Quilt As You Go, Simply Done

Simply Done

Decorative Stitches

Susan H’s Crazy Shortcake Quilt Story

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Hi Marguerita,

I reached out to you in 2019 with a question about the crazy shortcake quilt I was starting to make for my mother’s birthday.  You quickly responded and were very encouraging and supportive.  It meant a lot.

Unfortunately, my mother passed away a few months before her 97th birthday and I put the quilt away without finishing it.  However, as I recently had my machine out to work on covid masks, I decided to pull out the quilt and try to finish it.  I thought you might like to see the end product.  Thanks to you, I successfully made my very first quilt!

Stay safe!
Susan H

If you have an alphabet on your machine, it’s a great way to sign and date your quilts.
You can really see the decorative stitches on the light fabric backing!

Sarah’s Quilt

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Sarah Henderson sent me the story about her quilt and a couple of pics and I LOVE it!

Here’s her story:

I wanted to share a picture of my completed Crazy quilt.
Thanks so much for your inspiration, I loved every moment of creating this. I had so.much fun with this. What a great introduction to crazy quilting. I don’t want to do anything else now.
ps Thanks again for your inspiration!

Sarah’s Quilty Bit

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When I teach my quilt classes, and write a new quilt-as-you-go book, I start with a little helper that I call a “Quilty Bit”. I make them from several 5″ squares of fabric and batting. I make two “crazy cuts” similar to those in our book Crazy Shortcut Quilts, and then layer those squares with batting and backing, and quilt them with decorative stitches and pretty rayon threads. Then I join two squares, leaving out only the last seam, so that my students can see how the squares are joined. In my books I suggest making one of these Quilty Bits if a reader feels unsure of how to do the joining and wants to have a small sample to play with before starting a big quilt.

My friend Sarah (Sadie_J on YouTube) sent me pics of her “Quilty Bit” and I wanted to share them with you. The purples are her squares and the center pink strip is the joining strip of fabric. Doesn’t the gold thread look gorgeous against her fabrics? Thank you Sarah!

QB1

Meet Susan Wilcox Ingersoll

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We live at opposite ends of the North American continent. She’s from New Brunswick, Canada and she’s an organic soapmaker and entrepreneur.

We’ve emailed a few times, starting with this conversation about the decorative stitch quilting process:

I received Crazy Shortcut Quilts for Christmas and am enjoying the book greatly so far. I am working on my first quilt with this technique. At the first when you start to do the quilting and it tells you on page 93 to bring up the bobbin thread I understand and can do. What I am asking about is what do you do with the two threads afterwards. Do you have to know them together or do you just clip them off.

I love the technique very much and can see become addicted very quickly.

I replied to her that if I am using the decorative stitches, usually that will secure the threads enough that they don’t need to be knotted. Two cotton threads rarely need to be knotted, just clipped but, if I am using a rayon or slick polyester on top AND in the bobbin, I’ll check the line of stitching first (after all the quilting is done to the block) and see if they look like they are going to stay secure. Sometimes if I’ve used a simple stitch then I’ll knot the threads before clipping. I hope that makes sense. I just leave the long tails hanging while doing all the stitching because if you sew over the ends of one line of stitching with another line, that also secures the ends. After all the stitching on the blocks is done, then I go back and clip thread ends. I have a lot of videos on YouTube if you want to check some of them out – especially the one on using a “fat quarter inch seam” when joining/sashing your blocks together.

She also asked about using heavier than cotton fabrics, and we chatted about those options, with each of us deciding that a quilt made out of ANY fabric is better than no quilt at all. We are both frugal experimenters at heart. Then she told me about herself a little more

I live on a small island off of New Brunswick , only 2500 people live here, and no fabric store. So all my trips away to the mainland are usually used up taking family to doctor visits and not much time left to shop for fabric. I have lots of other interests as well as sewing, card making, jewelry making and soap making and stay at home mother, so when I get a hankering to sew I will use what I have on hand and lately that is not much.

We both love writing and quilting! Here are two of Susan’s quilts with her note

I would like to show you my first two quilts using your method. I love it!!!!!!! Thank you.

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New Quilt Pics!

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Stella made her fourth Crazy Shortcut Quilt! On this one, she writes:

I have shown the back as it has a rather lovely fabric with ‘wols’ (owls) on it. I went a bit over the top and added two more designs which I knew she would like. One of the seaside to remind her where she comes to stay and her favourite hot air balloons. She lives in the middle of the Swedish countryside where there are a lot of lakes but no seaside.

Stella's Quilt for grandchild Cayley


Back of Caley's Quilt
















Linda Rheault sent two views of her Jelly Roll Crazy Shortcut Quilt! Check out these colors – I want one like this!

Hi! After fighting with machine quilting a large quilt I found your site and decided to give it a try. I was especially inspired by your red and white jelly roll quilt and the directions you gave in your video. I did get your book in addition to watching the video. I had never heard of jelly rolls since I haven’t quilted for many years. I just finished the quilt which is a gift for friends.

I needed a big queen size quilt so my borders were added last like an envelope and then filled with batting and quilted on my machine.

I have enjoyed your videos especially the one on thread which was enlightening.

