- I'd like to thank Native
for sponsoring this video. Do you have bad quilting habits? I know I do. Bad habits are something that we do now to make our lives easier, but pay a price for it in the long term. Some of them are at the
expense of our work, our spaces, and our mental health. Here are eight bad habits that I had and why I fixed them. So stick with me and I'll
show you how to do it. (bright music) Hi, I'm Karen Brown of
Just Get It Done Quilts, I give you tips, tricks, and strategies to help you make the quilt
that you want to make. And if you like what you see, please click that subscribe button. Habits are behaviours that
we do over and over again. Some we do because it's the
easy choice in the moment, but some have long-term outcomes
that are less than ideal. Over the years, I've had to change some of my quilting habits to get the final results that I want. And this is by no means all
the bad habits that I have, but I'm going to limit
myself to eight here. (bright music) When I used to have loose
threads, I ignored them, thinking that I would snip it
later when the quilt was done. Choosing not to snip for me
was more about losing momentum, stopping, finding the
needle, threading it, burying the threads was just too fussy. The problem was when I got
to the end of the project I wasn't too motivated
to snip them then either. Not burying your threads, leaves an unfinished look to your work, and they might fray later. James Clear in his book, "Atomic Habits", says that, "If you want
to make a new habit, you'd need to make it easy." So when I discovered
self threading needles, I saw that this was the tool that I needed to change my ways. Because the thread just slips in here, there's not much fiddling. Now, I keep one with a
pair of snips everywhere. Beside my sewing machine,
in my sew-on-the-go kit, one on the front and
the back of my long arm, and in my new sew caddy. To make it fast and easy to bury those threads as I go along. (bright music) Coming from garment sewing, I quickly realised that there
was a number of techniques that I had to do differently in quilting. Pre-washing is not a necessity. I didn't need to match my
thread colour to my fabrics. And instead of pressing my seams open, I pressed them to the dark side. But it took me making a number of quilts before I realised that the habit of looking at my 1/4" seam and saying, close enough,
was holding me back. Accuracy in your quarter
inch seam is so important for your blocks to finish
at the correct size and then for all of them
to be sewn together, so that the quilt lies flat. So now, before I start any sewing session, I take a moment with some scrap pieces and I sew and press them to test that my guide is in the correct spot. Occasionally, I get it
right the first time, but normally it takes
two to three adjustments and the occasional fourth
to get the accuracy I want. (bright music) I am so miserly with my fabric that I try to get every
square inch out of it, and that means that I often
leave too much of the selvage on and that ends up in my work. Like, how stupid can I be? I put all this effort into
choosing a good colour layout, sewing accurately, and finding
a quilt design that I like, only to find a strip of selvage in the middle of my finished quilt. Not only are selvages a
different pattern and colour, sometimes they're also woven differently, so that they shrink differently too. So now, before I stack my fabrics and cut strips to make my piles, I trim those edges off first. (bright music) Speaking of selvages, I
know that there are makers who love making projects
out of these strips. Some selvages have become so colourful, fun, and collectible over the last decade, so I saved them for
years before I realised that I was never going to
make anything from them. One, I wasn't patient
enough to wait for them to accumulate till I had enough to use. But two, I didn't especially like the look of the finished product,
so I decluttered them. And then I started looking at other things in my sewing space that
I was never going to use. Little balls of wool,
specialty rulers, old thread, patterns, and hard to
believe, even some fabric. Every year in the declutter challenge, I find it gets easier
because it's not a judgement on whether things are good or bad, it's whether they're right for you because life is too short
to be making projects that don't bring you joy. Before we get to the next one, let me tell you about
today's sponsor, Native. I have always had sensitive skin, so I was happy to find Native products, which are aluminium and paraben free. They use simple and effective ingredients like coconut oil and shea butter. Native's new baking soda free
formula for sensitive skins is made from magnesium
oxide from the Dead Sea. Providing up to 72 hours
of odour protection. I have been using the aloe
and green tea deodorant for the past few months, and
I love that it's not sticky and feels dry on my skin when I apply it. The scent is fresh, and light, and perfect for my daily
