Videos and helpful resources

TIP - When planning your quilting, draw on a quilt layout diagram. Click below to download a PDF for you to print out and play around with. 
It's the last week of the sew along which has absolutely flown by. First of all I hope you have enjoyed it and secondly thank you!!! It really does bring me joy seeing my creations brought to life, so the last six weeks of seeing your progress has been amazing. 

Constructing the Top
There are only nine blocks to put together for the quilt top, so it's nice and easy.  There aren't too many points to match, thanks to the borders within the blocks, but do take care around the centre star. My tip:
  • Pin, the points first then if you need to you can ease in (slightly stretch) the other areas, where the points don't need to meet up.
Quilting plans
We didn't build in a week for quilting the quilt as I know some of you may choose to get it long arm quilted or just need a rest. Once you are ready to quilt here are a few of my top tips for developing a plan.
  • I like to draw my quilting plan on to a spare quilt layout diagram, it's not to scale but it does help me to think it through. This way I can think about the whole design and see what might work for the different sections. I've made a download PDF of the quilt layout incase you would like to try this. 
  • Using a Hera marker to mark out the lines I need to quilt. They still aren't poker straight but it does really help. A Hera marker just creates a light crease in the fabric that you can follow along and can be completely removed by ironing it if you need to remove it. 
  • There are some fabulous resources out there to help, one of my favourites is the book WALK (and WALK 2.0) by Jacquie Gering which really helped me with my Walking Foot Quilting. If Free Motion Quilting is more of your style then there are some brilliant courses and books for this too. 

Quilting tips
  • If you can baste on the floor, use painters masking tape to hold down the bottom layer nice and taut. 
  • Press the quilt after you have basted it. I am constantly ironing my basted quilt. I'll iron a section, quilt it and the iron the next section. This helps as there is a fair bit of scrunching that goes into quilting on a domestic machine. 
  • If you are starting in the middle of the quilt, draw up the bottom thread and then tie it off before burying it between the layers. The ultimate top tip for this is self threading needles, they make a huge difference. I have some Clover Self Threading ones. 
Remember to post your photos using the #Fraktalsal and tag me @paulasteel.quilts and Lisa @modernquiltclub so we can share in your achievements. And check back next week for week 6!