Tutorials
6.11.2014In honor of our 20 year anniversary, we recently sat down with Matt Petkun, Connecting Threads’ president and CEO
When you were watching your parents form Connecting Threads, did you expect you would be running it 20 years later? (If not, what were your plans back then and what convinced you to change them?)
20 years ago I was just beginning college, and I certainly had no intentions of working with my parents at that point in time. I was passionate about …
Hi there, I’m Matt. For those of you who don’t know me, I am the CEO of Crafts Americana Group which is the parent company of Connecting Threads. I have been meaning to try my hand at sewing for a long time. Really, I have. I am literally surrounded by quilters, crafters, fabric and thread all day at work. At night, I usually come home to a kitchen table held hostage by my wife’s sewing projects. With 24-hour technical support and a warehouse full of amazing fabric, thread, tools and notions at my disposal, I have no excuses. Still, there was something intimidating about a craft that requires the precise use of machinery and sharp needles.
This year, with a lot of hand-holding, Mari (one of Connecting Threads’ wonderful quilt designers) finally convinced me to begin sewing by taking part in the Gifty Galore project. It was the perfect opportunity. Rather than biting off a big project with room for compound error, the goal was to find a project that I could complete in less than 20 minutes.
How to Install a Zipper: Invisible & Lap
by Sue Terpin
Installing a zipper is a piece of cake if you’re familiar with the methods involved. I want to take the mystery out of zippers by showing you two different types of zipper installations that often scare quilters: the lap zipper and the invisible zipper. First a little terminology:
Lap Zipper A lap zipper is when a zipper is installed with a flap of fabric covering the zipper. It is used often …
Most of you seasoned quilters probably chain piece in your sleep, but since we didn’t have a full tutorial for chain piecing in our Tutorials section, I decided to write one up for newbie quilters. I know when I learned about chain piecing, it was like a lightbulb went on, and now I do it constantly! So if you’re new to quilting, are teaching someone to quilt, or just want a refresher, read on…
Read more »This month our staff sewist Deborah brings us back to quilting basics with one of the single most important aspects of quilting: sewing that accurate quarter inch seam. Here’s a link to the tutorial on our Tutorials Section for bookmarking. For those of you experienced quilters, do you have other tips or tricks for quarter inch accuracy?
How to Sew an Accurate Quarter Inch Seam
by Deborah
Sewing an accurate 1/4” seam allowance throughout your quilt construction is essential so that all pieces will fit together properly. First, select a seam guide and then test it for accuracy. The guide lines on the throat plate are not always accurate, so do not trust these measurements without testing first. Even a slight deviation will multiply with the number of pieces sewn together to make a quilt top.
Read more »This week we continue our quilting themed tutorials with Mari’s enlightening article. Mari is a longarm quilter who started out on her home machine, so she has a wealth of quilting knowledge from the perspective of quilting her own quilts and quilting for her customers. If you’ve ever felt daunted trying to pick the right kind of quilting design to finish off your beautiful new quilt top, read on. Mari’s advice applies to those sending their quilts “out” to be quilted and those quilting at home. (And here’s the link to the tutorial on our Tutorials page, for future bookmarking.) Inquiring minds want to know…Do you send your quilts to a longarmer or quilt them at home? What kinds of quilting designs appeal to you?
Read more »I was so inspired by Sharla’s Machine Quilting Basics tutorial last month, that I decided to try the Golden Threads method for myself. I decided I would share my process with photos, so everyone can benefit! We got so much great feedback to Sharla’s tutorial that it sounds like machine quilting at home is quite the hot topic for many of you. Did anybody else stretch their machine quilting skills recently?
You can find my tutorial here, or read on below…
Read more »One of our in-house pattern designers, Sharla, is a whiz at machine quilting. Many of us bring our personal projects to her for quilting because she does such an amazing job at making her machine quilting look like longarm quilting.
Last year she made the Chubby Chicks quilt (which is no small quilt), and quilted the entire thing on her home machine (no longarm!)…
For our tutorial this month, Teri is back to explain how to choose the best thread for your project. I’ve included the full article below, or you can bookmark it on our tutorial page. We love hearing your feedback on these articles. What kind of thread do you use the most?
-Melissa
Read more »With so many batting choices in the market today, it’s easy to feel confused and overwhelmed about which batting to use. Teri is here to enlighten us about batting to remove those clouds of mystery! Here’s the link to the article on our tutorials page for bookmarking and reference, or read below. As usual, we want to hear your feedback too. Which batting do you use most and why?
-Melissa
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