Tips, Tutorials & Freebies – Page 9 – The Little Mushroom Cap: A Quilting Blog

Free Motion Quilting on Block Patience Corner | Sewcial Bee Sampler

March 3, 2017 2 Comments

NOTE : I no longer promote Craftsy/Bluprint as I used to due to the way the subscription is currently being carried out. I had the issue of cancelling my subscription when the company changed hand and I find that cancelling through calls is inconvenient. However, I do still stand behind these classes I promote and if you are subscribed, you can surely check these classes I recommend on the platform. If you are looking for another online platform to learn craft such as quilting, do check out CreativeBug. It is much cheaper in subscription (subscribe now 3 months for only $5). Thank you.

I am sharing with you today how I quilted block the Patience Corner. I have two blocks made for two quilts, one with custom quilting and one with allover quilting.

Both would be a great practice if you are looking towards improving your free-motion skill. I am still practicing myself, especially with the custom quilting. I am learning as I go too, so let’s do this together!

If you are new here, this post is a part of my quilt-as-you-go my Sewcial Bee Sampler which I plan to share along the process along with some tips and tutorial. Click here to related Archive posts.

In Custom FMQ Sampler Quilt Along

Sewcial Bee Sampler sew-along and quilting as you go

February 25, 2017 1 Comment

I am joining Sewcial Bee Sampler, a sampler sew-along hosted and designed by the talented Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell, which is already running beginning of February and will be finishing in August. You can find out more about the schedule here or here.

We are already onto our 4th block out of 25 blocks all together. So far, I really enjoyed making the block and the sew-along. The instructions were clear and the design of the finished quilt really looks amazing. I even have mine planned with their free colouring page. Well, the final might look a little different than my plan but I pretty much will have the colours scheme like planned.

While taking photos of the blocks I already made together, the idea to quilt it as I go struck me. I was also refreshing my old blogpost which had me revisiting my old quilt-along back in 2013 here. In that quilt along, I have included tutorials for blocks and free-motion quilting each block. At the end of that quilt-along, I ended up with a beautiful quilt that I cherish till now – although it was a little small, it made a perfect wall hanging. I totally love the idea of having different backing which made the quilt reversible too!

Now, for this Sewcial Bee Sampler, I planned to do something similar! And I thought, why not I include a tutorial as well along as I quilt-along my blocks! So, if you want to join along, make sure you follow along Sewcial Bee Sampler Sew-along and come here to quilt each block together!This is only optional – Sharon and Maureen will have a how to piece and quilt them at the end of the sew-along. I just feel like quilting as I go because I want to custom quilt it and have the quilt done quicker and on the spot ready to use at the end of the sew-along.

Quilting As You Go the Sewcial Bee Sampler

I am going to give a tutorial on how to custom quilt them and also include a simple quilting instruction for those who are beginners, who may want to try out Quilt As You Go (QAYG) technique but not so ready to do custom quilting. So basically, I will be doing two quilts – one with simple quilting and another with custom quilting on it. You can follow either one, depending on your confidence level and your commitment.

I am a big fan of custom quilting but realise that it is not easy to do custom quilting on large quilt with a domestic machine!

So, I find that quilt as you go (QAYG) technique is perfect for that matter.

If you have been wanting to learn free-motion quilting with your own domestic machine, this IS definitely the time. We are going to work with small blocks (12.5″ square) which make the whole thing more manageable but still gives you that experience you need to improve your free-motion quilting skills!

So what do you think?? Are you up for it?

[bctt tweet=”Custom quilting on domestic machine is made easy, using a Quilt As You Go technique” username=”amira_lilmushroomcap”]

If you are already in the Sewcial Bee Sampler Sew-along, you can get ready basting your quilt blocks in three layers as we are going to start quilting in a couple more days. You can also go to this post to have an idea how we are going to join the blocks together.

You can baste as following : (I prefer for this small block)

Quilt block on a 13.5″ square on a 14″ square backing. I am planning to do mine with different print backings (so I will be using 25 Fat quarters to do so).

If you haven’t jumped on the Sewcial Bee Sampler sew-along bandwagon – make sure you drop by here or here and download all the patterns and get sewing! We still have about 20 Weeks to go, so don’t worry, you are not yet late to the party. Even if you are late, I think Sharon and Maureen will still have those pattern up for sometime later to the sew-along and my post here will remain, so you still can sew and quilt at your own pace.

I will update in a few days with the first instruction on how to quilt the first 2 blocks! In the meantime, get basting and keep updated. Drop a comment down below or on my Instagram if you are interested to follow along or if you have any questions! I am all excited to start and hopefully, you are too!

Quilty Hugs,

Amira

In Quilt

5 reasons why you should bring your handmade quilt when you travel

February 21, 2017 7 Comments

It may sound a little weird to some people as to why we should bring one possibly heavy quilt to travel! But, as a quilter – I think it is necessary! ….unless you want to spare room for fabrics, of course 😛

Here are 5 reasons why you should always bring a handmade quilt to travel:

If you are looking for a retreat, try airbnb and search for farmstay. I booked mine through airbnb and totally recommend it. If you have never used airbnb before, use my links to get $40 off your first booking. That is a lot of saving!!

