By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador The difference between sewing with a dual-feed accessory and a regular presser foot is significant, and it's worth making sure you understand the difference. Knowing when to perform each kind of sewing will make your work more accurate, and I think that makes creating more fun. When you [...]
By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador My machine quilting skills are okay. They're not stellar and they're not horrible. They pass, most of the time. They are best when I'm nicely warmed up. Getting warmed up can take anywhere from an hour to a day. I've discovered a trick that will help you put [...]
By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador I have just finished a quilt that's a gift for a very special family member. I'm taking it with me to the other side of the world on Wednesday. This is the New Wave Quilt designed by Elizabeth Hartman and offered as a free quilt pattern on her [...]
Let me get right to the point: If you've thought about getting a straight-stitch only machine that sews like the wind, the HQ Stitch 510 is your baby, and now is the time to act. Over the past 9 months, the HQ Stitch 510 has become my go-to machine for piecing. It's fast! (Up to [...]
Every so often I run into a piecing task with tricky intersections. They're the places that cause problems if they're not sewn accurately. My quilt of spools, thimbles and buttons for Quiltmaker magazine is a good example. The piecing is not complex, but the intersections where the "thread" meets the wood in the spools is tricky. [...]
I started two new scrap quilts over the weekend, which meant that I thought much about what would work and what would not. I recently made a new dog, and I don't want that to happen again. (A dog is an ugly quilt. So ugly that it should never see the light of day.) [...]
