Keep Your Handmade Quilt Beautiful

A hand quilter will use a frame or a hoop to keep all pieces together while using a variety of basic running stitches in and out of each piece while stretched taut. It's at this point where details are sewn with as little or as much as the quilter prefers. From the outlining of patterns to hand stitching every petal of every flower in each block. This is time consuming but often the most rewarding part of quilting.

If you can't find a pattern you like already on embroidery file, ask a digitizer to help you create one. A digitizer takes art images like drawings, clip art images and fonts and alters them via computer to become a stitch pattern. So if you'd like for your family tree wall hanging to be quilted with a tree pattern, a digitizer can create one for you.

Blanket Quilt These down throw blankets are the best ones to have for your baby because they are made with natural products that are gentle and easy to wash. You wouldn't have to hassle yourself cleaning away all the baby stain. When selecting the perfect blanket, make sure to check the stitching as well. Those with regular V stitching are the ones to have. Those with quilt squares and box stitching are also recommended. These types of stitching secure the down in place. You can also even the blanket out after a tumble in the washing machine. If the quilt doesn't have these kinds of stitching, it's likely that the down will bundle up together after some use. Your blanket will end up uneven and lumpy and your baby wouldn't like it.

I scanned the photos and then printed them onto photo transfer sheets. I ironed the transfer on to a piece of white material that was just a little bit larger than the picture. The white square and photo was sewn on top of one of the 12" blue squares. I then added eyelet trim and blue ribbon around each photo. Putting dark blue ribbon on a light blue square, and light blue ribbon on a dark blue square.

Another way to make a memory quilt is to use all new fabric with a different approach. You could make each square a representation of some part or event of a child's life. Each square would be embellished by applique, embroidery, scanned pictures, iron-on letters, fabric paint or whatever you like. You could ask important people from the child's life to contribute a square or two and to sign their square with their name.

I decided on using 35 pictures for Peggy's memory quilt. I chose pictures that showed her children at different stages of their lives. As well as pictures showing her and her husbands age regression. Her favorite color is blue, so I chose a dark blue with a light blue design, and a light blue with a dark blue design for the blocks. One thing to keep in mind when doing one for a person with Alzheimer's' is to try and keep the material fairly plain or quiet. When using a material that is very busy or loud, it just adds to their overall confusion. Something you definitely do not want.

It was a time where supplies were often rare and arrived at odd times. When it did arrive it was often impossible to purchase by the poor settlers. Making the material was similarly complicated and the cost of the weaving made the constructing of the quilt later less of an asset as it could often take a month to create half of a blanket.