6 Things Every Beginner Quilter Should Know

I taught teen beginner quitlers to quilt this summer, and in the process, I learned a few things I hadn’t really thought about since I’ve been sewing and quilting for a long time. So I wanted to take some time and share my 6 Things Every Beginner Quilter Should Know with you. Maybe this will help you with your quilting or sewing, or maybe you’re wanting to teach someone else but haven’t started yet!

Choose a Simple Pattern

We went with these three, from L-R, and they were attainable, interesting, and still easy:

• ​Folk Fables Quilt by Remi Vail Studio​
• ​Always Together Quitl by Remi Vail Studio​
• ​Happy Scallops by Quilty Love​

By choosing a pattern that was easy to follow and beginner-friendly, we were able to concentrate on repetition and not get distracted by tiny pieces or complicated piecing.

Starch is Your Best Friend

I’ve never really used much starch. I usually prefer Best Press, Flatter, or even the homemade Best Press. But when you’re quilting with someone for the first time, the crisper that you can make your fabric, the easier it is to sew!

We used the Fautless Heavy Starch, took the fabric outside, laid it on a bedsheet and sprayed it down, let the starch dry, and then pressed it. It made sewing a dream, and I’m a starch convert forever. I’ll be using this for any large quilt project in the future.

Shorten Your Stitch Length

Shorten the stitch length on your machine. There’s a lot of talk about how different thread types and stitch length affect your seam allowance, but for beginner quilters, having secure stitches, especially when chain sewing blocks, is the most important thing. I noticed quite often that the blocks were starting to come apart near the ends from handling, especially when we were dealing with larger sections of the quilt. By shortening the stitch length, we reduced that a lot.

Pin Every Seam

Especially when sewing blocks together, pin everything. There are a lot of things to focus on when quilting, so make it easy on your beginner quilter by helping them get things in the right place before starting to sew. By pinning the seams in the direction I wanted them to go, especially when joining blocks, my teens were able to focus on keeping their seam allowance even and worry less about the seams.

Get a Quarter-Inch Foot

Grab a quarter-inch foot; my favorite is the Original Little Foot. This will really help your new quilter keep the seam allowance on track! Make sure to emphasize consistency, then trim any blocks if necessary.

Fix Some of Their Mistakes

If you’re helping somebody new at quilting, fixing some of their mistakes, especially if there’s a string of blocks that need to be redone, is so helpful to keep the project feeling positive and moving forward. I would take out the stitches and have the quilter redo the block, or occasionally, I’d just fix a handful of blocks all the way if we were getting off track. Having to fix things can be discouraging and feel like a step backwards.

Celebrate Their Progress

Make checkmarks on the patterns for completion. Counting up how many blocks were finished. Lay out the portion of the quilt that was done. Take pictures of the progress. Looking at the progress and celebrating it went a long way toward keeping up the motivation.  

Overall, teaching my teen beginner quilters and making these quilts together was a fun experience and hopefully won’t be their last. The quilts are currently on their way to Sandy at Thai Charm for quilting, and then we’ll be binding them. I’ll post again a final wrap-up, but I wanted to share what we’ve learned!