You can find a variety of free resources on the web about quilting including a beginners course on Free Motion Quilting. I was cruising through youtube.com the other day and came across this series of videos on Free Motion Quilting for the Beginner. It is a great video series that explains how to do free motion quilts using a regular sewing machine. Take a look and see what you think:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

We hope you enjoyed these Free Motion Quilting Lessons and put them to good use by creating your own Free Motion Quilt using a Regular Sewing Machine….

Once you have created some quilts you may want to starting selling them. There are a variety of different ways to do this including going to arts and craft festivals in your city, flea markets on even setting up your website. You will need to have a good stock built up and that will take some time. You can look on the internet for the local arts and crafts festival, their cost, times and locations. The local flea market is a good place to set up a booth but then again you will need to contact the local vendors to find out their costs for a booth, times they are open and any special requirements they may have for bringing in your own tables and such. You want to have a way to display your quilts such as a rack as well as some bags to put them in, and change for cash payers. And you will probably need a way to take credit cards as well. I found a great website that talks about this subject at: http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/how-accept-credit-cards-garage-sale-1273.php

If you don’t want to attend arts and crafts festivals or hang out a the flea market all weekend you might want to consider getting a website and selling your products online. You create your own website using one of the free services such as: http://www.ecrater.com/ is a free ecommerce website and community with unlimited products you can add, or http://www.freewebstore.org/ is a free ecommerce webstore builder that is based out of England and limits your products to 9 or less. Just remember you will need to sign up for a merchants account with either Google pay or Paypal to process credit cards. However, you will not get a website with your own domain name. ECrater will allow you to just use their shopping cart feature by using links from your own domain website. You can always start out with a free site and when you get going you can upgrade to your own domain with a shopping cart feature built in so that you can control all aspects of your business. Try http://websforyou.info and http://blogsforyou.info when you are ready. Remember you have to have a shipping cost module added to your cart as well as collect sales taxes. The rate of sales tax is determined by which state you live in.

Finally, you will need to consider how much you are going to charge for your quilting creations. There are a variety of different strategies to consider when you want to sell you items including the cost of materials, the time spent on the project and the size of the piece and of course, the uniqueness of it as well. You can check on out this article I found at: http://quiltingbusiness.com/quilt-pricing.htm..Good luck!

Quilting can be a great hobby to start. I found a 4 part series of Beginning Quilting Videos on You-tube that I thought you might like:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

After You have viewed all the videos you should have some idea as to what is involved in making your first quilt. Just remember that all you really need is some time and patience and a little bit of imagination to make your very own heirloom quilt. The first one is always the most difficult one but keep trying and in no time your will be a pro!

We stating in the post previously that we will be finding FREE information resources for those who would like to learn about quilting. The first one I found that seems to offer a free beginners course in short little lessons that will give you a starting point: http://www.sewaquilt.com/
I read through the material and it has some great beginners information. The free lesson does seem to stress the fabric choices mostly. But does have other links for more information as well.

The About.com website has lots and lots of information that people have contributed and they have a subdomain about quilting. http://quilting.about.com/ They break it down into easy to digest sections but not really all that printer friendly. The Rag Quilting Section is great for beginners. You use materials from your own home. Old clothes or clothes that you and you kids no longer wear are pretty good sources of materials. If you just throw away your clothes you are wasting a great source of material. Granted you really can’t use those that are all stained but generally old clothes make a very interesting quilt and hey, your are recycling!

Finally, there is the ehow site that has videos and articles about quilting as well. I have read through some of them and watched a couple of the videos and they are pretty good. Give it a try at: http://www.ehow.com/articles_2414-quilting.html

More later!

There are lots of information all over the internet for those who would like to learn how to quilt. We have even gathered hundreds of different books, videos, magazines and quilting supplies. Not only can you get quilting blocks of material, sewing machine stuff, thread, and much, much more. Check out our bookstore at: http://allaboutquiltingonline.info/wordpress/bookstore

Over the next several posts we will be gathering information from other websites and other quilters. If you are a quilter and would like to contribute to our little blog please email us with your subscribers id and we will be happy to change you to an author. jolene.macfadden@allaboutquiltingonline.info

Here is the first article I found about learning to quilt that I found kind of interesting:
http://quilting.about.com/od/stepbystepquilting/a/make_a_quilt.htm
Yes, you can learn how to quilt, get some quilting patterns and much more for free. The only thing you cannot do is get someone else to do the work for you. You will need to do the work or you are just not learning. A quilt is really a personal expression from you to the person you are giving the quilt to. I spent about 2 or 3 weeks creating a quilt for my first grandchild as a Christmas present. I just read the article printed off one of the patterns and went to Walmart to the remnants bin and picked some odds-and-ends. My granddaugther likes satiny material and I bought 2 colors about a quarter a yard a piece. Then picked out some bright cotton pieces. I also found some cotton batting and a dark solid colored flannel piece for the back piece. I had to go to Michael’s Craft shop for the satiny ribbon to use as a trim. All in all it came out very nice and has lasted through years of washing. The materials cost me about $15 and I spent a total of 16 hours cutting, piecing together, sewing and basting it together.

Cheers and until next time.

I have come to appreciate quilt block kits offered by shops on line.  Such as mystery blocks  of the month.

However, I am quite allergic to fabric sizing and always prewash my fabrics when I get home.  Most shops tell you not to prewash these kits. 

You can very safely prewash by hand.  I use woolite and simply fill my sink and separate my lights and darks. I hang them to dry on a drying rack and thats  it.  The best of both worlds and my allergy goes without fuel!

Check out www.fatquartershop.com for their beautiful mystery block of the month going on now!  Happy piecing. Debbie

Hello everyone. We have changed a few things on the website. When you get a change please check out the new pages we have added such as the bookstore and the privacy policy. We have also updated our About page as well. We wish that all of our readers will get helpful information as well as participate in the discussions. Our website is a family oriented blog and we require that all of our subscribers keep their comments on-topic and rated “g”. All of our guestbook signers must abide by these rules as well.

Feel free to browse the bookstore pages as we have found some great books and videos for those who want to know more about quilting. They include patterns, suggestions and more. Anything that you buy will be from Amazon and we do not endorse any of the products and will only receive a small percentage from any of the completed sales. We hope you will decide to become a contributor as well. All you have to do is to email us with your subscriber id and a note that you would like to become a contributor. Make sure you don’t use your real name as a subscriber ID.

Welcome to the All About Quilting Online Blog.  We will be making posts about different aspects of quilting, include resources to learn more about quilting, pictures, videos and helpful hints as we come across them.  Check out our “ABOUT” and “GUESTBOOK” pages for more information on how and what we are all about as well as those comments by our readers posted into the guestbook.

Please feel free to roam about the website and please do subscribe.  Only subscribers are allowed to make comments on posts and pages.  For those who would like to participate in the blog as a “contributor” then just subscribe to the blog and email me your user id with “Become a Contributor” in the subject field to:  jolene.macfadden@allaboutquiltingonline.info

Thank you for taking the time to read this post and we look forward to your comments and suggestions.