Sticker Shock or My Guide to Cheaper Quilting

 Quilting supplies, like almost everything else these days are going up. I look around at my stash, and I know I wouldn't have most of this if I had to start over at today's prices. Sure, I would have what was given to me by sewists who could no longer sew, but what I've purchased? I wouldn't have bought much at today's prices. 

This is a great example, I bought a small fat quarter bundle (six fat quarters) three years ago for $7.49. The same company still sells the exact same bundle. Price? $21.59 It's the exact same bundle! Somehow, three years later the same company thinks the outdated bundle is worth three times the price??? This isn't a new line of fabric, it's not made differently than what I bought three years ago, and I suspect what they are selling now came in three years ago and just hasn't sold. 

It doesn't help that the options of where to buy supplies are dwindling. I remember always checking out the remnants at Hancock's Fabrics (not to be confused with Hancock's of Paducah, which is different), because they marked all the remnants down to $2 a yard, no matter what kind of fabric it was. The Hancock's chain went out of business. I used to find great deals on batting at Ben Franklin stores, until they went under too. We had a great local fabric shop. They sold every kind of fabric, from chiffon to leather, and all kinds of trims and notions. They went out of business too. Then, of course, we lost JoAnn fabrics too. My favorite quilt shop closed, though I thankfully live in a large enough place that there are a few more of those. 

My sister and I have a "sister date" once a week. I'm a quilter, she does all the other crafts, so a stop by a craft store is a regular for us. We've just been blown away by the change in prices. It seems like the prices change every week. Places that used to offer coupons, often don't now. Remnants that used to be half off or more, now aren't being marked down as much. We wonder what it must be like to want to start quilting in today's world. 

We raised five kids on one income, and I homeschooled as well. One thing I learned to do well is shop, not because I enjoy shopping, because I don't. I learned to shop well because we always had to make the budget stretch. I know young people say it's harder now, and that may be true, but it wasn't easy then either. 

If you are a beginner quilter, or a quilter who is struggling financially, I'm going to give you some tips on how to stretch the crafting budget, if there are any quilt police reading this, turn away now, you've been warned. 

Sewing Machine

Let's say you don't have a sewing machine, I'm here to tell you that lots of quilts have been made without one. In fact, some quilts, like one that is all small hexagons, are easier to hand sew than to sew with a sewing machine. If I were a mom who has to sit in the school pick up line every day, I'd be hand piecing during the wait. 

What if you want a sewing machine? If you have a very tight budget, my advice is to skip Walmart and go vintage.

I bought this Singer 201 at a thrift shop. It cost me $50 and had just been serviced. Sure, it's straight stitch only, but for quilting, that's all you need. The space between the needle and vertical of the machine is much larger than you find in a cheap plastic machine, which really comes in handy if you quilt your own quilts. More advantages to vintage? Watch a few YouTube videos and you can do a lot of servicing yourself, and this machine will still be sewing 50 years from now, where my new computerized machines will be in a landfill. I love to piece on a vintage machine, straight stitch only machines sew the most accurate 1/4" seams.

Fabric

A large portion of my fabric has been purchased at thrift stores, some of it as just fabric, sometimes a bag of scraps, but even whole bolts of fabric. Some of the fabric is upcycled from sheets, clothes, curtains, duvet covers. I prefer 100% cotton, but I have made quilts from other materials as well. 

This quilt was made from all men's shirts that I thrifted.

The purple background and borders of this quilt are from a duvet cover.

The focus fabric from this quilt are from some curtains I made, then when we were done with them, I turned them into a quilt. 

Some other things to look for at thrift stores? Fleece blankets, they make great backings and you can skip the batting if you want. Any blanket can be batting, as well as mattress pads. I've found thread at thrift stores too. I've seen people use towels as batting in table runner. No one will know what's on the inside of a quilt.

If you are lucky enough to have a Goodwill Outlet anywhere within day trip range, it's worth the trip. My sister and I just went there, and these are the current prices at ours.

So you can pick up clothes for $1.89 a pound, and that's any clothes, want to make a denim quilt, grab a bunch of jeans. Do you enjoy making t-shirt quilts? Look for any interesting ones. I usually stick with 100% woven cotton, usually men's shirts, but I've also picked up womens skirts, pajama pants, even a hospital gown that looked new. 

