Protect Your Mat from Decorative Blades

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Are you using decorative blades in your rotary cutters? Decorative blades make wonderful embellished edges for your fused art quilts. They come in wave, scallop, and, my favorite, the delightful pinking blade. 

But beware! Decorative blades can damage your cutting mats. Here you see a cutting mat on the right that has been scored by decorative blades. See how the decorative blades have gouged into the mat?

When you cut with a decorative blade you have to push a little harder to cut cleanly into the fabric. This means the blade will etch into the mat and mess up your grid lines.

Save the grid! Flip that mat over and cut your fabric on the wrong side of the mat. You’ll save your mat and you can use a pinking blade to create fun fabric edges like these.

Check out how I’ve used the pinking blade to create this decorative fused binding here.

Hanging Two Ways

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seedpod1a

Seedpods #1 by Laura Wasilowski

It is said that a single seed may lead to a thousand forests. While making Seedpods #1, I reflected upon how a simple act can change the world, and how one word of kindness can plant the seed for a lifetime of happiness.

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Creating Seedpods #1 was so engrossing I never considered which way to hang the design. Should it go horizontally or vertically? The orientation may depend upon the space where it is on display and how you feel about the design.

So I’ve come up with a solution for art quilts of this disposition. Hang it two ways!

It requires two hanging sleeves on the back. One sleeve is for a rod to hang it in a horizontal position. The second sleeve is used to hang it vertically.

sleevesforquiltHere’s how I hand stitch them to the back of the quilts. See that miter at the corner where the two sleeves meet? Now a rod can slip into either sleeve and change the orientation.

Read more about Seedpods #1 here if you’d like to add this versatile artwork to your collection.

What Foot to Use for Collage Stitching

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Welcome to my studio! I make fused art quilts with free-motion machine quilting. Every inch of the colorful fabrics used in my designs is covered with fusible web. And, as a precaution, I fuse more fabric than necessary to construct a new design.

This means I have lots of cut-aways or left over fused fabrics. I save these fabrics. Once fusible web is on a fabric, you can use it today or years from now. These oddly shaped fabrics also give me a palette of pre-fused colors to improvise with and often trigger new quilt ideas.

When I’m in a tidy-up mood, I like to build collages from my fused fabric scraps and use them in “color chip” quilts. Art quilts made with these chips have a lot of movement and cheerful color. But there is a trick to the free-motion stitching on this type of collage quilt made with many small snips of fabric. 

Here’s how I prepare my Bernina 750QE sewing machine for free-motion quilting on a collage quilt. (You may have to adapt the instructions to your machine.)

  • Drop the feed dogs on your machine.
  • Insert a straight stitch needle plate
  • Use a size 40 thread in the bobbin and top in your choice of color.
  • Use a chrome coated embroidery needle (best for fused fabrics). Size 14/90 recommended.
  • Use a closed quilting foot.

Why use this type of quilting foot? This foot has a wide, clear sole so you can see where you’re stitching. But most importantly, it is a closed foot. There are lots of raw edges on the fused collage you are stitching. These fabric edges can catch on the prongs of an open presser foot.

But with the closed quilting foot, the foot glides across the fabric surface and keeps those fabric edges flat as you stitch. Free-motion stitching with the closed quilting foot is slick and easy.