help your custom applique dream become a reality...and you don't have to be an artist.
- Add Photos to Your Next Quilt With DTG Printing
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Would you like to add a photo to your quilt that looked more like part of the fabric than an iron-on decal? In the past, we relied on photo transfer paper to iron our photo onto our quilt block. Have you heard about direct-to-garment printing?
- Barn Quilt Project
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] In Iowa, quilt blocks on barns lead travelers off the major highways and back through once forgotten communities. The Iowa quilt blocks on barns have become a celebration of the participating community's heritage while generating tourism revenue. These aren't your common quilt blocks.
- The Origin of Quilt Block Names
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] As you look through a book with hundreds of quilt blocks, several interesting things pop up. You will probably discover quilt blocks with a different design while having the same name. Likewise, you will find quilt blocks that look the same yet have different names. How did this happen? And what is the inspiration for naming quilt blocks in the first place?
- Elements Of Your Quilting Design
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Effective quilting designs don't need to be intricate and detailed to be effective. A quilter might choose a pattern that simply echoes the pieced or applique design, outlines a particular design feature or creates a grid or series of parallel quilting lines.
- Old Doll Quilts
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Girls in the early nineteenth century were trained from the time they were very young in what was thought to be their life's work. Before sewing machines were common in homes, hand sewing was important for girls to learn since they would likely be stitching all of the clothing, linens and bedding for her home. It seemed natural, then, that doll quilts would be the perfect practice piece.
- How Sewing Needles Are Made
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] It has been said that the invention of the wheel was the milestone that changed the future of mankind. But, consider this. The man who invented the wheel was wearing animal skins that had been sewn together with a needle. Being able to sew skins together to craft clothing for warmth and protection enabled Stone Age men to remain in northern areas of the globe, thus breaking away from their nomadic existence.
- Did You Know That the Sun Can Create Beautiful Fabric?
[Arts-and-Entertainment] Sunprints are fun and easy to make, and the good news is that you don't need to be a chemist to make them. You don't even need to have the chemicals around. It is easy to find pre-treated fabric to make your sunprint, yet the process is basically the same, and your result can look modern, or take on an antique look
- Create An Interesting Design For Your Quilt with Simple Shapes
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Quilts and quilt designs are created by combining blocks. By changing the shapes of the pieces within a block and/or changing the placement of the colors of the pieces, you can create a whole new quilt design while keeping construction of your quilt the same.
- Tips for Buying a Home Sewing Machine for Quilting and Other Sewing
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Testing a sewing machine before you buy will help to ensure that you actually like the machine when you get it home. When you go in, take the fabrics that you like to work with. Then sit down at the machine and run a straight stitch. For quilters, straight stitching is probably the most important thing. You want to look for the most precision straight stitch, the most even straight stitch.
- Garneted Batting - A Throwback To The Past - But Interesting To Know
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] There are four different ways that batting can be made. They are: garneted, needle punched, thermal bonded, and thermal bonded can also be considered heat-sealed and resin bonded. When a manufacturer garnets a bat it can be any fiber. It can be silk, wool, polyester, cotton, bleached cotton, unbleached cotton. The manufacturer puts whatever fiber they’re going to end up with into bins which feed a card.
- Selecting Fabric Color Using The Ives Color Wheel
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Several years ago, I decided that I would explore the world of fabric dyeing. It was in dyeing fabric that I really learned about color, and the difference between yellow-green and blue-green. By mixing the colors to make the dye, all of a sudden the resulting colors make more sense, and now, many yards of dyed fabric later, it is easier for me to pick out colors for a quilt. By actually seeing what color results from mixing 1/4 yellow and 3/4 red versus 1/2 yellow and 1/2 red, it all makes more sense.
- Adding Interesting Borders to Your Quilt
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Making a quilt is very much like creating a painting; and generally will benefit from having a frame, or border, or two. As with the quilt itself, your fabric selections will determine the look of your quilt, and are limited only by your imagination.
