Quilting for Beginners: How To Quilt Beautiful Heirlooms Your Family Will Enjoy For Generations

Did you know that more than 6 million beginner quilters decided to learn how to quilt during the last 3 years? nnThat brings the total number of quilters to about 27 million – that’s just in the United States. And most of those quilters, just like me, are presented with limited drawing and painting abilities. nnQuilting is a fantastic way to create a work of art with fabric. It is well understood that the “painting” will not be perfect, and that colors and patterns are limited to what’s available in a quilt shop or hand dyed fabric.nnHere Are My Top Tips to Help You Get Started in Making Quilts for You, Your Children & Grandchildren:

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• Combine blocks of fabric to create your quilts. By changing the shapes of the pieces within a block such as substituting triangles for squares and switching light fabric for dark fabric you can create a whole new quilt design. And, you will still keep the construction of your quilt the same.n
• Simple is the name of the game for many quilters. As a beginning quilter, focus on learning and practicing basic quilt making techniques that you will need to develop your craft.n
• Use one or two shapes for all of the quilt patches. This makes it easy to sew a quilt together. Squares and triangles offer many advantages in terms of simplicity.n
• Remember, interesting variations in quilt blocks are achieved just by where you place the fabrics in your quilt block, in addition to how each patch is divided in the quilt block pattern.

nn8 Easy Quilting Patterns to Get You StartednnQuilt Pattern 1: A simple nine-patch quilt block can be used as an example of how different a block can look just by changing the placement of colors within the nine parts of one block. Using only two colors of fabric in alternating squares creates a checkerboard design. nnQuilt Pattern 2: With the same nine-patch of two colors of fabric, using only square patches in each block, you can create a quilt pattern that looks like a big X. nnQuilt Patterns 3 and 4: Want more of a challenge? Take some of the square patches in the blocks and divide them in half from corner to corner (commonly called half-square triangles in the quilting world), and create an Ohio Star or Pinwheel quilt block. nnQuilt Patterns 5,6,7,and 8: Change the placement of your fabrics once again, and your block turns into a May Basket Quilt Block, a Maple Leaf Quilt Block, a Bow Tie block, or even a series of diamonds, called Slanted Diamonds.nnIncrease the number of colors in your quilt, and your design changes once again. And, by using only two basic shapes (squares and triangles) you can create all of your design changes.nnQuilts are amazing works of art that have survived the test of time, and will continue to do so as long as there is fabric and quilting imagination.nnHappy Quilting!nnThis article courtesy of theQuiltingCoach.com.nYou may freely reprint this article on your website or in your newsletter provided this courtesy notice and the author name and URL remain intact.