And the 99 cents a pound for linens? That's your sheets, which I've used for backgrounds, as well as backings, and duvet covers, and curtains, and blankets etc... I've even found yardage in the linen bins.

Maybe you don't have any local options for thrift stores, did you know Goodwill has an online auction site? You can bid on boxes full of fabrics, thread, or sewing machines. Have you been wanting a fabric die cutter? You can snag an Accuquilt die cutter with dies for a fraction of what it costs new. You can also try Etsy or eBay, though professional resellers are jacking up prices there.

I'm a big proponent of buying things secondhand. I think it's easier on the environment and on the wallet. Remember you can check out yard sales, estate sales, local auctions, Facebook Marketplace, Freecycle and local "buy nothing" groups. Just think of how many people bought the supplies for a project and never got around to making it because life got in the way. There's a lot of perfectly good supplies already out there. 

Prefer to buy new? Every quilt shop I've ever been in has a sale section. Big box stores that sell fabric have remnant bins. Check out the clearance section in the linens department. Don't have any local options?

For novelty fabrics, you can't beat 4my3boyz.com. She's got some $1 fat quarters! Lots of fabric panels too, and a fabric panel is the cheapest way to make a themed quilt. Buy a panel, surround it with blocks made from fabrics you already have in complementary colors, and you've got it! 

For every type of quilting fabric and batting, my go to is Marshall Dry Goods. Their quilting basics run about $5 per yard, but if you buy the same fabric by the bolt, you can get it for around $3 a yard on the wholesale side of their site. You do not need to be a business to buy wholesale, you just have to be willing to buy bulk.

If you really love pre-cuts, check out jellyrollfabric.net

Thread

I've found lots of thread at thrift shops, including brand new thread in the wrapper. My vintage machines will usually sew with any thread I've tried. Modern machines can be picky, and in my experience, the more expensive the machine, the pickier it seems to be. Most of my machines will sew with most threads if I'm piecing or walking foot quilting. I may have to adjust tension, but I can make it work. FMQ is where preferences really show up. The biggest area I've seen preferences in is fiber content. I have machines that only want to FMQ with cotton and never poly, no matter which brand, and I have machines that only want to FMQ with poly, never cotton, no matter which brand. Sometimes I do encounter brand preferences, one of my Bernina 440's will sew with anything, one absolutely will not sew with Gutterman, and if it's Auriful it needs to be 40 wt, 50 wt just breaks. Since I have two of the exact same machine, I am very familiar with adjusting tension on the top and bobbin, but one is just pickier than the other. 

If you are blessed to have a machine that is not picky, the cheapest place I know of to buy thread is Thread Art. This is Chinese thread, not European fine threads. Would I quilt a quilt for a quilt show with it, absolutely not. Would I make a quilt for a five year old with it? Absolutely. They have all kinds of thread, and I've had pretty good luck with it. Since I don't make quilts for quilt shows, I'll use just about any of their threads in most quilts. My favorite thread is Aurifil, and for a queen sized or larger quilt, that's what I'm likely to use, but for almost everything else, these work fine as long as my machine likes it. I have a few other brands of thread I like too, but I only buy thread on sale, including my beloved Aurifil. 

Patterns

I'm going to be pretty ruthless here. If you are struggling financially, don't buy patterns, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of free patterns online. You can also check out quilting books from your local library. 

Notions

The best advice I can give on notions is watch for sales. Buy sewing machine needles in bulk, you'd be shocked at the cost per needle in a 100 pack versus a five pack. Rulers have really gone up in price, and this is one thing I wouldn't buy used. A well used ruler is likely not that accurate anymore. They do wear out. Buy brand name rulers from reputable sellers. I know Amazon has had a lot of problems with pirated rulers that aren't accurate. Rotary blades I've had good luck with on Amazon. Did you know that if you go to the google home page, you can put in a specific item and press the shopping tab under the search bar, and they will do comparison shopping for you? Also, make sure to go back to google if you are going to make an online purchase, type in the name of the shop you are buying from along with the words coupon code, for example, Connecting Threads coupon code. You might find coupon codes for free shipping or percentage off coupons, but either way, it's worth a quick search. Local quilt shops have sales too, and they need business to stay open. 