- A Little About Cotton Batting From A Batting Expert
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] If you’re a hand quilter and you are going to be using cotton don’t expect it to be as easy to hand quilt as polyester, wool, or silk.
- Adjusting The Tension for Beautiful Machine Quilting
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Small adjustments can make a difference in the outcome of your machine quilting. Learn how to adjust the tension on your machine for excellent machine quilting results.
- Create a Complex Quilt Design Using only Simple Shapes
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Add complexity to your quilt by changing only the colors and placement of fabric. You can turn simple nine patch quilt blocks into a series of stars, diamonds, bow ties or leaves. All it takes is a little imagination.
- A Tidbit of Quilting History
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Quilting has a long and rich history in America. What began as a task in response to the need of keeping warm using left over scraps of worn out fabric has become a creative art recognized as a method of communicating a full range of human emotions.
- Are There Men Quilters
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Believe it or not, there are (and always have been) quite a few men who make quilts, and make money making quilts. Creative men have made quilting a career, much like sculpture and painting. Other men take up quilting as a spare time or retirement activity.
- How to Buy Cotton Quilting Fabric - Part I
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Buying quilting fabric seems like it should be pretty simple. And, frankly, when I began quilting, it was simple. At least I made it that way. I wandered through the fabric store and found fabric I liked - the pattern, the color, the design. But generally, I bought fabric just because I liked it.
- Wool Quilting Fabric
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] It is also relatively common to use wool in quilts. These quilts are outstanding for cold weather.
Wool retains heat extremely well. Wool probably retains heat better than cotton, and has the same wicking properties (they draw moisture away from your body and allows it to evaporate.) Wool quilts were very common during the Civil War, and were credited with saving many lives during the harsh winters.
- Silk Quilting Fabric
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Silk quilts are relatively unusual although not totally unheard of. Silk tie quilts have been popular for many years, and silk quilts made from kimonos are also relatively popular.
Working with silk sounds very elegant – the fabric drapes really well, and it feels wonderful – yet it presents its challenges.
- Selecting Fabric for Your Quilting Project
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Most quilters use 100% cotton fabric for their patchwork quilts. While part of the reason has to do with tradition, another part is due to what is practical.
- Choosing the Colors in Your Quilting Fabric
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Making a quilt should be a fun and relaxing experience, so you should choose fabrics that you enjoy working with.
Keeping that in mind, there are a few tips that can make your quilt interesting and dynamic to look at.
- Thread Count in Quilting Fabric - What's the Big Deal
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Thread count is the number of threads per square inch in the fabric. It determines the quality and weight of the fabric.
Threads are counted for both the length and width of the fabric. If there are the same number of threads in both directions, the fabric is an “even weave.” Fabrics with an even weave are easier to work with as you make a quilt, since the fabric will have the same amount of “give in both directions.
- Should I Prewash my Quilting Fabric
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Prewash quilting fabric or not? Quilters disagree. Here's one experienced quilters point of view, and why.
- Fun and Easy Rag Quilting
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] The first time I heard the term "Rag Quilting," I thought it had something to do with using big, long rags of fabric and somehow weaving them together to make a quilt.
Boy, was I wrong!
It turns out that rag quilting got its name from the ragged edges on the quilt. No doubt in my mind that this quilt design was created by a quilter as a variation of a Quilt as You Go kind of pattern – whether it was intentional or accidental is something only that quilter knows.
- Beginning Quilting – a New Hobby or Craft?
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Like many other crafts and hobbies, quilting has survived the test of time. Some quilt historians date the beginning of quilting back to the middle ages, when quilted clothes were made for warriors sent to battle in cold climates. You can become a thread in the history of time – linking past generations with the future.
- Buying a Sewing Machine
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] With the variety of sewing machines available, making a decision of which sewing machine to purchase is much more complex than it was way back when…..
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