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10 Things That Surprisingly will help you Quilt!

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I thought today in this post, we’ll shift our gear a little bit towards non-quilty items that I love and help me quilt more! We are always looking for more time to sew and as a busy working mother who loves to have some extra time to sew, here are some items that I find help me get there:

There are affiliate links within this post, please find the full disclosure here.

1. Pressure Cooker / Insta Pot

Yup. This is one of those life-changing items that I love and has made my life so much easier. I can simply put in dinner last minute – even from frozen (sometimes I forget that I have to put dinner on the table especially when I get so into sewing. LOL) or I can prep simply before leaving it to cook and go sew! I love that we can have an awesome dinner and I can have more time to sew. If you have not yet owned one –> check out this one with over 37000 awesome review! 

2. Air Fryer

Another item similar to the above. This one is definitely is a time-saver for me in the kitchen. A time-saver in the kitchen means I have more time in the sewing room. Checked Yes. I have this particular one in my kitchen and I love that it is able to stir the thing I’m cooking which means I do not even have to stop by to check mid-way to turn the food. I cook all sorts of things in this fryer, but it has helped me cook easy meals and quick bites for sure.

3. Wireless Vacuum

A sewing room can get dusty pretty quickly and a clean sewing room is always a great motivation to get more sewing done! I have not yet owned a and I am not sure whether that would be a great thing to have for a sewing room with lots of things on the floor (we will when we work right? ) But a is surely one of the best investments for easy cleaning. Not only it helps in the sewing room, but also elsewhere, especially when you have small kids. Saves time and so easy to use!

Products from Amazon.com

4. Echo Dots, Alexa

I love my Alexa!!! I have the Echo Dot behind my sewing machine and I use it all the time. This one is a great companion to have while sewing. I usually just use it for music and Audible but I do love the idea of having someone/thing to talk to in my sewing room other than myself. LOL. Besides, listening to Echo dot reading my Audible book allows me to do both of my favourite things at once, reading and quilting. You can also make amazon orders through Alexa and so much more. Check it out –>

5. TV – entertainment in the sewing room

Talk about some entertainment with the Alexa, A TV in the sewing room would allow you to quilt more too.  During those time you don’t want to miss out on a show or you think you just want to watch TV.. you can do so in the sewing room and while you’re there, there could be a couple of seams to sew for sure. I usually watch form the Ipad, but a TV is definitely something I’d like to have someday in my sewing room. Do you have a TV set in your sewing room?

6. Colour Printer/ Print Service

Well, this one is helpful for printing out patterns, blogpost or tutorials easily. I love this refillable printer in particular as the ink can be refilled! Which means it is very cost-effective.

7. Fun Educational Toys

If you have kids, invest in some good toys –> educational ones are great too. Like these. I love making homemade playdough and they can play for hours! Which frees mama up for lots more sewing! Both are having fun in a creative way.

8. Planner

I am a planner girl and I make sure I plan for my sewing time! When I write it down, I usually will make it happen. I have been using this paper planner for a couple of years now and I love it. As a full scheduled mum, this one is a must for me. There is also a planner specifically made for quilters right here –> There have lots of layout choices too which means you can also pick ones that you can doodle/ plan a quilt more than those daily to-dos boxes. Check out Quilter’s Planner today. patchwork quilt block pouch Here was last year’s planner , but this year’s is even more amazing and improved.

9. Online Groceries

Save up more time by not going out for groceries. I love groceries though they can use up so much of my time and energy. Therefore, I appreciate online grocery shopping.

 

10. Cricut Maker or other cool gadgets in the sewing room

Although it is so much fun to watch this machine cut, I can easily be at my sewing machine sewing away while it does the rest of the cutting. I find that it really saves so much time. Other than that, I also love cool gadgets that really just make it a lot more fun to sew and get me excited to be in the sewing room.

Supplies are available below: Steam a steam Cricut Maker Fabrics 

Now it’s your turn, let me know of any items that have helped you gain more time or get you inspired to sew and quilt more. Tell me in the comments below!

