Well we have been having a beautiful week of cool sunny winter days! I love days like these, when the sun is shining and there is crisp bite in the air.
We have all been busy working on new samples and kits for the store. It has been a productive week, I do have a great job where I get to quilt where I work! Sometimes it means that I don't want to quilt when I get home but I play ALL day! Pretty lucky wouldn't you say?
This week I dedicated the week to working with all of our Minkie and Cuddle fabrics. If you have ever sewn with these fabrics you know they tend to "shed" when you cut them. So I figure take one week and make a mess, then move on to other fabrics. It is pretty funny as I cut kits I have lint through my hair, down my shirt and everywhere in between. When I go home at the end of the day I am still finding it! It is pretty funny. The other lint monster is flannel. It is finer lint but man it can get me sneezing! I love the quilts, so simple but sometimes that is all you need. Hope you like them too. We have kits for them all.
Have you worked with Shannon's Cuddle or Minkie before? Or have you worked with it and had a bad experience? Here are few of my own hints and tips that always work for me.
1. Always start with a very sharp blade in your cutter and if you have one use the 60mm cutter.
2. When sewing rows together make sure to measure really carefully and always match and pin the ends and center, then distribute the areas in between the pins evenly. Use a ton of pins. The more you pin the better your seam will come out.
3. Whenever possible use a 1/2" seam allowance instead of a 1/4". You can't iron Cuddle fabric so a wider seam allowance you can finger press without the edges curling.
4. Sew the entire quilt with your walking foot. A walking foot can be used for all types of sewing. It is actually technically called a dual feed foot. Meaning the sewing machine feed dogs work with the feed dogs on the walking foot and "feed" the fabric through together at the same time. This prevents one of the fabrics feeding through faster than the other. Therefore prevents puckering, pulling and also you won't end up with more fabric left over of one print when you get to the end of the seam!
5. Here is the best secret for finishing your quilt! Only use 505 Basting Spray to hold your layers together. Because the back of Minkie is slippery, if you don't use the spray they just slide against each other and will constantly move. You will be sooooo frustrated! We don't put batting in our Minkie quilts as we like the draping look of them, but you could certainly add batting.
6. The last tip.....roll over the backing to make the binding. We love the tool Quick Easy Mitered Binding Tool! You will never hand sew a binding again (unless you want to!).
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| Group doing charity work? This is great way to save time for bindings. |
Well I hope that will give the info you need to give Minkie or Cuddle fabrics a try, I love them. They are also great to use for quilt backing if want a really soft and warm quilt. The key is to use the 505. One other thing if you are giving the quilt as baby gift you should wash the quilt before giving it away, this will dissolve the 505 spray.
Have a great day.....
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