Best Patchwork and Quilting Tips from Jan T

Beginner's guides 

Start making quilts

Choosing fabric for patchwork

How do you pick from the thousands of fabrics that are out there? Isn't it scary when you first go into a patchwork shop? There's so many patterns, fabric types, colours. How do you decide? You thought you knew exactly what to buy, and now...

Make your first patchwork block

How to make a Four Patch quilt block with Jan T. Step by step, I'll take you through the easy process for making a simple patchwork block: Four Patch. This such an easy block to make, and can be used in combinations like small bocks with larger bloc...

Beginning patchwork: perfect quarter inch seams

Because patchwork made by machine is usually based on what is known as a 'template-free' method, perfect ¼ seams are imperative for accurate piecing. It is essential to press your work as flat as possible between seams. This is a lesson on ho...

Best patchwork tools, ever!

Let me tell you about my favourite tools for patchwork quiltmaking. Every cook has a favourite knife, every photographer a favourite camera, quilters are no exception.

Photos on quilts 

Photos, patchwork, and scrapbooking = cute quilts

Are scrapbooking and patchwork two of your hobbies? Combine the two into one, and make cute little scrapbook style quilts to keep, or to give as gifts to someone really special. Love to include them in your quilts? My late second husband took hundre...

Teddy's puppy love quilt

Theodore Edward Bear came to live with me when he was six weeks old. As he grew up, I decided to make a quilt about him, using photographs of him in the back yard. Little did I know that someone would poison him and I would need the quilt as a memo...

From photos to fabric to quilts

If you've ever wondered how quilters got photos onto the fabric in their quilts, wonder no more. Let me show you how simple it is using readily available materials, Electric Quilt and your computer. In the detail at left, I used pictures placed ins...

From photos to quilts

Landscape photos can inspire you to design and make quilts or textile art in several forms. Literal or interpretitive: Printing the photo onto fabric and using that as part of the quilt; or making an abstract interpretation of the picture. Either w...

Design inspiration from a photo

See how Jan T used some of her late husband's photos to get the creative juices flowing. Isn't Captain Billy's Landing on Cape York a wonderful wild spot? Accessible only by 4WD, it's beauty is evident. I made a quilt about this too.

Machine Quilting Tips 

Lots to learn

Beginner's guide: Basting a Patchwork Quilt

Good, well-made patchwork quilts have been successfully basted to make the quilting step easier. I have invented a fast-piecing system, and love 'big bits and fast', but there are some things that you MUST NOT take shortcuts with, or disaster will b...

What can you do with a 'walking' foot?

A 'walking' foot for your sewing machine is essential if you are a quiltmaker. It is used for several purposes: attaching bindings straight line quilting curves —yes curves! Let me (Jan T Urquhart Baillie) show you how to use your walking foot f...

Preparing to machine quilt

Many people are afraid to machine quilt their quilts on their home sewing machine, because they think it's too difficult. Not so! Prepare your work space properly and the job's easy. Jan T Urquhart Baillie shares her tips for the best results.

What is stipple quilting?

Let Jan T show you her best tips for getting great results when free machine quilting. It's not hard at all. After you have done all the blocks, assembled them into a quilt topthe next stage in making a quilt is the quilting. Free machine quilting...

Using Triangles in Patchwork 

You might be surprised how IMPORTANT this is to your patchwork!

Making on point quilts sets simple

Setting a quilt on point is not as hard as is thought. To set blocks together on point, requires several setting triangles — the triangles which are needed at the edge to get the quilt to have straight sides. The triangles along the borders in...

Using triangles in patchwork quilts

The importance of straight grains when cutting triangles for patchwork quilts cannot be emphasised enough. In patchwork, there are two kinds of commonly used triangles: half-square triangles and quarter-square triangles. Actually, from a maths poin...

More patchwork lenses 

have fun

Baltimore style applique quilts

A fad that persisted in the 1980s in Brisbane, Australia, was making Baltimore style applique quilts At that time there were a couple of tutors who were teaching a quilt in this style to their students. Every quilt show had a couple of these, almost...

Patchwork in Australia, then and now

Patchwork has been around in Australia for more than 40,000 years. Yes! 40,000. The Aboriginals made patchwork cloaks from animal skins. The first documented traditional patchwork was that made by the female convicts sent out in the transports from...

Patchwork and quilting writer 

Jan T writes books and articles

Jan T patchwork author

Showcasing the books, articles and websites of renowned quilting writer, Jan T Urquhart Baillie, on the subject of patchwork and quilting. Jan T also writes extensively about computer quilt design software for Australia's first patchwork and quiltin...

Quilt Gallery 

Healing Hearts quilt for Paul

Paul, my second husband of 34 years was killed at work in March 1999. Devastated doesn't even begin to describe the loss. My online quilt group sent me more than a hundred healing heart blocks to ease my pain. This is the story of the quilt.

Jan T's Quilt Gallery

I design all my own quilts. I make art quilts, bed quilts, wall quilts, baby quilts, miniature quilts, really big bed quilts... The picture's a detail from an elaborately appliquéd basket in the centre of The Basket Quilt. Read more...

Take better quilt photos 

for publications and quilt show entries

Better patchwork quilt photos

Actually there's more to taking photographs of quilts than you might think! As the webmaster of an Australian art quilt site, I have been sent some truly awful photos to put on the site. Crooked, cropped off at the edges, badly lit, the list goes on...

Electric Quilt Tips 

Do you EQ?

I love Electric Quilt

EQ — Electric Quilt — and I have been friends since 1992. It didn't take me long to fall in love with it. I'm known as the eq guru in Australia because I have been writing about the software in Down Under Quilts magazine for some years....

Electric Quilt Tutorials

She's an expert in the software Electric Quilt tutorials for you to download and enjoy. Excerpts from Jan T's Computer Quilts column in Down Under quilts — free for you. Let Jan T — the EQ guru — show you how to design quilts usi...

Embellishing quilts 

Embellishing quilts: with stitchery

That is often the question for many quiltmakers. I don't embellish my quilts with heavy encrustations of bead trails or buttons. I use hand or machine embroidery, some ribbons and large ribbon roses.

Crazy quilting: it's freedom!

Crazy quilters love the freedom that doing their own thing with even the tiniest scrap of ribbon or some satin from a much-loved dress... One of my students, Margaret, is currently learning how to do crazy patchwork. She's making a quilt for a young...

Embellishing quilts: with fire?

They can be traditional, crazy patched or very out there. Sometimes it's great fun to get out there and experiment! This is the story of such an experiment.