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
Royal School of Needlework
Jennie: An amazing day on Wednesday - Valerie and I went to the Royal School of Needlework. This is hidden away in a dark part of Hampton Court Palace behind a secret door - all very special. We were allowed to enter these hallowed walls and film the studio and classrooms - a real treat. And and and ............ then we went to the Sunbury Millenium Embroidery - an enormous embroidered wall-hanging made by approx 120 local ladies - a truly superb piece of work plus we got to see Hapticart - more about that later.
How to Layer your Quilt
A quilt is made up of three layers, backing, wadding and patchwork top (or a piece of fabric) and this video takes you through the various stages of the process to make a quilt sandwich: https://www.justhands-on.tv/videos The video also includes a brief discussion about the variety of waddings available plus the various products you can use for holding the three layers together prior to quilting.
Annette Emms workshop
Val: We so enjoyed filming in Annette's house; she shared with us her love of all things magic - fairy shoes, whimsycal pictures, felt balls and her amazing trick for transferring images onto fabric just on her kitchen table - a must-see for all you mixed media fans and its now up-and-running in the workshop section of the site.