Tui Song Quilting
Rayna from Tui Song Quilting was our speaker on a cold, wet and windy Monday bringing much needed warmth and laughter.
Rayna is a skilled quilter who started off with free-motion quilting as she doesn’t like following patterns and then bought her long arm quilter.
Rayna showed us some of the patterns that her long arm quilter can do and how they can be adapted to be sashing or to fill in a block, mirroring and rotating a pattern.
She also taught us a lot of very useful tips including:
the importance of using patterns on a quilt which have the same density.
Good to balance curvy patterns with angular patterns – gives good texture to the quilt. The way that you press your seams can affect the pattern. If you intend to stitch in the ditch (to give a good contrast between white and colour), don’t press your seams open.
When you finish your quilt top, it is a good idea to stitch all around it so that seams don’t come apart when it is being quilted.
Pick out threads while you are ironing the quilt. Also a good time to spot any seams which haven’t been sewn in properly.
Simple edge to edge quilting can give wonderful texture to a geometric pieced quilt.
Draw the pattern on paper before you start sewing
Have scrap quilt sandwiches ready to go, so that you can practice
Rayna also recommended to utilise quilting resources such as books or printed designs ‘Step by step free-motion quilting’ and Use internet tutorials (Gammill Tutorials ‘block breakdown’.
You can start by looking in our library. Our librarians have pulled out a few books to start you off.
The books shown are:
"Master Machine Quilting with Your Walking Foot" by Jacquie Gering
"Practical Patterns for Everyday Quilting" by Lynda Smith
"365 Free Motion Quilting Designs" by Leah Day
"Listen to Your Quilt" by Barbara Persing
"Shape by Shape" by Angela Walters
"Intuitive Color and Design" by Jean Wells
"Shape by Shape Collection 2" by Angela Walters
"Thread Work Unravelled" by Sarah Ann Smith
We also had a wonderful show and tell
