Sunday, July 6, 2008

How to save money on QUILTING for new Quilters



How to save money on QUILTING for new Quilters

Join your local Quilting Guild. You will find lots of support and information there. Don’t be shy about being a beginner; we all were at one time.
When you’re starting out resist the temptation to buy every tool, gadget and book on the market. The basics will be enough to get you started and keep you going for a long time. See my list of “Basic” quilting tools.

3. Check out your local Library – borrow books before you buy them. I love new quilting books, but much as I would like to I just can’t have them all. The library is a great way to stretch your budget. My library has quilting magazines and lots of the latest books.



4. Buy Used and discounted books and magazines. For books try half.com, Amazon, Mackenzie books and Ed Hamilton books. For magazines, E-bay, Craig’s list and Quilter’s Flea Market are my favorites.

5. Save batting scraps and cut them up to use as pillow stuffing. I
use some of my ugly fabric and make a pillow form, leaving one side open. I fill it as I go so I don’t have a big pile of batting to cut up all at once.



6 . Buy your piecing thread by the cone. I use a thin, lint free thread in a neutral color for piecing. Lots of benefits to this, first, the cost, you’d have to buy about 11 spools of thread to equal 1 cone of Bottom Line or Sew Fine, my current favorite piecing thread. I figure I save $10 to $15 on thread buying the cones. These threads make much less lint, which will save wear and tear on your machine Also fewer spools of thread makes for less clutter.

7. Find patterns online for FREE! See my list of favorite pattern and BOM sites. (coming soon)

8. Don’t know how to do something? Go online for free tutorials, but you knew that already didn’t you?

9. Buy your backing fabrics from the clearance bins of your favorite quilt shops. I always look at the discounted fabrics and when I find something I like I buy enough for a backing. Do you really need to spend $8.00 a yard for the backing? My local shop sells their older fabrics for $2 -$3 a yard and they have a good selection.

10. Shop for fabric online. Here area couple of my favorite discount shopping sites:
Saving money on your quilting hobby is just like saving money on anything else. Buy only what you need, don't waste your "leftovers" , buy quality because it lasts and makes your job easier.

5 comments:

Pecos Blue said...

Great tips for beginning quilters. Quilt shops will often sell scraps if you ask them to or even give them away.

I just got your message so sorry for the late response.

Nice site.

cindyann said...

I forgot about buying scraps from shops. That's a great idea. Thank-you.
I used to do it myself when I was starting out. Now I have so many scraps I had to give some away to make some room to work.

Cathie in UT said...

Really good tips for new quilters but I have to say for thread I only use quality cotton thread...I hate it when my thread snaps in the middle of a quilt but I think to each his own!
Also another great online fabric site for me is www.fabricshack.com in the clearance part!

Rhonda said...

You hit the nail on the head with this post. I wish I had known this 20 years ago. Thanks for info.

cindyann said...

Cathie, thanks for the link. I'll have to check them out. As for the thread, the Bottom Line and Sew Fine thread do have there advantages, and are strong, probably stronger than the cotton.
I guess I'm not a purist, I hope the quilt police don't get me!