Some tips for making a Remembrance quilt

The first thing I like to do is ask some questions about the person we are remembering. Of course you might already know the person if you are making the quilt for a friend or family member. I get pretty immeresed in the project and want to have some happy thoughts while making the quilt.

I suggest using a pattern that has at least 3" pieces. You want to be able to see the pattern in the fabric. I like to use thangles, http://www.thangles.com/. This is a method for making half and quater square triangles. It is especially nice when making a remembrance quilt because you are using all sorts of different fabrics of different weights and the paper helps to stabilize the fabrics. I also use triangles on a roll, http://www.trianglesonaroll.com/. Both work well, triangles on a roll are better for large projects. Triangles are nice because you can make ineresting patterns but the fabric is really the star.

While I am deciding on the pattern to use, I wash and dry everything ... regular washer and dryer...everything, including fancy fabrics. I figure that this quilt is going to be snuggled and loved A LOT and it will need to be washed. After everything is dry, I cut off all the buttons and save them, waste not want not!

Next I cut large peices and I stabilize everything with whisperweft. This is a fusible, woven interfacing and I use it for everything. It is lightweight but really helps stabilize the fabric. It also stays stuck better than any non-woven that I have tried. I do recommend using a teflon pressing sheet though, it can really "gunk" up your iron. To help with the iron gunking, I use Faultless Iron cleaner. I get an old towel and squirt out about an inch of cleaner on it. When the iron gets sticky, I just run the iron over the towel and it cleans up great. When the project is done I give the iron a good cleaning. Well, that's a start. More later.