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
Does the size of the stitch matter for hand quilting?
No it's the even-ness that is important and makes it look nice; want to know more then you should give a few minutes to watching the workshop given by Paula Doyle for heirloom quilting: click here: For larger stitches, and utility quilting then Carolyn Forster has given us a couple of workshops: Amish Waves and Big Stitch UtilityQuilting.
Update 21st February 2014
Out & About We enjoyed meeting Karen Nicol at the [...]
Is a pieced back to my quilt a good idea?
So now thinking of doing a pieced back. Is that a good idea? I have 15 10" squares left. I was going to cut more out of the border and binding fabric I have left.
Problem 1: How do I cut a 10" square with my ruler?!
Problem 2: If I do 5 squares by 8 squares is this big enough for the back...or should I do 6 x 9?
Problem 3: How on earth do I position the back under the front so it lines up?
Or should I scrap this idea!