#1 Bringing the feel of home and coziness

The minute you reach the hotel room, laying down those quilt on the white hotel bed suddenly looks much cozier and feels much more like home. Your quilt might even look better in the hotel setting too. I take the opportunity to enjoy the quilt on hotel beds as there is less clutter in the hotel room as compared to our room back at home.

#2 Conversation starter

Someone might be interested in your quilt and it can be a great conversation starter.

#3 Warmth inside car / plane

The standard reason and need for a quilt. I don’t normally bring big quilts. Only lap size ones – perfect for putting on laps on those long car journey or plane.

#4 They double duty as picnic mats

I use my quilts for sitting/relaxing on, when on the beach – or the park. They wash easily in the washing machine so I don’t worry much. They are so much beautiful than those regular picnic mats. There are many times that I forgot to bring any quilts or mat to travel that I simply regret not having a quilt in the car boot somehow.

#5 Great opportunity for amazing photos

This is the main reason why I bring my quilt! I love taking photo of them in the wild – in the beautiful nature. The perfect lighting. The perfect background. I love outdoor quilt photos, so whenever we travel, I almost always bring a quilt!

This quilt is the rainbow wash Medallion Quilt I made sometimes ago, and I had the most wonderful farm stay at Kangaroo Valley, NSW and was so pleased to have some photo of the quilt there!

Have you brought your quilt travelling before? Let me know and share a photo if you have – tag me on instagram!

If you are looking for a retreat, try airbnb and search for farmstay. I booked mine through airbnb and totally recommend it. If you have never used airbnb before, use my links to get $40 off your first booking. That is a lot of saving!!

In Quilt

How to Make a Double Wedding Ring Quilt

January 26, 2016 23 Comments

In this post, I am sharing with you the progress of my double wedding ring quilt in this post plus……. a video too!

I have been posting the progress of my double wedding ring quilt on Instagram and have been asked a lot about what template I use, what pattern I use and etc, so I decided to make a video to just quickly answer that.

In the video, I sew a couple of pieces together too and hopefully you will get some points if you plan to sew your own double wedding ring quilt too!

There are affiliate link within this post that I may earn commission from. You can read my full disclosure HERE>

In Free Printable

Quilting Tutorial: How to make lots of half square triangles quickly, easy and accurate

July 17, 2015 17 Comments

I love making HST and I know there are a lot of ways to make them, but if a block pattern calls for repeated ones like the example above, I love making the half square triangle with triangle rolls or printable sheets. Triangles on a roll, are rolls of ready printed template similar to the one you can print today but in a form of a continuous roll, which means you can make as many as you want without getting it off your machine. If you have never tried this method before, you might want to give it a try especially if you have to make lots of small HSTs.

You can get the ready printed template – the triangle rolls here if you wish to. I tend to be savvy whenever I can, so I normally would print off printable template on a 60gsm paper or any recycled paper.

So, for today, I am going to show you how to make 16 2.5″ HST the quick way using a printable template that you can download here :

Free Printable Half Square Triangles (HST) Templates and How to use them:

You can watch the following video for the tutorial, though I am still figuring out video recording – and was really frustrated with the quality of the video – but I will for surely try to improve from time to time. Bear with me. I would just love to share so, here it is :

Now, you want to pin this image so you can come back to this post whenever you need to make HST!

Quilty hugs,

Amira

In English Paper Piecing

Free Printable Hexagon English Paper Piecing Template

July 3, 2015 8 Comments

There are affiliate links in this post provided for your convenience. Please find my full disclosure here.

Today I am going to be sharing with you a free printable I made for 7/8″ hexagon. I have been making a couple of grandmother flower blocks out of the the out of print Bonnie and Camille “Simple Abundance”. I am in the process of making something similar to the quilt on the cover of “Handful of Scraps” book by Edyta Sitar.

In Completed Projects

Tutorial : Oakshott Modern Log Cabin

February 23, 2015 4 Comments

Welcome to my turn for the fabulous Oakshott ColourShott Bloghop hosted by Lynne over at lily’s quilt. Hop on there if you haven’t seen the others. If you are new here, I most welcome you to browse around my blog too.

In Free Printable

Paper pieced 3" Pineapple Log Cabin Block Mini Quilt Progress : Free paper piecing template + A video !

January 5, 2015 21 Comments

Pineapple Log Cabin Paper Foundation Piecing Mini Quilt

I have been working with my mini for the Schnitzel & Boo quilt swap. This time I decide to try a pineapple log cabin block using paper piecing technique. Here are the process photo.

I have been pondering on what mini should I make ever since I got my partner’s detail. Not until recently, I made the decision to go with a mini pineapple log cabin block. This was totally inspired by the scrappy pineapple quilt Amanda was working on. Amanda has finished her 101 Scrappy project — and am thinking of starting mine!!!! This — maybe the first of many scrappy finishes. I am not sure how long I will take but I am currently loving making a dent through my stash with these pineapple blocks!!!! so I see a lot more fun in the future while I finish my 101 scrappy project!

