April 10, 2010
I bought a package of 5-rapid cutting pieces of fabric. Each piece of 18 inches. x 21 inches. I’m looking for a simple model. I am learning to quilt. Any help is greatly appreciated.
I bought a package of 5-rapid cutting pieces of fabric. Each piece of 18 inches. x 21 inches. I’m looking for a simple model. I am learning to quilt. Any help is greatly appreciated.
April 10th, 2010 at 11:25 am
At fabric stores, a good magazine display, the library. You can find books on quilting that will have some ideas. Or, use your imagination and lay out your own design.
Or on the web:
http://quilting.about.com/
April 10th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
That size piece of fabric is called a fat quarter. Look for books or patterns that say they are fat quarter friendly, or made especially for fat quarters. For beginners, nothing beats a Chinese Coins pattern. It’s very simple, there are no seam intersections to match, and it teaches the basics of strip piecing. Check out instructions here:
http://www.quilterscache.com/C/ChineseCoinsBlock.html
This Flickr group has photos of the many, many ways you can use this pattern:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/2009coinquiltpiecealong/pool/
The Rail Fence block is similar to the Chinese Coins because it is also strip pieced. You can cut long strips of fabric, sew them together, then cut them into blocks. It’s a very fast pattern.
http://www.quilterscache.com/R/RailFenceBlock.html
I’d also recommend you check out a book called “Start Quilting with Alex Anderson.” It’s an excellent first quilting book. The beginner quilting class I took used this as our textbook.