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In Quilt

Three of 3 on A Tuesday | 32|

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Welcome to another “Three of 3 on A Tuesday”. I will have THREE things or links of 3 topics for you to visit/read on Tuesday to either showcase tutorials, inspirations, random daily thoughts or it could be any fabric/notion sales running that particular week. So for today, here are the THREE of 3 things:

It has been a while since I last posted three of 3, but you can always visit the archives HERE>

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In Quilt

Quilt Cabinet : How I store my Quilts

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I think it is about time I got a real home for my quilts. It has been a while since I started quilting, and a quilt collection is inevitable. 
 
I have been storing my quilts on an open regular shelves and basically everywhere before this: on the sofa, layers of them on the bed and stacked here and there. 
 

Quilt cabinet 

A quilt cabinet sounds like a very good idea to me. Something that can display the quilt and yet keep it clean from dust.
 
A couple of month back I went to my local used furniture store and found a cabinet that I feel was perfect for the job. 
 
I have always loved the idea of repainting an old cabinet. It is always fun to see the transformation and the fun colour choices on Pinterest.
 
Little did I know about refurbishing and old cabinet, I did a little research and off I go to the paint shop. I have previously painted a drawer with a chalk paint which was super easy to do with very minimal sanding required.
 
is one of those magical paint that I have found to work really easy on cabinets and I love the matte look provided by the paint. 
 
However, this time I couldn’t find a chalk paint (I live in quite a rural area) and since I couldn’t wait to just get started, I went ahead and decided to sand it, put a undercoat and go ahead with shiny wooden paint. 
 
repainting a cabinet
 
Oh boy, little did I know that the sanding process was tedious and I didn’t enjoy it at all. It was quite a struggle trying to complete the project, but the result was okay. 
 
I then painted the cabinet in dark teal colour. I was aiming for dark navy blue, but there weren’t many choices at my local store. 
 
quilt cabinet
 
O well, thankfully, I love the colour anyway and still love the shape of the cabinet despite how I regretted the project. 
 
The design of the furniture is probably sort of Mid Century Modern. I have seen many new cabinets are designed this way too.
 
I love how the design of furniture are making a comeback. It made me think about how fashion always made their comeback to with years passing. Quilts too. There is basically nothing new under the sun. We replicate, improvise or simple choose latest fabric designs and typically replicate what has been done years ago. 
 
quilt cabinet How to store quilts
 

Displaying Quilts

The pop of dark teal painted cabinet was the perfect addition to my sewing space. I love it! It sit in front of my machine and I can see the quilts stack from where I sew.
 
There are also quilts to be quilted in there and it is just calling me to get them quilted soon. One of them on top there is my aviatrix medallion quilt. It has been a while already since it was basted. 
 
O, if only there’s more time in a day. 🙂
 
I was pretty happy with the result, not perfect but was great. I learned that I did not like to do a painting job and would not attempt to do one any time soon. 
 
quilt cabinet How to store quilts
 

How to store quilts

If you don’t have a quilt cabinet just yet, there are other ways you can store your quilts such as:
  • layering them on guest beds (when the beds are not in used)
  • like this is a fun addition to the bedroom too

How do you store your quilts?

Let me know how you store your quilts in the comment below! It is always great to hear your ideas.

 

how to store quilts quilt cabinet

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Three of 3 on A Tuesday | 31 |

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Welcome to another “Three of 3 on A Tuesday”. I will have THREE things or links of 3 topics for you to visit/read on Tuesday to either showcase tutorials, inspirations, random daily thoughts or it could be any fabric/notion sales running that particular week. So for today, here are the THREE of 3 things:

It has been a while since I last posted three of 3, but you can always visit the archives HERE>

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Quilt Batting: How to choose the best one?

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Ever thought about which quilt batting is best for your quilt? You have a quilt top done, and just before we get to quilt it, we need to make a quilt sandwich, and then the batting comes to mind. Which one should you use? 

How do you choose the correct and best quilt batting? 

In this post, we’ll discuss different types of batting and I’ll give you some suggestions to which quilt batting you should use.

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10 ways to get more organised with your quilting projects

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If you are looking for ways to be more organised with your quilting projects, you are in for a treat. In this post, I’ll share with you 10 tips to organise your quilting projects.
 
