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
What you can view during November 2012
This is a five Friday month and we start off with a tour of Creative Quilting, the quilt shop just outside London and in the shadow of the Hampton Court Palace in Surrey; Isabelle shows us lots of lovely fabrics, threads, notions and her stunning Block of the Month quilt programme. We also have a new demo using the embellishing/needlefelting machine showing its versatility (and if you want to have a go you could join us and Myfanwy Hart at our weekend getaway 14-16 June 2013– more details in the classifieds).
New look website seems to meet with approval
Well the big move happened! and on the whole pretty smoothly; thanks to all those who helped test the site and pointed out typo's and other horrors. I thought I would share some of the nice comments we have had: I love your site for information and fun. Janice Brilliant – new website is great, much easier to navigate around, clear and packed with information.Thank you. Carol The website is excellent and I'm having great fun exploring its nooks and crannies!
Kind regards Sandy Hi I love the way you have organised the new site ,brilliant you can get quickly to where you want to be for help so so quick .
Thank you Liz Wall Have really enjoyed looking round the new site.
Contribution from Catherine in France
Hello, I have joined your club as I was looking for an idea to recycle men's ties. I did find your excellent project and have started working on it. I also want to show you the entirely handmade bed cover that I have just finished. It took me about 12 years. In 1994 I stopped working as an English teacher and joined the patchwork club of Alençon.