I will attach some pictures but I’m afraid they aren’t very good because the quilt is so large

I do want to do one more short cut quilt wall hanging out of Alexander Henry’s Freida Kahlo fabric.

Have a great day! Linda Rheault

Linda's Jellyroll Quilt

What a gorgeous border!






































Nicky Lowitz is an expert at re-inventing quilting! She recycled Hawaiian Shirts to make the quilt below and Nicky also made a Tee Shirt Quilt! – click on the Tee Shirt Quilts tab above to see them. About her Hawaiian Quilt she writes:

I love your method, and it was wonderful to do the whole thing myself, and avoid the machine quilting expense. This one is 90 x 90, and made from recycled Hawaiian shirts from the local thrift stores. I also bought all the threads from the thrift stores, as I was not working when I started the project. My Hawaiian quilt was in the Quilt Faire show at Ironstone Vineyards in Murphys CA this weekend. Several ladies in the Guild asked me how on earth I joined the squares! I gave a demonstration with pieces of paper and they both asked for your name and the name of the book, which I was pleased to give them!

Nicky's Hawaiian Shirt Quilt

Gorgeous matching shams!






Back of the Shams

Beautiful Stitches

More Quilts!

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I love to receive photos in my email!!

Angie in Canada sent me these of her quilt, and she blogged about it!

Angie's Quilt

Angie's Stitches


















Diane B in Eugene Oregon posted her quilt to her blog and sent photos of her pink quilt and this note:

First of all, I have had your book for ages just kept reading it and going over it. I finally just told myself to make it. I did not do fancy stitching, too time consuming and I’m impatient. I just straight line quilted or made up my own designs as I went along. Love, love, love your method. It was so easy, I don’t know why I was intimidated by it. Enough leftovers to make a 18 x 18 pillow cover.

Diane's Pillow


Diane B's Quilt

Diane's Quilt - Back


































Gayle sent me this note and her photo:

Hi there! This is the 2nd quilt I made with your Crazy quilt book, I sent you the first one and thought I would send the second as well! I also purchased your new book,read it cover to cover! Awesome tips and book! Getting ready to use the Roly Poly 2 pattern to make ME a quilt! LOL Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us! Happy New Year!

~Gayle

Gayle's Second Crazy Shortcut Quilt




















Bonnie sent a photo of her gorgeous, bright baby Shortcake Quilt:

Dear Marguerita,
Yesterday I finally finished the Crazy Shortcake Quilt for my newborn grandson (born 12/31/11). It was so much fun to make! I used a bug theme for the quilt squares. I had many challenges with the binding, trying to figure out how to do the final joining, so I kind of jury-rigged it. Here’s the photos…

Bonnie's quilt for her grandson


Bonnie's quilt back

















Lottie Sue posted her quilt to her Flickr account!

Quilt Photos!

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Amy Henry's Shortcake Quilt

I have a great email from Amy Palmer Henry, showing off her second Crazy Shortcut Quilt! Amy said that this one features a zigzag stitch, but she’s just gotten a new sewing machine with tons of decorative stitches and they sky’s the limit for her next quilts 🙂

Almost immediately an email came in from Margie Kitzman with the following story:

Sweat, Tears and a little bit of Sally!

My daughter and I made this quilt for my dad. It was our first bed-sized quilt (queen) and I was so thankful for the quilt-as-you-go method. (I simply cannot understand how anyone can quilt a bed-sized top on a sewing machine! They are truly amazing in my book!) Anyway, I couldn’t have been more pleased with the results and am itching to try the pattern again.

The only thing we did different was to quilt each block–in addition to the seam quilting–each piece of fabric sports a different quilting design. This quilt will have to stand up to many washings and I thought more quilting would be a better idea. That significantly increased construction time–I think about 1.5 hours per block–but will be worth it in the long run.

Gorgeous back of Dad's Quilt

My daughter is the first and only person I’ve actually known who has sewn through her finger with the machine! I will be missing the 48 fat quarters I pulled from my stash to make this quilt but they say that gives me reason to go out and buy more. (I’m feeling something akin to mourning as it seems I can remember picking out, taking home and lovingly stashing each and every one of those lovely pieces!) The name is a little strange, I know, but I think it helps to tell the story of the quilt! It took quite a little work, I’ll be missing the FQs and Sally really did bleed on it when the machine bit her!

Thanks for the wonderful pattern and the inspiration!
Margie Kitzman/Sally Kitzman

Sarah's Shortcake with grosgrain ribbon


And lastly, Sarah finished up a quilt just before going into labor with new daughter Violet! Here’s her newest Shortcake quilt, quilted with grosgrain ribbon instead of decorative stitches! So bright and pretty, just like baby Violet 🙂

What’s Your Favorite Decorative Stitch?

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It sometimes seems like I spend more time daydreaming over my decorative stitches than I do actually using them – and I use them a LOT! No matter what quilt I am making, I tend to come back to using a few stitches regularly. Here’s one of my favorites – if you looked closely you would find it used more than once on most of my quilts 🙂

What is your favorite stitch? Satin stitch? Flowers? My friend Sandra has a “crowns” stitch that I am very envious of – my machine doesn’t have that one!