Techniques

How to make it, whatever you design with.

Designing, piecing, cutting, printing, appliqué and quilting, step by step. These guides are useful with any software, or none.

Designing

From an idea to a quilt you’d want to make: layouts, blocks, color and value.

How to design a quilt: a beginner’s guide
Design your own quilt in seven steps: choose the size, a layout and a block, work out the numbers, pick colors by value, add borders, and check it.
Quilt layouts explained
Side by side, sashing, on point, alternating, columns, half drop and medallion quilt layouts, each drawn with the same block, with finished sizes.
How to design your own quilt block
Design a quilt block on a grid: four-patch and nine-patch grids, the units that fill them, symmetry, value, and a size your ruler can cut.
Value and contrast in quilts: the squint test
What value means in quilting, why contrast makes a pattern show, the red-and-green trap, and four ways to check value: squint, a gray photo and more.
How to choose quilt colors
Choose quilt colors with confidence: start from a fabric or photo, give each fabric a job, pick a color scheme, and check light, medium and dark.
Pieced borders: sawtooth, flying geese and more
Sawtooth, flying geese, piano key and checkerboard quilt borders: how to make the units fit, what to cut, spacer borders, and how to sew them on.

Paper piecing, hand piecing, set-in seams and curves.

Foundation paper piecing for beginners
How to foundation paper piece, step by step: printing the paper, why it’s a mirror image, cutting each piece, sewing in number order and joining sections.
English paper piecing for beginners
How to English paper piece by hand: papers and fabric sizes, basting with glue or thread, whipstitching hexagons into a rosette, and the common mistakes.
How to sew Y-seams (set-in seams)
How to sew Y-seams, or set-in seams, step by step: mark the dots, sew dot to dot, and set in the pieces of a Le Moyne Star, with its templates and cuts.
How to sew curved seams
How to sew curved seams by machine: the outward and inward curves, cutting and notching, pinning, easing and pressing, with a Drunkard’s Path unit step by step.

Cutting charts, rotary cutting, and patterns that print at their true size.

How to print a quilt pattern at actual size
Why quilt templates print small, how to print at 100% or Actual size on a Mac, Windows, a Chromebook or an iPad, and how to check with the 1″ test square.
How to read a quilt cutting chart
How to read a quilt pattern’s cutting chart, line by line: WOF, strips, subcuts, letters, cutting on the diagonal, border and binding strips, and rotary basics.
Directional prints: cutting and planning
How to cut one-way and two-way directional fabric for a quilt: rectangles, triangles, side borders down the length, and how much more yardage it takes.

Shapes sewn on top, by hand or with fusible web.

Appliqué for beginners
Appliqué quilting for beginners: fusible or turned edge, templates and why they’re reversed, needle-turn step by step, bias stems, and placing the shapes.

Quilting designs, binding, and working with a longarm quilter.

Quilting designs for beginners
Quilting designs for beginners, drawn on one quilt: in the ditch, outline, straight lines, cross-hatch, echo, meander and a border cable, and how to choose.
How to bind a quilt
How to bind a quilt step by step: how much binding for each size, joining strips on the diagonal, mitered corners, joining the ends, and sewing it to the back.
Working with a longarm quilter
Sending a quilt to a longarm quilter: how much bigger the backing should be, pressing and trimming the top, why not to baste, batting, and what to ask.

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Quarter Inch works out every cut, yardage and template for the quilt you design, on your iPad, Mac or any browser.