Our most popular posts of 2018

Visitors from across the world read the APQS blog every week, and the start of a year always provide a nice opportunity to review what articles were the most popular among our readers. The five articles below are the ones that received the most visits in 2018. For good reason! From easy-to-follow tutorials to actionable tips, it’s no surprise you’ve found them useful!

Bookmark the articles, and start quilting!

How to make great binding corners

You’ve heard the phrase “it’s not a quilt until it’s quilted,”…which is very true. But it also is not a very usable quilt until it is bound! Adding the binding means you’re in the home stretch. Unfortunately when we see home plate before us we tend rush through that last step, whipping around corners and ending in a sloppy finish. Here are some easy steps for making your binding corners square and professional. Keep reading…

2 common backing troubles

When it comes to quilts, piecers and quilters focus most of their attention on the quilt top. Some quilters go the extra mile to create a back that is as interesting as the front. Today we are focusing on some of the backing troubles that can derail an otherwise wonderful quilt. Keep reading.

How to quilt jelly roll quilts

The extremely popular jelly rolls normally include between 24 and 40 strips of fabric, each cut 2 ½ inches wide. The rolls may include all the fabrics within a specific line, or may be based on color value. Sometimes the strips will be from all different fabrics, and other times you’ll find duplicates. Study the outer edge of the jelly roll to search for repeating patterns. Learn more

Batting has an “up” and “down”

Well, most of it does, anyway! It may surprise you to know that many batting products have a right side and a wrong side, just like fabric. If you place the batting wrong side up, you’ll typically experience more batting “bearding” (small slubs of batting that pull to the back side of the quilt) or difficulty in maintaining consistent thread tension. Keep reading

How do you properly use rulers when you quilt?

Ruler work is a quick way to make a quilt spectacular but it can be intimidating. The most important thing to remember is safety. The last thing you want is to hear the heart sickening sound of the hopping foot crunching on Plexiglas while using your APQS longarm quilting machine. The first step to properly using rulers is to make sure you have an extended base mounted to your quilting machine. Learn more