Q&A Friday Week 22

Sweetly Shining Quilt–pattern available in my shop

Good morning and welcome to week 22 of Q&A Friday.  We have some fun questions/answers for today.

Pretty Florals

Up First is this question from Karina: “There are so many pretty florals in all your fabric collections.  Are you going to release a “favorite” floral collection hopefully soon?”

Answer:  Probably not–I always enjoy the florals in each collection but it is the small prints and blenders that I tend to sell the most of overall.  Quilt shops like to purchase these versatile prints to mix in with other collections and they tend to sell out quickly.  As a quilter, I will buy a favorite floral print and use it in one quilt on the borders and within the blocks–maybe enough for a backing on a quilt but I will seldom use the same floral more than once in that manner.  However, I will use the same background print over and over if it’s one I like–and I’ll use it in more than one quilt.

However, because I do like flowers–you will find my collections usually pretty full of them. =)

Apricot & Ash Corals and Peaches (these fabrics will be available in August)

Question from Carol Hall: “Can you give any tips on sewing flying geese?”

Answer: I like to make my flying geese using the one rectangle/two squares method.  This method is often called the sew & flip or stitch & flip method.  One thing that greatly helps with accuracy when using this method is this: after sewing on the diagonal line, press first before trimming out the bottom two layers.  Often, sewists trim those bottom two layers, and then press…this will not be as accurate.  When you press first, you can double check that all of your raw edges align before trimming out those bottom layers.  If they don’t, you have the opportunity to fix them.  Sometimes this means resewing, or sometimes it means trimming up any overhang.  You want your completed flying geese unit to be the same size as your original rectangle–by pressing first and them trimming you can insure that it is.

Fat Quarters

Question from Cathy: “If I love a fabric line (I LOVE yours) but don’t have a pattern in mind, how much fabric should you buy?  Do you buy fat quarters of the bolt or???”

Answer:  I am sure this varies from quilter to quilter as we all have different budgets.  If I love a line, I will buy a fat quarter bundle of it.  This works well for piecing most quilts–there are going to be some patterns that won’t work as well for a fat quarter bundle, but in general it’s a versatile stack of fabric.  This gets me every print in the line and a nice sized cut of each.  If there is a main print that I really like, I might buy a yard of it–which works well for borders if I choose to add borders.  You have to think about the quilts you like to make–I’m quicker not to add borders so I’m usually pretty happy with just the fat quarter bundle.  I don’t usually worry about buying for backing but that would be a spot where you might be interested in purchasing more yardage of a favorite print.  I’m usually pretty happy choosing a coordinating 108″ wide later down the road.

Canning Day Fabrics, in shops now

Thank you so much for you questions–as I’ve mentioned before, I always enjoy answering them.  I am almost caught up on my questions so if you have any more you’d like me to answer, leave them below in the comments!

Have a wonderful weekend, Corey