Quilting has been an American past-time since colonial days, when women gathered scraps of cloth, feather down, or bits of cotton, to sew them into heavenly warm blankets that were cherished for several generations. Everyone has some fond memory involving a warm quilt on a chilly day or night; there are also quilt museums, fairs and other community event. There are even quilting website for quilting lovers, and quilting forum where people can meet and share techniques. However, when it comes down to it, many people shy away from quilting because they’re intimidated by the time and effort necessary for the task. Quilting doesn’t have to take hours, and it doesn’t have to be difficult either. Here’s one easy quilting task that anyone with a sewing machine can manage in a single day.

What You Need:

Sewing machine
Four yards muslin
Two pieces of fabric, each two yards long
Thread
Scissors
Needle

Instructions:

1. Wash fabrics, along with the muslin, together, according to the care instructions for the fabric (which can be found on the bolt.)
2. Lightly iron fabric and muslin after it’s washed and dried.
3. Stack fabric wrong sides together, with mulim on top.
4. Machine stitch three of the four sides, using a straight stitch and a quarter-inch or so seam allowance.
5. Turn the piece right side out, and look for mistakes or irregularities in the seams.
6. Turn it back around and trim any excess fabric from the seams.
7. Turn the quilt right side out and take time to smooth the quilt and make sure that the muslin is distributed evenly around the quilt.
8. Stitch the fourth side by hand.
9. Do any finishing work; sew straight lines down the quilt, and then across to make a pattern of squares. This also helps to keep the muslin in place.

You can share and find easy quilting ideas like this one, online from a quilting group. Have fun, and happy stitching!

I haven’t been very creative on my own over the past couple of weeks. I have had family visiting, and just haven’t had the time. So, I thought, for this post, I would share some “other people’s” projects that are on my “gonna make that one day” list. The projects that are safely tucked away in my bookmarks folder.

	I’ve got this great page at Lion Brand for Crochet Monsters, along with another page for every Amigurumi you can imagine.
	I really just MUST make this hand-tied baby quilt at Everything Sewing. I absolutely love it! I had a quilt like it as a child, gotta make them for future grandchildren. (I hope I have plenty of time to get them done. ) Instructions for the fabric memo board are at the same site.
	And then, there’s this amazing example of fun and creativity, and I really WILL be making this. It’s circular crocheting with 3 separate colors at the same time. I think it is fascinating, and even while I am writing this, I am wishing I was giving it a try.The instructions are at Interweave Crochet’s Blog.

I’m going to get started, and I’ll update this post when I have a pic of my effort. In the meantime, any of our readers who give this a shot, send me a pic. I’d love to see other folks ideas for this technique.