Innehållsförteckning för Issue 109 från Today's Quilter

As the team add the final touches to issue 109, I can’t believe it is the last issue for 2023! The year seems to have whizzed past and now is the time to take stock of what you’ve achieved this year... and what you want to achieve in the year ahead. You really don’t have to aim big, it could be mastering one technique, or completing your first large project. This time of year is also for inside entertainment, and by entertainment we mean sewing. The issue is filled with projects to keep your hands busy while the weather is cold outside. We love Paula Hope’s Folk Art-inspired wall hanging – using your cover gift with the issue, you can create your own unique version using a mix of the…

There are a couple of points in the year when thoughts, mood or culture make us naturally inclined to start afresh. September is one, with its post-holiday, back-to-work feels and new pencil smell. January is the other big one. The standard marketing message – new year, new you – may be appealing to those of us who enjoy starting over and beginning a new page, but is New Year’s Day really the best time to throw out the old and begin all over again? Not necessarily. This year, try finding ways to ditch the pressure in favour of focusing on the good, and spend time deciding how you want the creative months ahead to look. TAKING STOCK The post-Christmas lull shouldn’t just be spent looking forward to 2024 – it’s…

BEHIND THE QUILT STARS AND SPIDERS “This is a fun variation on the ever popular String Stars and Spiders Web quilt design. It has been seen since the late 1800s and is as effective today as it was then for using up scraps and sewing a wonderful quilt from what otherwise might have been discarded. “Usually, when sewing the blocks, the quarter triangle units are sewn back into the original square. This creates a star in the centre, and four of these blocks together make the spiders web. The stars in the quilt will be on point. “But if you look at our version, the stars sit on their side, and when the quilt is put together you will see the webs appear first. It’s a very simple way to…

BEHIND THE QUILT HEART IN HAND “There is a wonderful sense of achievement when you can whip up a quilt on your sewing machine quickly, but there are also those precious moments when you can sit quietly and sew by hand. I think this is why I enjoy appliqué so much. There is a lovely sense of peace to needle-turning pretty fabrics in place. This is my go-to technique – I use a removable pencil, which means a light enough pencil that it will wash out, or a quilting pen that is designed to disappear or wash out. Alert here: always test your chosen marking pen or pencil on your fabrics. I am using the plural here because marking pens, etc, can react differently on different fabrics and who wants…

INSPIRATION Wow... my tenure at Today’s Quilter is coming to an end. This is my last Notes from the Classroom article, at least for now. So I decided to focus on my favourite topic of free-motion quilting (FMQ)! I have two loves when it comes to my art quilts and by far FMQ is No.1! Why is it my favourite? Well, mainly because it is where I truly get to relax and play. I know to some that sounds sort of impossible, but I believe I put in the work necessary to get to this place. I practised, practised, practised and soon it became play, play, play. Remember that magic 500 hours I talked about in an earlier article? Well, I did that and more. So this month, besides practising…

Being able to enlarge or reduce templates yourself is very useful. It means that you can use templates from different sources together, or give a single template many uses. For example, you might use a motif as an appliqué template and then resize it and use it again as a quilting or embroidery template in the same project. When reducing or enlarging a template, a percentage is used to describe the amount by which the shape has been changed – a number under 100 means it has been reduced; a number over 100 means it has been enlarged. Three easy percentages are: ■ 50% (half the original size)■ 75% (three-quarters of the original size)■ 200% (double the original size). How to change a template’s size There are two main ways…

BEHIND THE QUILT TOOLS OF THE TRADE “Here’s a pattern for a fun patchwork tool roll that will keep all of your hand-quilting tools tidy and together in one place. I keep only the most essential tools in my roll, including a small pair of snips, a thimble, quilting needles, marking tools, safety pins, a hera marker and a small ruler. Needles can be stored on the wool felt flap that also serves as a pocket where I keep safety pins and my thimble. “These instructions explain how to make a tool roll from the Snowball block, but feel free to choose a different block if you please. The finished patchwork dimensions are 18in x 12in, you could make any patchwork panel that size.” – Sara Larson Buscaglia You will…

Retro-style nine-patch This intriguing block of strips, which is woven around a centre nine-patch square, is given a retro look by curving each end of the four interwoven strips, and also by softening the surrounding dark frame with curved corners. Every design has a finished size of 12in x 12in and is then edged with an extra frame of background fabric in a finished width of 1½in. This acts as a final border to each block and extends the block size to 15in x 15in. The frame includes a cornerstone square that repeats the corner square of each block. Choosing the fabrics The centre small nine-patch is the focus of the design, and I used a dark fabric (fabric A) from the Janet Clare Collage Collection [Ink 16954 20] alternating…

THE FABRIC DINAH’S DELIGHT 1830-1850 With each collection designer Betsy Chutchian creates there is a story to tell. Dinah’s Delight begins with an antique quilt that was really two finished quilts that had been cut up to create a new quilt in the early 1800s. Betsy says, “I was fascinated by the construction, wondering if the quilts were cut apart to hide them from the enemy, or if they were the salvaged parts of damaged quilts. The name comes from Dinah Criser Carpenter (1762-1836), my fifth-generation removed great grandmother.” THE BOOK FARM & FOLK QUILT ALCHEMY Artist and quiltmaker Sara Buscaglia invites readers to her Colorado farm to learn the secrets – and beauty – of making natural dyes from foraged plants and stitching natural-fibre quilts by hand. Her creative…

DESIGNER PROFILE Mother-and-daughter team Pam and Nicky Lintott will be familiar to readers of Today’s Quilter as a favourite design duo whose gorgeous quilt projects regularly feature in the magazine. Best known for their clever patterns using pre-cuts, a topic on which they have authored 15 best-selling titles, they have been collaborating for almost 20 years. You may also know Pam and Nicky through The Quilt Room, the much-loved Surrey shop that Pam set up more than 40 years ago and which closed its doors for the final time in June 2023. “It was a difficult and heart-wrenching decision, but we knew it was the right thing to do,” they tell us. “Running the shop was amazing, but being unable to open during the pandemic and then the economic downturn…

SHOPPING ACCESSORIES Clover Fusible Bias Tape Maker www.clover-mfg.com Big Stitch Hand Quilting Thread Set www.aurifil.co.uk BOOKS Imperfect: Embracing Improv Quilting www.searchpress.co.uk Retro Curved Pieced Quilts, The Ultimate Binding and Edge-Finishing Guide www.foxchapelpublishing.co.uk FABRIC COLLECTIONS Cotton Cloth II Renee Nanneman www.makoweruk.com The Great Outdoors www.modafabrics.com Florence www.liveartgalleryfabrics.com…

HOME SWEET HOME FPP, HST AND CUTTING TEMPLATES ACTUAL SIZE PLEASE NOTE: Templates include seam allowances. Thank you for making this project from Today’s Quilter. The copyright of the patterns in this magazine are owned by or licensed to Our Media and are for readers’ personal use only. Please DO not share them online (even for free) or copy them multiple times without our permission. Where selling crafts based on these patterns is permitted (usually only to raise funds for charity), we’ll say so on the page. Copyright law protects creative work and unauthorised copying is illegal. We appreciate your help. SCAN ME! Scan the QR code here, to go directly to the templates page on Gathered.how and Download all templates for the projects at full size! DOWNLOAD THESE TEMPLATES…