Drop down a comment down below too if you love any of these tips!
 
Let’s get straight to it.
 
Get organising. Do you quilt? learn 10 ways to be more organised when quilting
 

#1 Ziplock bags – do all the cutting in one session 

Oh gosh, I love this organizing system! I first learned this from a pattern by Elizabeth Hartman. She is one organised quilter! A very productive one too. You check out her amazing patterns here>>. I personally love the latest one! Check that one out HERE>

I made the Aviatrix Medallion previously blogged HERE> and went ahead starting the quilt by cutting every single pieces required for the quilt! It was kind of scary to do so, but I did it anyway.

As per pattern instruction, I kept all the pieces organised in zip lock bags!!! Which was super great cause I can simply store them easily and only took out the one required ones when I need to sew them.  

You can check out this set of ziplock bags with various sizes – perfect for organizing all shapes and sized patchwork pieces.

 

 
 
 
 
 
View this post on Instagram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

So its done. The cutting at least. #aviatrixmedallion #carolynfriendlander #botanicsfabric

A post shared by Amira Ameruddin – Quilter (@amira_littlemushroomcap) on


 

It was a big deal for me to have kept all those in one nice organised place. Since the middle part of the quilt was quite intimidating, I didn’t start sewing until a year later, but since they were all so organised it was easy to pick it back up and just continue to the sewing stage.

 

#2 Organise WIP in project boxes 

Here is one way you can keep all of your project in one place and stack them up nicely. Label them for easy to find what you want to work on too. 

I like this size box, perfect to keep 9-12″ blocks flat and some other pieces flat enough to be working back on it.

I also keep my scraps in these boxes. You can read more about the way I organise my fabric scraps HERE>

organise quilting projects

Get 6 boxes on Amazon. They usually have great deals on these. Sometimes close to half priced off!


 

#3 Use Alphabities

Label your cut pieces!

I love the Alphabities. Especially when following a pattern. They kept me sane for having to know which one measure what without having to remeasure all the time. 

#4 Portable Design board 

This has saved me so much time and has gotten me so organised with all the pieces. It is easy to be moving the pieces all at once form the cutting table to the sewing machine. 

 


 

You can also test out the layout of your pieces on the design board. It is then just a matter of putting it next to your sewing machine while you sew the pieces together.

 

 
 
 
 
 
View this post on Instagram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

A post shared by Amira Ameruddin – Quilter (@amira_littlemushroomcap) on


You can make your own portable design board following the video below or buy ready-made ones HERE>


 

#5 Chain piecing

O yes to chain piecing. Chain piecing can keep all your pieces organised in one strand. It would be so much easier to piece similar shape in batches. 

Quilting projects becomes easier with batch working and chain piecing is definitely one of the way to do so.

#6 Organise on a Design wall & take photo 

Place your blocks on design wall and take photo of the layout so that you can refer to when you piece it together.

You can simply wrap a mounting board with batting or you can get this instant design wall.

I made mine using this corrugated board, wrapping it with batting and placing it on the wall using these strips. Works perfectly! And I can make lots of them around the sewing space.

#7 Block Keeper book 

I made a block keeper a while ago (blogged HERE) and I love that I can keep blocks in there flat and easy to find. 

You can also keep little pieces together as you would want to piece them later safely in the keeper.

 

#8 Use Coloring page 

A lot of the patterns these days have coloring pages included and you can easily color it first to see how it would look like when pieced together. You can do this with color pencils or felt tip pens (I am currently loving this set).

Another option to that is to digitally color it. If you want to learn how to create your own coloring pages, learn basic digital art drawing if you are interested to do so. I always opt for classes in Skillshare for such new skills. 

If you don’t know what Skillshare is – it’s a platform to learn all sorts of thing. You can try it for FREE here>>

#9 Project tracker 

Project tracker is great to make sure you are in the know of where are you at 

You can get a project tracker in the TLMC FREE Resources Library. Sign up here if you haven’t got the access.

 

#10 Schedule your sewing time! 

Be more organised with your time and block sewing time so you can get your project moving.