Learn to Finish Your Own Quilts

I was chatting with a woman at a quilt shop, and she was shocked I quilt my own quilts. She has always used a longarmer. Longarmers are great, and I have had a few quilts finished that way. I could not make nearly as many quilts as I do if I paid a longarmer to quilt them all. My first quilts were tied. (Try a curved needle for this, it's easier) You can easily look up how to do that. My kids still used quilts I tied over 20 years ago, and they are holding up just fine! 

I went from tying quilts to using a walking foot, and I still use a walking foot now and then to do some simple crosshatching on a quilt. Pair a vintage sewing machine and a walking foot and you can quilt a king sized quilt. There are lots of books (think library here) and YouTube videos on some incredible quilting with a walking foot. 

I learned to FMQ because I wanted to, not because I had to. There is nothing wrong with tying a quilt, and there are some great walking foot quilting designs you can do. That said, YouTube and library books can get you started if you want to learn to FMQ. 

I know the quilting snobs likely haven't made it this far through the blog post. I've heard all of the, "you should only ever use quilt shop quality fabric and brand X of thread, and brand Y batting is all I'd ever use" comments I'd ever care to hear. The first two bed quilts I made for two of my daughters were made from our families old jeans, and backed with a set of sheets I bought in the clearance section at Kmart. DD#2 still uses that quilt, and if she's sick it's her favorite. 

The argument I really don't get it the your quilt won't last 50 or even 100 years if you don't use such and such. I would rather have a kid drag around a quilt I made them, and have them wear it out in five years making blanket forts and wrapping the dog in it, than have it sit in a closet unused because no one wants it to get ruined. The kid that wears out a quilt has memories with that quilt. Sure, the quilt may have worn out, but the memory of it won't. The quilt in the closet may be pristine, but no one cares about it, no one has memories of it, that, in my mind, is a waste of fabric and time. As long as I'm alive and able, wear out the quilt, I'll make you another one. 

Proof of Concept- Part 2

 If you made last week's blocks, or if you are thinking about it, and you want to know what the rest of the story is before you commit, here it is!

Before I show you, I want to let you in on a secret. If your quilt only has one block, what size they finish at doesn't matter. What does matter, is that they are all the same size! 

Last week's big block measured 18" finished, made up of four 9" finished block quarters. Today we'll be using those bonus HST's to make a different quilt. Now, when I used the specialty ruler for the sew and flip corners, I did not trim up the bonus HST's, I simply sewed a 1/4" seam on the diagonal. Each of these bonus HST's are a block quarter for our new quilt. You'll get two block quarters for quilt two, from each block quarter from block one. Remember we did two sew and flip corners on each block quarter? That really comes into play here, because out new blocks will be smaller than last week's, but you'll get two of them for each big block from last week.

And our new block is....

Four bonus HST's give you this block, and mine is measuring 10 7/8 unfinished. so it will be 10 3/8 finished. Is it a weird size? Yes, it is. Do I care? No I don't, because all my blocks measure this, and I'm not adding any other units to the quilt. 

How do a bunch of these look together?

It's a completely different look compared to the last quilt, but I still like it quite well. You can turn the blocks quarters differently to make a different block, and you can in the first quilt as well, but I liked the versions I did best. Both of these are now sewn into quilt tops and I'm not adding borders, I think a good contrasting binding will be a fine finish. 

It did not take me long to make both of these quilt tops. If you need two quilts in a hurry, this would be a good option. Although I think it could work in a lot of fabric combinations, the fact it looks good in men's shirts made me think this would be a great way to make two memory quilts from a loved ones clothes. You don't need a lot of extra fabric, and you get two quilt tops fast. Quilt #1 is larger, but not by a huge amount.

The only fabric waste is the dog ears from the bonus HST's. 

Will I try it in novelty prints? Maybe, but because the blocks get turned directional fabrics could be tricky, also, you'd really have to watch scale of the prints because not all the pieces end up being large. 

I think the next time I play around with this idea, I'm going to go much smaller, so there are a lot more repeats over the surface of the quilt. Changing the width of the framing strips will also change the quilts pretty drastically. I have some neon green fabric, and lot of black and white prints. What if I used the green for the framing strips and the black and white fabrics for the squares????

