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
Filming at Bee Crafty in Huntingdon
Dave and Matt will be doing all the important stuff today but we have plans to wander round the shop and find out just how much crafty stuff Julie and Sarah can hold. We will also be meeting up with some great tutors: Gina Ferrari, Jill Adamson and Tanyia Haines - so we will be covering beading, free motion textile embroidery, twisted bargello at least.
Great value patchwork
Many of you will have seen the adverts for a new magazine that is persuading you (or trying to) make a patchwork quilt in what looks like 6" squares monthly over a LONG period of time. Some bright spark has worked out that despite the cheap introductory copy the whole quilt will cost you £354 (yes you do get fabric in that price but even so!) A spokesperson for the magazine says that they offer excellent advice - well I think we do much better so with our many valued and high quality teachers from the UK sharing their expertise - and all for just £60 a year - GREAT VALUE I think; Jennie and I hope you agree.
New colourway for Rosebud Fayre quilt
Rosebud Fayre Block of the Month From Julia (work in progress) : - great job! Julia says: I tried so hard to get the same material as you for the block of the month but I couldn't find it anywhere. Somewhat discouraged I tried to find something similar but failed miserably. Half-heartedly I decided to try a completely different colour combination.