I personally love my EC Planner and use it every week to block time for sewing for that week. It is easy to be caught in day to day chores. So if you find that sewing  is a relaxing therapy and something that you would love to do more of, make sure you block off some time doing so. 

Well that is it for 10 ways to get more organise when quilting! You will be more calm and more productive when you are organised!

Enjoy quilting!

Have other tips to share? Drop a comment below!

Love this post? Don’t forget to share it. 

[Related Posts: 5 Surefire ways to boost your productivity]

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Three of 3 on A Tuesday | 30 |

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Welcome to another “Three of 3 on A Tuesday”. I will have THREE things or links of 3 topics for you to visit/read on Tuesday to either showcase tutorials, inspirations, random daily thoughts or it could be any fabric/notion sales running that particular week. So for today, here are the THREE of 3 things:

It has been a while since I last posted three of 3, but you can always visit the archives HERE>

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The Progress of Aviatrix Medallion Quilt

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I am ready to quilt this medallion quilt, and I find myself compelled to write a post on the journey of making the quilt. 

When I was making the quilt, I was out of my blogging phase. Instagram kind of took over.

So I didn’t even have an official blog post on the progress. Though it took quite a long time to piece this quilt together.

But I am glad at least I have micro-blogged about it on Instagram. At least I have a sense of the timing and the photos of the progress.

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Progress of a Scrappy Quilt

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Here is a little progress I made this week, and it is on a scrappy quilt. My favourite kind of quilt.

I didn’t have much time to sew this week, and I crave for some sewing time by the end of the week.

This morning, I pulled out my long left out leaders and enders project from the top drawer of my sewing table and I brought them out from my sewing room (where my little boy is still asleep when I have free time to sew) to my living room where I have another machine set up (this sewing cabinet closes into a small buffet table, this one is Australian made – you can find similar table HERE if you are in the US)

 

Originally I planned to work on these in between other projects. Hence it was going be my leaders and enders project. And that is the reason it was on my top drawer under my sewing machine.

But let’s be honest here, I never got to it. 

I still need to learn this art of leaders and enders. 

 

Well, at least I tried right? 

Anyway, this week I only had 5 minutes here and there, and I got 4 more blocks done.

2 of each, the A set and the B set. 

It is all in making time for it. Even little time adds up!

The thread mess on the yoga pant is always a sign of a good sewing time.

 

The pattern of this quilt is SCRAP VOMIT by Katy at “I’m a Ginger monkey”, but the website is now closed and I can’t redirect you to the pattern.

But they are basically a 7×7 of 2.5″ patches. The A block is all scrappy, whereas a diamond shape pattern is arranged for block B.

 

Hmmmm, let me tell you a little secret : I started the first block in 2012! That is about 7 years in the making. 

That’s okay, there’s love in every quilt made no matter how long they’ve been stashed away before it finally got done right?

 

[related post: Scrappy Trip Quilt I and Scrappy Trip Quilt II]

 

I pulled out the stashed pressed blocks and rearranged it and I so want to call it done. 

 

Pressing seams open for a Scrappy quilt. Is it worth the time?

I usually don’t press open but scrappy quilts like this makes me cringe when I think about all the seams to match!

It is crazy work I must say to press it all open. In the end, I didn’t think it was worth it.

Besides, I feel like seams press to side is much stronger. And pressing open actually made it harder to match seams between blocks because they glide over so easily as there’s no nesting. 

Hm, maybe I rather have bulky seams than having to deal with all this. How about you?

 

So, I think I am ready to put this together into a quilt top and get it quilted. 

Initially my plan was to make it a large queen size quilt, but I figured a finish would be great too. Besides, I was running out of the yellow little blocks for the centre of the B blocks. 

There are plenty of pieced rows still, and maybe I’ll make another one next time, similar but different. 

I rarely make smaller size quilt, as we don’t really need to cuddle under them in Malaysia’s hot weather, but I love the idea of having just small little quilts that is easy for me to gift away. 

I think I have enough of king/queen size quilts for now. 

How about you? What size quilt do you like to make? Do you love scrappy quilt too?Leave a comment down below. 

 

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