How To Make Quilts

Sew together: How to start your family quilting

Quilting is an American tradition that started in the 1800s as a way for pioneer women to connect with each other. Today, there are 27 million quilters in the U.S., and 90 percent of them make quilts for family and friends. If you’re interested in starting a quilting tradition in your family, you should be aware that quilting is hard work, with many quilts taking weeks or months to make. But according to Sharon Pederson, a renowned quilting instructor and author, it’s rewarding for many people. Here is her advice for getting your family involved in quilting:

Make quilts that have special family meaning. Most quilts are sentimental in some way, but there are certain types of quilts that can involve more than just one family member in creating them. For example, Pederson says she knew of someone who transferred family photos onto fabric and created a “family tree” quilt full of pictures of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on. This type of quilt can involve non-quilting family members who can collect pictures for the quilt. Other types of quilts involve sewing together fabric from special family events, such as christenings, weddings and so on, or creating “message quilts” in which you stitch sayings or special words of encouragement into a quilt.

Start out small. If you or your family are too daunted by the idea of making a large quilt, tackle a smaller project. For example, you can make quilted pillows or table runners. Pederson also says she’s seen people make complementary quilted vests, which could be a neat project for a family.

Make use of technology. With the Web and other technology such as DVDs, it’s easy for you to have access to some of the best quilting instructors out there. Pederson says to take advantage of it to sharpen your quilting skills.

Use special quilting tools. Pederson says one comment she hears a lot is, “I don’t have the patience for quilting.” She says when you’re interested in it, the time flies by. But there are certain tools that can speed up parts of the process for those who are a little tighter on time. For example, AccuQuilt makes a tool that cuts fabric into quilt-usable shapes in a fraction of the time it would take to cut with a rotary cutter or by hand. You can also use fusible web to stick applique shapes on the quilt instead of sewing them down.

Involve kids. While Pederson says there’s no right age to pick up quilting – it more has to do with your interest level – kids are like sponges and often have an interest in quilting, so you can take advantage of it. Just be sure you don’t let them use tools like rotary cutters, which can be extremely dangerous, and supervise them during the entire quilting process.

How to Make a Patchwork Quilt...Not Really

For those of you interested in how to make a patchwork quilt, I must apologize. This is not actually an article that teaches you how to make a quilt. It is in fact meant solely to prove a point.

I just watched a video regarding the soon to be released Article Samurai software package this morning, and I was so underwhelmed by their proof, that I decided to show exactly what I thought of it. Their first case study managed to rank #7 for the term “how to make a patchwork quilt” after submitting articles through their ($127 monthly subscription) software every 2 days for a total of 90 articles.

It took them 6 months.

And they’re ranked #7.

For a damn quilting site. If they were my SEO, I would fire them.

So, because I thought this was so ridiculous, I decided that I would rank an article higher than them in a very short time, using the Bring the Fresh methods….which by the way will only cost you a one time fee that is much less than $127. Not only that, they will show you many methods for making consistent income online. So go sign up for Bring the Fresh if you really want to learn some solid SEO techniques , and skip the useless SEO techniques out there.

Once more, let me apologize to quilt makers out there searching for a quilting tutorial. There are plenty of good articles below this one in the search engine results. The eHow article looks interesting. And actually, if you’re really nice, go down to the mypatchworkquilt.com and buy the patterns. They’ve been working 6 months to rank for this keyword, and they’re only making $3.36 per sale. That’s gotta be frustrating.

Today is Wednesday, July 27th. I am going to see how fast I can rank for the keyword phrase “how to make a patchwork quilt” using the Bring the Fresh methods .

Check back, and I will keep you up to date on my progress.