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
Is backstitching necessary for strip piecing?
Question from Youtube
Still a little new to quilting and enjoy it already! One thing I noticed is that you didn't back stitch when starting to join a new row. Is it necessary? Thanks, I know this is probably a simple question. Answer Nope the backwards and forwards and fixing stuff isn't necesary as you will be sewing across at rightangles at some future point (and at the time of sewing you don't know where you will be cutting). Make sure the stitch length isn't too long though - 2.2 or 2.4 is perfect for strip piecing (and piecing in general).
Recyling men’s ties
Question: Having watched the video: (click here to view) How many ties were used to make the quilt in the video, recycling men’s ties? I would like to make a quilt the same size as the one in the video. Would you recommend this project to a beginning quilter? Answer from Valerie
Sorry I can't recall how many ties I used BUT each tie contains a huge amount of fabric once its unravelled and if you cut into uneven strips then you can use it all (I still have a stash of large scraps for another quilt);
Its a great quilt for beginners BUT remember that the ties are on the bias of the grain so the strips will move until you anchor them onto their calico (or similar) backing - if you are a complete beginner spray starch may help you during the sewing process.
Its extremely forgiving especially since you can trim the blocks back to be exactly the same size as each other - whether you use the complete block of ties or couple it with a plain piece of fabric to make the half-square triangle unit - which in turn means you need to make only half the number of original blocks.
A few nice comments from you
Hi everybody really a good website will watch this space more often Jill Sent from my iPad (Oct 2013) Just to say that I think Carolyn Forster is a very good demonstrator. She speaks clearly and without a dull monotonous voice which some of your speakers unfortunately have! Her projects are also fairly easy to follow. Secondly, I really enjoyed Kaffe`s exhibition of his quilts in Wales. It was very interesting listening to Jen Jones talk about his work. Pity it is so far away to visit!