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
9-11
Val: This is one of those dates in history that everyone knows where they were - just like the day President Kennedy was shot and Princess Diana lost here life. I can remember not only where I was back in 2001 when the dreadful news came through but also where I was last year - I was in Canada - and since I was over in North America the TV was saturated with coverage of the events of rememberance; how much more so will they be this year? I was very moved by those events of rememberance but also fascinated to learn of the way quilters have dealt with this tragedy and the significance and value that has been granted to them by the government and the American people; The America's 9-11 Memorial Quilts project was initiated by Jeannie Ammermann to honor victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Bizview.tv
Val; Some of you may have heard that Bizview.tv as a company is no longer trading but I have to tell you that the boys are alive and well; Justhands-on.tv will continue to have close links with Dave & Matt (and the cameras) as well as Paul, so for us its business as usual. We have lots of wonderful plans including visiting the Festival of Quilts on Sunday 14th August with the cameras; the event at Hever Castle in September and Jennie and I will be together later in August to film the new Block of the Month programme (which is coming along well in my sewing room!)
Rosebud Fayre – our New Block of the Month
Jennie and I had a wonderful day filming on Tuesday – all seven parts of our new block of the month programme and I have now given the quilt a name (!) – Rosebud Fayre - which is also the name of the range of fabrics that we used; designed by Gail Kessler for Andover and distributed in the UK by Makower, these fabrics have been mixed with some of the Makower Itsy Bitsy range.