quilting Archives - The Little Mushroom Cap: A Quilting Blog

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Quilting Baby Quilt with a Home Machine

March 14, 2022 1 Comment

If you have been wanting to learn how to free-motion quilt with a regular home sewing machine, these tips may be helpful for you!

In this post + video, I’ll take you through the process of quilting a baby quilt with a home sewing machine.

Oftentimes for beginner quilters, the quilting part can be daunting and a little confusing.

How do you quilt a baby quilt?

You can always do it yourself on your home machine. But you can also opt to send it to professional quilters too. Whichever will work. But baby quilts are often small projects that quilters are willing to do the quilting themselves with the regular sewing machine.

What do you quilt a baby quilt with?

You can quilt with your home sewing machine. You can quilt using what you already own to make the quilt top. Your home sewing machine.

Any regular sewing machine can be used to quilt the three-layer sandwich of the quilt top, batting, and backing fabric. You can quilt straight lines using a walking foot or free motion quilt with an allover quilting design.

I love free motion quilting all over design and free motion quilting is easier on smaller-sized quilts like a baby quilt.

If you are planning to quilt a large quilt using your home sewing machine, you should definitely try to quilt a baby-size quilt first beforehand.

It will teach you a lot and you’ll be more experienced to tackle larger quilts with your home sewing machine after quilting a baby quilt with your sewing machine.

Free Motion Quilting a Baby Quilt with a regular sewing machine

In this particular post, I have a video where I’ll be sharing the process and taking you through the process of quilting a baby quilt with an easy all-over free motion quilting on a regular sewing machine.

I am not using a long arm machine, and you won’t need a long-arm machine to finish a baby quilt. You can absolutely do it on your home machine with ease with the right tools and techniques.

Previously, I have shared some of these tips on my blog (which you can find in the following top posts):

but for visual learners, a video might be much more helpful for you. So hopefully, this video will benefit you, and encourage you to start quilting your own quilt with your sewing machine!

If you are a beginner free motion quilter or haven’t yet got the hang of free-motion quilting, I would like to invite you to join my FREE E-course on FREE MOTION QUILTING FOR BEGINNER HERE >>

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Boy’s Quilt : Tonka Truck

June 26, 2021 6 Comments

A finished quilt always deserves a post right?

So here is another June 2021 finish. This quilt top started way back when I was still pregnant with my third child. She is now 10 months old. So, the quilt kind of took its time to get to the finish line.

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Patchwork Barn Quilt in Progress

October 20, 2020 7 Comments

A little more update on the progress of my blue and white Patchwork Barn quilt.

I have posted the previous progress HERE> and HERE>

From the last post, I have made 12 more blocks and I am happy to say that I only have 9 more blocks to go to complete 72 blocks required for the quilt.

There are affiliate links within this post in which I may earn a small commission from the links.

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Blue and white Quilt in Progress

September 22, 2020 5 Comments

A little more update on the progress of my blue and white quilt.

I have posted the previous progress HERE>

I am falling in love more and more with this quilt as it progresses.

There are affiliate links within this post in which I may earn a small commission from the links.

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Quick Quilt Top : Kids Truck Quilt

June 19, 2020 5 Comments

A quick quilt top finish is always a great project in between other quilts and when you are lost searching for that quilting mojo.

I haven’t been active here on the blog or on my other platform due to my low energy (I am pregnant with my 3rd Baby) and other focuses that seem to be taking over these days.

Things are a little better with my health, but my quilting mojo is still yet to be recovered. I am in nesting mode and have been spending my spare time decluttering everywhere around my home. Well, that is where I have been spending my time these last few days.

In this post, I am sharing with you a quick finish of my son’s truck quilt. He is already four years old and I haven’t made him any quilt before. So, I think it is about time (LOL, it could have been earlier)

I bought the set of fat quarters set of the retro Tonka Truck from HERE.

I love the primary colors and my son seems to like the trucks too. He is in that phase of loving trucks.

Sew and Cut Technique – link to FREE pattern

A simple pattern was perfect for this quilt as I wanted to keep the fabric shine and be the star rather than the pattern.

Thankfully, this free quilt pattern came to the rescue.

The initial fabric cutting was of large pieces making it so much faster to get prepped.

The quilt top was made by piecing large pieces together and cutting them, which lessens the time and hassle.

Overall the quilt was a fun way to give me that little boost and sense of satisfaction. I am going to be basting the quilt soon together with my other quilt top.