The blocks are very time-consuming, but I love the finish so much!!

I prep all little pieces before sewing them in chain piece 4 at a time.

Fabrics are various scraps from my stash.

If you are looking for fabrics, I would love to recommend online shopping HERE> I love their customer service, cheap capped international shipping (since I am an international) and their fabric bundle comes in such a beautiful package.

Free Pineapple Log Cabin Paper Piece template:

If you are already a subscriber to my newsletter, you can always log in to the free resource library where I compile all the free templates there.

If you are not yet a subscriber: you can get your template here:

How I Chain Paper Piece

If you are interested in watching me as I sew through four of the blocks, I uploaded a video on Youtube. The quality of the video is a bit bad as I just found out I was recording in night mode! O well, lesson learnt for next time. You might be able to pick up some tips there. So, head along and watch me babbling for 18 minutes! There is a fast forward part as well, which I found to be fun to watch!

Here is the link to the tutorial for the portable design boards I use.

You might also be interested in the following:

Organising Fabric Scraps

My instagram : @amira_littlemushroomcap

You can pin the image below to bookmark this page!

In Quilt

Effective crafting time : 5 tips on how to sew more in short time

December 29, 2014 10 Comments

NOTE : I no longer promote Craftsy/Bluprint as I used to due to the way the subscription is currently being carried out. I had the issue of cancelling my subscription when the company changed hand and I find that cancelling through calls is inconvenient. However, I do still stand behind these classes I promote and if you are subscribed, you can surely check these classes I recommend on the platform. If you are looking for another online platform to learn craft such as quilting, do check out CreativeBug. It is much cheaper in subscription (subscribe now 3 months for only $5). Thank you.

If you are like me, working everyday on weekdays from 8-5 and have a family to take care of, you probably want to make sure you are making the most of your free time.

First off, I love to craft and I make sure I have time to do so. Whenever people ask me, where do I get the time to do so, I shall say – I make time to do so. I schedule in Sewing time. Even if it is only 5 minutes for that day.

So before I go onto the tips, I would advice you to:

Make time for your crafting/sewing even 5 minutes a day. Put in your schedule, or even take time sew when you wait for that dinner to bake out. Just make sure you put a timer on. 😛

Then in that limited times, here are my 5 tips to make the most of it:

5 tips to sew efficiently in limited time

There are affiliate links within this post. Please find my full disclosure here.

Read the instruction or plan the steps to do

Whenever you start a new project, first please read the instruction or plan the steps to do if you are not following any pattern – write it down so you can refer to it.

This will save a lot of time later, and will also save you from having to spend time with Mr Seam Ripper.

Do all the cutting, batch it!

Do all the cutting required first, put them in a dedicated box/ tray

This way you can sew anytime, I have very limited space too, so I cut elsewhere and having cut pieces ready to sew means I can save time taking out my cutting board etc.

It also makes easier to clean up and to carry around.

Products from Amazon.com

Chain piece

chain piece whenever you can.

I love chain piecing. It can save you a lot of time cutting or re-threading believe me! See chain piecing video here.

If your machine does not have an auto thread cutter, this is definitely a must! You can also save threads. You can even sew pieces of scraps in between blocks to mark it. This method of using scraps can also be a thread saver. See more of this thread saving tip here.

Portable design boards

Use portable design boards to place the cut pieces – especially for patchwork! Use this tutorial to make some cute portable design boards.

I also use this boards to place my pieces for making wallets. And they can be stacked on top of each other, which is perfect for small space and for stacking various blocks or parts

Use labels

I label my pieces if I’m sewing bags and my rows for chain piecing quilts. They save me time looking for them. I can leave them anytime when my sewing time is up, knowing that I won’t be lost next time I come back to it.

You can buy these alphabetic labels to help or just print out alphabets and cut them in small squares.

Well, hope you get more sewing done with these tips I learned!

Small chunks of time saved can save you a ton of time and make you more productive! Last but not least, be happy and enjoy your sewing time even for a small 5 minutes!

Products from Amazon.com

In Quilt

Quilt Binding Tip

December 16, 2014 9 Comments

Are you always frustrated with failure to get the right exact closure while you join the binding in the round?

Doesn’t it seems to be so hard to estimate?

Well, don’t estimate no longer, I have a binding tip that will solve that very problem.

Here is a tip which I use all the time for joining the binding tape in a round.

Perfect Binding Joint

I find it easier when I leave about 5″ free binding tape at the beginning and leave a gap of about 10″ unstitched at the end of the round.
I place the binding tape so that it overlaps (like the first photo above) and cut the the extra binding tape so that the overlap only measures about 2.5″ — which is equal to the width of the binding in the first place. If you use a 2.25″ then the overlap is 2.25″.
Then I place the binding tape perpendicular and right side together merely leaving any excess on both ends. Just make sure it is not twisted.

Trim the triangular excess seams and lay it back flat on the quilt. Finish the binding as you normally would. I personally love machine binding but sometime I do sit and blind stitch my binding.

This method is definitely my go to and never has failed on me yet. Give it a try!

Hugs

Amira