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
Giant crocheted doily appears under Bristol bridge
The 12ft (3.6m) diameter "spider web" was seen hanging under Stapleton Road railway bridge by Gail Boyle as she drove into work . click here to learn more Thanks to Paul for finding this - great fun
Justhands-on.tv Sewing Getaway Weekend
Car is loaded with quilts and fabric and ready to go - just need to pack the suitcase; Dunford House (our venue in Midhurst - find out more in the classified ads) is full to bursting; Jennie will be teaching her Superstar Medallion quilt; Myfanwy will be showing her students how to use the embellisher (and we have one to play with for the rest of us with the opportunity of getting a Janome embellisher of our own at a VERY GOOD price - exclusive to Justhands-on.tv) plus bringing her Winifrid Cottage shop of goodies: Val will be making quick quilts with her students using up Fat 1/4s; and Wendy will be making sure it all runs smoothly for us.
8th Prague Patchwork Meeting Competitions
For those of you interested in competing here are the details of the competitions and the dates of the events: Authors of the topics for 2014 are members of the traditional patchwork club BPK. The artist collection (this time Embroidered Surfaces) will be replaced with MOTHER NATURE, the technique is not limited. The traditional patchwork compe-tition will be featuring APPLICA-TION as one of the basic tech-niques in every basic workshop.