Then comes the fun part – free motion quilting them! For now, I think that one of the simple free motion quilting design would be perfect for this quilt.

Well, till then – I’ll update here again.

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Top 5 tools for free motion quilting

January 30, 2020 6 Comments

Do you want to quilt free-hand design on your home machine? Wonder what tools you need to do free motion quilting? You’re in the right place! In this post, I will share with you the 5 MUST-HAVE essentials tools for free motion quilting.

I love to free-motion quilt, and I have been loving teaching others to free-motion quilt too!

I would say these items have helped me so much and I would not be free motion quilting without them these days!

What do you need to do free motion quilting on a home sewing machine?

First on the list of tools to free motion quilt on your home machine is of course,

the right free-motion quilting foot.

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Boxy Pouch Tutorial

January 2, 2020 No Comments

Small projects make the best practice pieces for free motion quilting. In this post I have a tutorial on how to make a boxy pouch and get you to practice free motion quilting!

This project will not only allow you to make use of your practice sandwich but also allows you to have the option of hiding those stitches, should you feel like they’re not that pretty yet. Everyone was there before they get better. It is a practice piece after all.

If you are interested to learn more about free motion quilting, make sure you check these related posts too:

Also check out to learn how to free motion quilt confidently

I remembered in the early times of my free motion quilting days, I used to get so frustrated with my stitches and was certainly not happy with how they turned out. But I also know that practice is necessary, so I keep making these ‘ugly’ practice sandwiches.

Practice will make it better.

That is what I keep chanting as I move along practice piece after practice piece.

I don’t feel like wasting those practice pieces, so I usually turn them into hotpads and placemats. And that makes me feel a lot better. At least even if the stitches were not as great at that time, I actually get to use the piece.

And in this post I am sharing an even better idea!

A pouch. One can never have enough pouches, And this one is a really useful roomy one, suitable for many of your necessities and perfect for gifting too!

You can also make one following the tutorial in the video below.

Free Motion Quilting Boxy Pouch Tutorial

Start out by free motion quilting a fat quarter size quilt sandwich.

Divide them into two to make two pouches with 2 pieces of fat quarter fabrics.

The size of the rectangle to start with for each pouch is 16.5″ x 10″ and the boxy pouch will end up to be 3″x5″x9″.

Watch the tutorial below on how to make the boxy pouch.

Let me know what you think. Want to keep on practicing now?? Let’s do this.

If you haven’t checked out Free Motion Quilting Bootcamp, I would love to invite you to join in. I teach you how to master various designs and the exact steps on how you can free-motion quilt any design with your regular sewing machine.

We have gotten great reviews of the program and I am sure you will be on your way to great success with free motion quilting if you joined in too!

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Top 9 of the 2019 Quilting Instagram

December 31, 2019 No Comments

I ran the top 2019 over here for my quilting Instagram feed and though I have been a little quiet there as compared to the blog and newsletters, I think Instagram did catch some of my best make in the year of 2019.

So here it is:

My Quilting Instagram page is Amira_littlemushroomcap

There are affiliate links within this post that may earn me little commission to help cover the cost of the blog and other expenses. Please find the disclosure policy here.

From the top nine of my quilting Instagram account,

what I first notice is,

The hotpad took 3 squares out of 9 which was pretty obvious as I tried (yup, tried) to complete 52 hotpads in a year. Although I failed to follow through, I was pretty happy with the amount of hotpads I got done this year and it was such a pleasure sharing the process and tutorials with you on this blog.

Currently it is at 22 hotpads and I am continuing this project in the year 2020 and hopefully, we’ll get to that 52 hotpads.

You can check all the tutorials for the hotpad so far in the latest post here>

I believe in no failures, only lessons.

So what have I learned?

a challenge always pushes me to expand my creativity, and allow me to work my skill
A challenge that is pursued is always better than none. I did end up with 22 hotpads this year which could have easily been none if I did not challenge myself to do this challenge

I may have overestimated what I can do in a week. With a full-time job, two little kids, a home to care for and other ‘behind the scene of a blog’ tasks… I sometimes get exhausted and just want to chill. I love being busy, productive but there are times that I just simply need to chill a little. Do a little more gardening, a little more NetFlix and just simply enjoy the free time.

Regardless, a challenge is always fun but I should want to be careful not to stress out too much if I could not get to it.