There's my concept and the resulting blocks on the design wall. It's probably been done before by someone, but not that I've seen. I did figure out how to make quilt #1 without bonus HST's, so there would be no quilt #2, but by doing it this way, the cutting is really easy, the sewing is easy, and you get an extra quilt. That's a huge win in my book!

Proof of Concept-Part 1

It's my birthday week, and to celebrate, I want to give you something. This is actually first of a two part idea.

I don't know about you, but I do a lot of google image searches for quilts. If someone asks me for a specific kind of quilt, I'm going to do a google image search to help me decide how I might want to tackle their request. Sometimes I come across new techniques, and sometimes a photo will spark a new idea in my mind. For example, I saw a photo of Migrating Geese, and when I looked at the technique, I came up with a way to do it that appealed to me more. You can find that post here. Notice that my version gives me bonus HST's. I never consider these waste, they are a bonus. This is important for the direction I'm going now.

I saw a random photo of a quilt online, and I didn't save the photo, I don't know where I found it. The quilt had a lot of movement in it, and I have no idea how close my quilt is to the original, because it was months between when I saw the photo, and when I tried to come up with a plan, that would result in two different quilts from one technique. I did not see a quilt like the second quilt you'll get.

Now when I'm experimenting, I don't want to use my best fabrics. Time to turn to my men's shirts stash. I also needed an accent fabric, and I just grabbed a cream solid, because I had a bolt of it.

This is more of a technique than a pattern, but I'll give you the sizes I used for my experiment. 

I cut a bunch of men's shirts into 6.5" squares. Why that size? Because I cut my novelty scraps into that size, and I thought that I might someday try this with novelty prints. The size of the square doesn't matter. In fact, I think I might do this again with 3.5" squares. For each block quarter, you need three squares, so 12 squares for one big block.

Now we need to frame the square.

Here's where that accent fabric came in, each square gets framed with the SAME accent fabric. What width your frame is can vary to your taste, since this was my first attempt, I just decided to cut two pieces 2 x 6.5", and two pieces 2 x 9.5" Since each of these is a quarter of a block, the big blocks finish at 18". 

Now we need to add some sew and flip corners, just two per square. I'm going to be honest here, for these you do NOT want to overcut and trim everything. Accuracy does matter, but it's not hard. I do a LOT of sew and flip corners, and I used to draw lines, and that will totally work here. If you want to draw diagonal lines to do your sew and flip corners, you need to draw two lines, one corner to the opposite diagonal corner, and one 1/2" away from that. These need to be accurate, because we won't be trimming.

I did not draw lines for these. I used this ruler.

I also have the Folded Corner Clipper Ruler which I love, but it was too small for 6 inch squares.  If you are unfamiliar with these type of rulers, here is one video of many that show you how to use them. In this particular video, she doesn't cut as accurately as you should for this project, because we will absolutely be making the bonus HST's. If the video doesn't make sense to you, the blog post I linked above above migrating geese a use the Folded Corner Clipper Ruler and gave step by step photos, and you use it the same way you use the Simple Folded Corners ruler.

One thing I prefer about using these rulers, is when piecing, I prefer to use a screw in seam guide on the bed of my machine. If I'm following a diagonal line, I can't use a screw in seam guide, because it would bunch up the fabric and make it inaccurate. Once you cut with this ruler, you are simply sewing a 1/4 inch seam on the main block, then grabbing the part you cut off, and sewing a 1/4" seam on that bonus HST too. 

When I said we are doing two sew and flip corners, this is what I meant -opposite diagonal corners. We want to sew opposite diagonal corners on each quarter block. Remember, we are only using one size of square here, so since my main square was cut 6.5", so are my corner squares. Each time I sewed the diagonal on the main sew and flip corner, I would immediately sew the diagonal on the bonus HST we cut off. You'll get less shifting if you just sew it all right away. 

I want you to put the bonus HST's aside, we'll deal with those next week. Right now we are making the main block. 

Four quarter blocks can be turned to make this big block. I want you to notice where the point that we are matching actually is. Where the sew and flip corners come together, are actually the inside point of the star that is created when we sew four block quarters together. If you do some aggressive trimming, the odds of trimming every block exactly the same are slim, and that point is not at the halfway point so to would be hard to trim exactly and have the points match up. So basically, unlike a lot of blocks that may need trimming, in this case if you trim you are MORE likely to lose your points. 

