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
Snuggle quilt from Joyce
Have completed another project. It was hard for me because I used scraps of materials of different textures and so had to resize blocks several times. It was however a very learning process for me. Many thanks to DawnCameron-Dick. If you want to see the workshop that inspired Joyce click here:
Hampden Park Quilt Appeal for Alzheimers Scotland
Well the big day is nearly here (Saturday 8th June) ; if you sent a quilt in then you can see it on the website (!) just a simple search with your name will do. https://www.annhillquilter.co.uk Here is the latest update from Ann Hill: 10am laying the quilts begins. We have reached our target! Many football celebrities have signed the quilts I made for them and they will be auctioned off later in the year. The 5,000 quilts made by our quilters will go on sale tomorrow at Hampden Park after the event.
What to watch in June 2013 here at Justhands-on.tv
We start the month off with re-visiting the Sunbury Millenium Embroidery at Sunbury on Thames; this is such an inspirational piece of work – not only visually but because it enlisted the help of the whole village in the making of it and then on fundraising for the housing of it; it is now in a purpose built building in the walled garden within the village.