Secondly,

Two scrappy quilts also got the place in there in which one is fully completed (the scrappy trip is blogged here) and the other (the scrap vomit) is still lying in my unfinished object (UFO) pile. Too little as a quilt – that’s what I say to myself.

I find it hard to finish up small quilts, I just feel like they need to be bigger before I continue to baste. I feel like I need to add a border to the quilt. But we’ll see.

Thirdly,

A glimpse of my sewing room is also there, and a photo of me. These two photos were when I joined in Quilter’s Planner photo a day in January. I feel like I want to do this again in 2020. If you are on Instagram, come and join over too.

have a virtual sewing retreat in your own space.

My sewing setup today is still very similar, I think it is the best as of now until we get a room just for my sewing space. Right now, I share the space with my kid’s bedroom. We are planning to be renovating soon for another two or three-bedrooms extended to our current house.

Lastly,

The other two photos are of the Rocket Star Quilt in which I joined a quilt along hosted by Fat Quarter Shop.

Quilt-along like this is fun and always gets more engagement as compared to other posts. I also love visiting other people during the quilt-along. There’ll be many quilt-along in the coming 2020.

For example the Bloomatopia- which you can start ordering the kit today here.

What’s coming in 2020 as for my quilting plan?

While I have lots of quilting plans for 2020, I will try to focus on tying up some ends to the UFO pile before starting new quilts.

I am so excited for 2020 and the crafty endeavors it will bring.

What are your plans?? Share them with me by commenting below.

In Quilt

Quilt Cabinet : How I store my Quilts

November 11, 2019 7 Comments

I think it is about time I got a real home for my quilts. It has been a while since I started quilting, and a quilt collection is inevitable.

I have been storing my quilts on an open regular shelves and basically everywhere before this: on the sofa, layers of them on the bed and stacked here and there.

Quilt cabinet

A quilt cabinet sounds like a very good idea to me. Something that can display the quilt and yet keep it clean from dust.

A couple of month back I went to my local used furniture store and found a cabinet that I feel was perfect for the job.

I have always loved the idea of repainting an old cabinet. It is always fun to see the transformation and the fun colour choices on Pinterest.

Little did I know about refurbishing and old cabinet, I did a little research and off I go to the paint shop. I have previously painted a drawer with a chalk paint which was super easy to do with very minimal sanding required.

is one of those magical paint that I have found to work really easy on cabinets and I love the matte look provided by the paint.

However, this time I couldn’t find a chalk paint (I live in quite a rural area) and since I couldn’t wait to just get started, I went ahead and decided to sand it, put a undercoat and go ahead with shiny wooden paint.

Oh boy, little did I know that the sanding process was tedious and I didn’t enjoy it at all. It was quite a struggle trying to complete the project, but the result was okay.

I then painted the cabinet in dark teal colour. I was aiming for dark navy blue, but there weren’t many choices at my local store.

O well, thankfully, I love the colour anyway and still love the shape of the cabinet despite how I regretted the project.

The design of the furniture is probably sort of Mid Century Modern. I have seen many new cabinets are designed this way too.

I love how the design of furniture are making a comeback. It made me think about how fashion always made their comeback to with years passing. Quilts too. There is basically nothing new under the sun. We replicate, improvise or simple choose latest fabric designs and typically replicate what has been done years ago.

Displaying Quilts

The pop of dark teal painted cabinet was the perfect addition to my sewing space. I love it! It sit in front of my machine and I can see the quilts stack from where I sew.

There are also quilts to be quilted in there and it is just calling me to get them quilted soon. One of them on top there is my aviatrix medallion quilt. It has been a while already since it was basted.

O, if only there’s more time in a day. 🙂

I was pretty happy with the result, not perfect but was great. I learned that I did not like to do a painting job and would not attempt to do one any time soon.

How to store quilts

If you don’t have a quilt cabinet just yet, there are other ways you can store your quilts such as:

layering them on guest beds (when the beds are not in used)
like this is a fun addition to the bedroom too

How do you store your quilts?

Let me know how you store your quilts in the comment below! It is always great to hear your ideas.

In Quilt

Quilt Batting: How to choose the best one?

October 15, 2019 2 Comments

Ever thought about which quilt batting is best for your quilt? You have a quilt top done, and just before we get to quilt it, we need to make a quilt sandwich, and then the batting comes to mind. Which one should you use?

How do you choose the correct and best quilt batting?

In this post, we’ll discuss different types of batting and I’ll give you some suggestions to which quilt batting you should use.