routine of walking the dog, running chores, making quilts,
dinner, and YouTube videos. Native also offers a plastic free version of their deodorant using the same formula, but with more sustainable packaging. Native has more to offer. Check out their amazing
body washes and lotions. Use my link and code, GETITDONEQUILTS, to get 20% off your
first purchase at Native. This offer is available sitewide, but only for a limited
time, so stock up and save. (bright music) It took me years to realise
how valuable a label was. I thought my work wasn't good enough or valuable enough to be signed. And honestly, after I sew the binding on, I am so exhausted with the project that I have no momentum
left to design a label, let alone sew one on. But the tipping point
for me was my interview with Joanna Dermenjian, who talked about the hundreds of thousands of World War II quilts that Canada donated to
Europe during the war. And because they have no labels on them, very little is known about those makers, who they were, where they came from, and why they were making those quilt tops. And I realised that I wanted my quilts, no matter how scrappy or simple, to be part of my legacy. So now, instead of waiting
to the end of a project, when I'm exhausted, I make my label after the top
is done and before I quilt it. That way I can use my
scraps or an orphan block and I can also sew it into the after quilt or sew it in with the binding. (bright music) I also purchase these pre-made labels for when even that is too much. I have a whole video on
how to make a quilt label and I'll leave a link to it here. (bright music) When I was making garments,
heck, just life in general as a working mother, speed
was always front and centre and I knew that skilled
seamstresses could put pedal to the metal and produce amazing results. This one took me also years to discover that that wasn't the best
strategy for me in quilting. Not only was sewing too
fast affecting my accuracy, it often caused me to go over
multiple layers too quickly, so my points didn't line up, my blocks were distorted, and my seam allowances would twist. And when I timed my StashBuster 2 quilt, a viewer asked me why, "Shouldn't the experience
be about making two?" That comment made me take a step back and reevaluate my thoughts on speed. Now, when I'm making a test block, I note how the fabric moves
through the feet in the needle. I see which parts of the
seam I will need to slow down to accommodate thicker fabrics and I find the spots
where I just might need to stop and adjust, and then I move the speed button on my machine accordingly. And honestly, I truly enjoy
quilting so much more, now that I'm not rushing. I'm staying in the moment
and appreciating the results. (bright music) You might think that this is an odd one because I'm a YouTuber,
but this is another one of those I'm-not-quite-good-enough
thoughts. I wasn't a good enough quilter, let alone a good photographer. And most days I just
don't have the bandwidth for a carefully curated social media feed. But photos are not just for Instagram. I make quilts for others to
wrap them in warmth and love, and a large percentage of
them, I will never see again. And I realised that I had made so many that I had no tangible memory of. So now, I'm trying to take photos of my sewing space every time
I sit down at my machine. Which fabrics and tools that I'm using, the blocks that I'm making, and the design wall for how
it's all coming together. And I'm just keeping
them in their own folder on my phone as an archive that I can enjoy and share when I have a moment. (bright music) I have always found the
transition from making a quilt top to quilting the top, quite challenging. And of course, the moment that I need them every quilting technique that I know just evaporates from my mind. So then, I'll default to
straight line quilting or a pantograph. But after I participated
in an online forum, I found that this is a common
problem with long armors and it's just not unique to me. So I stopped rushing to
push myself through it. When you realise that you need
a whole different skillset to quilt than piece, it makes
sense that it would be hard. So now, I'm following their advice and just waiting for
the quilt to talk to me, which is maker-speak for
just allowing my brain to take a break, switch gears, and run through an archive of techniques. It then becomes a negotiation
between what I want to do and what I have the skills to do. And sometimes I do do
straight line quilting or a pantograph, but now it's
a choice that I'm happy with. We often bemoan our less
than stellar results, but a wise person once told me that it's only a mistake
if you don't learn from it. So be kind to yourself as you practise your
craft and grow as a maker. I have a whole playlist of tips and tricks for better results. Just click on that thumbnail there. And if you want to watch
my series on colour I'll leave a link there too. Take care, and I'll see you next time.
