Hi , 

How do you pick the fabric colors for a quilt? Do you shop for one quilt at a time or do you take a look at everything you have and browse your stash for the right look?

My favorite method is to shop my stash, and I love being able to see all the fabrics I own hanging up just like clothes in my closet. By hanging my fabric yardage by color, I can see the color values and possible color combinations at a glance. Here is a very old video on this (I was only 25!), but it's still the method I'm using today:

I've recently expanded this area of hanging fabric to also hold my projects in progress (PIPs or UFOs) so I can see all the quilt tops I've pieced and ready for quilting. I ended up having to install two more hanging rods to get everything hung up, but it was worth it! I can now see all my fabric yardage and pieced quilt tops all in one place.

In order to hang everything most efficiently, I went in search of a new style of clothes hanger. These allow me to hang two closet rods and 60+ hangers within a 36 inch vertical space - that's some serious space saving! See how this works in this short video:

These hangers are perfectly designed for holding fabric. I love the open back which makes slipping the fabric on and off very easy. They are also quite heavy-duty and so far I haven't noticed any bending or warping - though I do double up hangers if the piece is particularly large and heavy.

Click Here to check out these amazing hangers I found on Amazon.

Super Easy Charm Pack Baby Quilt

Are you interested in a simple yet pretty baby quilt that can be made in a day?

This is one of our simplest, beginner quilting patterns. We’re piecing this quilt using precut 5-inch squares and machine quilting with very fast, very simple quilting designs. Click Here to find the full tutorial!

Paper Quilting Stencils

I have a new style of quilting that I just love and wish I'd been doing years ago: Free motion quilting with paper quilt stencils. Since starting the Free Motion Quilting Project in 2009, I have been trying to help quilters begin free motion quilting. I’ve shared hundreds of quilting tutorials, quilt alongs, and different marking and stitching guides, but none of them seemed to help enough.

The fact is, this technique is hard to master because we’re doing so many things at once:

1. Pushing the quilt with our hands – When free motion quilting, your sewing machine isn’t doing the work for you. You have to actively push the quilt to create the stitches with your hands. This feels really different from regular sewing or walking foot quilting.
2. Running the sewing machine speed – We’re also controlling the speed of the machine with our foot on the foot pedal. We do have more options for controlling the machine speed such as using a Start / Stop Button, or a stitch regulator. But thinking about the speed and trying to match it with your hand movement is part of the free motion quilting process.
3. Quilting a design – Pushing the quilt and forming a pretty design with your quilting stitches. This is the part of this process that just feels EXTRA! It’s common for quilters to feel completely out of control and get scared off from ugly stitches all beginners make with this technique.

Click Here to read the tutorial and watch a few more videos.

That's it for this week, . Do you have a favorite fabric organization method that works great for you? I'd love to hear about it and know your solution for organizing fat quarters and precuts. 

I still haven't found a method I love for organizing these smaller cuts so I'd love to hear if you have a solution you'd like to share.

Let's go quilt,

Leah Day