About Claire
Claire is a modern quilt designer and teacher, based in Stratford Upon Avon in the UK.
Claire has always had a love for sewing which was reignited when her children were born and needed a creative outlet for herself. It wasn’t long before quilts were the only thing she wanted to sew.
In 2020, during the pandemic, when Claire was stuck between never ending on-line lessons with her kids home-schooling, she designed her first quilt pattern, the Retro Metro Quilt. It was a way she could still channel her creativity when life wouldn’t allow much time behind the sewing machine. Since then, Claire has immersed herself into the quilt designing world and has had her work featured in Love Patchwork & Quilting magazine and justhands-on.tv videos.
Claire’s designs are Inspired by modern geometric designs and repeated patterns – – wherever she finds them – – including toilet tiles and the front covers of books. Claire is the designer behind Made Just Sew. Click her to see her bright, colourful designs.
Though not formally educated in art or teaching, Claire has excelled as a quilting teacher – – winning the Big Janome Skill Share in 2021. What makes her unique is her passion for quilting and a passion for sharing what she has learned.
Click here to watch Claire share her Walking Foot Quilting techniques in an episode of The Makers Studio.
Keep up to date and follow Claire’s quilt journey over on Instagram @madejustsew
Signature Technique
Quilting with a Walking Foot
Top Tips
- Pick your backing fabric first, then match your front colours to your backing. This works really well for those of us who love colourful printed fabrics for our backing.
- If you’ve struggled with quilting, use the walking foot. It makes quilting so much easier.
- Don’t be afraid to quilt straight lines across your patchwork. It gives your project enhanced depth and texture.
- Marking quilting lines with a hera marker provides a useful guide for your straight line quilting.
- Don’t worry about mistakes. We all do it! Remember, you can always unpick stitches and come at it fresh tomorrow.
- Use quilting gloves to help you guide your quilt under the walking foot. The sticky tips of the glove give you a little extra grip.
- If you want your quilting to stand out, choose good quality colour thread to contrast the top. Colour thread can look dominating when on the spool, less so when on your quilt.
Videos
Posts
De Vere Denham Quilting Retreat 8-9 Oct 2016
What a great time we had; here are some pics of the girls at work in Sarah's class and what they were working on; they all gone at least one top done!!! and some lovely comments from delegates (who are now safely back home) I had a lovely weekend , thank you for organising it.Thank you too for the lovely goodie bag!I have sent my booking form and deposit of £50 today, for next year,2017, I wanted to say ‘thank you’ to you and all the team for a great weekend. It was enjoyable to meet all the different women, to see their work and to spend concentrated, dedicated time on producing something lovely. I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the weekend. This was my first retreat and it was wonderful. To just be able to do something you enjoy without any distractions was great I just want to thank you and Maggi for a super relaxing weekend.
7 October 2016
New Videos Every Friday Justhands-on.tv Stitching Getaway We [...]
Filming day at a Fluff-a-torium in Dorking
What a brilliant day we had - Matt Dave and I - in Dorking with Gillian Harris in her shop Gilliangladrag at Fluff-a-torium in West Street. Gillian is the queen of felting so we got to learn how she makes wet-felt; adds some decorative needlefelting; learnt about the kits she sells and then a great tour of the shop -so keep watching!