What happens if you start putting these big blocks together?

The stars come out! You end up with a quilt with a great diagonal lattice, a field of stars, and you didn't do any difficult sewing! I want to try this again with 3.5" squares, and either 1.5" or 1" wide framing strips. 1" wide would finish at 1/2", so they would be tiny stars! 

This is quilt #1, and next week we'll make quilt number two. 

Cotton Frankenbatting and Two Finishes!

 I was pretty sure I could sew up all the cotton batting scraps in a day, and I did! I pieced two twin/full battings, and two large throws. My SIL wants a table runner for a 10 foot table, and I pieced two battings for that, plus I pieced all the shorter strips with table runners in mind, since I use two layers of cotton batting in every table runner. 

Lest you think I haven't done any quilting, I have two finishes to show you! 

The quilt I was basting a couple weeks ago is finished. I used a cream colored thread to quilt it, and I realized I had another quilt where cream would work nicely, so rather than binding this quilt immediately, I put it aside, and quilted this one.

When both quilts were quilted, then I sewed the binding on both in a day! My two finishes for June were finished on the same day! 

The quilt in autumn colors at the top of this post, DD#1 wants me to put aside for her country store. She'll take all the table runners I care to make too, for the store as well. Her store isn't open yet, right now they are doing farmers markets instead, but the goal is to rehab an old store on their property, and make it into a store once again. I'm glad they aren't ready to open it yet, because it gives me time to just make things for the store now and then, in between other projects. When they are ready, I'll bring her whatever I have made, and we'll work out the details. 

Tackling the Cotton Batting Scraps

I don't have nearly as many cotton batting scraps as I had poly batting scraps. It's definitely not because I use cotton batting less, I actually use cotton batting more often. I don't mind piecing cotton batting scraps, and I use a lot of the scraps up in small project like potholders or table runners. In fact, I had a few table runners started, and I put them up on my design wall to evaluate which needed borders, and how much cotton batting I needed to make them, I wanted to only use scraps. 

I had six table runners started, I ended up adding borders to four of these. The brown ones I left as is, the rest got borders. 

The first thing I did with the cotton batting scraps is pull out my largest scraps. When I want to make heat resistant table runners, I use two layers of cotton batting and one layer of Insulbrite. Is that overkill, maybe, but I don't want to tell someone -yes, they can put hot pans from the oven on it, then have great-granny's antique table damaged. We want to protect the table at all costs, and three layers of batting works. 

I ended up having large enough scraps that I basted five of the runners without piecing any batting, even though I had made four of these larger with borders. For the sixth runner, I took the odd sized smaller scraps, and pieced those together. So now all the runners are basted and ready to quilt.

Next I pulled out the strips of batting that were 4" wide or less. If any scrap is narrower than 2.5" it goes into the trash immediately, and never goes into my batting scraps. All of these strips I cut into 2.5" wide, and rolled them up like a Bosal batting roll. I can use them for jelly roll rugs, baskets, or any other project that uses that technique. Oftentimes, my sister does projects like that, so I give them to her if she needs them before I do.

I ended up with three good sized rolls of 2.5" wide batting strips. 

Next I cut the sides of all the larger scraps straight. I just piled them up on my ironing station. These are folded multiple times so it looks like more than it is. 

Now they are all sorted roughly by length. I do have some shorter strips off to the side, that you can't see, but I'll deal with those last, because depending how these sew up, I may sew the shorter strips end to end to make longer strips, or I might sew them next to each other with another table runner in mind. The seams to sew these together will be long, but cotton batting is easy to work with. I've got a lot of plates spinning right now, so I think it will likely take me two or three days to piece all this, but honestly, if I dedicated one day and only did this, I could probably finish in a day. It might be a long day, but I think I could.

I still do have some pins left, because I've been reclaiming pins during my one hour per day of FMQ, but I haven't decided if I'm going to be matching these battings to quilt tops right away, or if I'll just label each Frankenbatting with the size it finished at and use them later. I still have a big stack of stuff basted, so I'm leaning towards just labeling the cotton Frankenbattings and dealing with them a little later, when I'm not quite so busy with other things.