Love this tip! It is always a 50/50 chance that I get the knot to pop-thanks!

This is the the best tip I ever got and have used frequently. Not only does it show you the direction the blocks and rows go when you're ready to stitch them together, but before you get to that point, it gives another perspective as to how the blocks look together and if some need to be moved to a better place.

I've only used the Elmer's Washable school glue on a binding but on the Missouri Star Quilt Forum yesterday someone shared that she used a mini paint roller and the glue to baste her quilt. Much faster than a paint brush or squeezing the glue out of the bottle.

I found a website that (at no charge) converts a picture into squares. It works pretty well for graphing out quilts. I downloaded a jpg of an image of the popular number 12 for the Seattle Seahawks football team to create a quilt for my BF. Cut the squares into 2 1/2" squares, added a few borders and it turned out great.
http://vam.demo.lemberg.co.uk/patchwork-pattern-maker/landing

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I'm a beginner and use my digital camera and computer all the time. I can design on the wall, take a pic and use that as reference. That way I can take the strips down, sew them, press them and then lay them out next to the laptop with the picture of the design on the screen to make sure get them together correctly. For me, I saves me a lot of pinning and marking.

I've also used my digital camera to help with laying out my design. Sometimes the camera shows things that I don't see just by looking at the design.

When I plan to make a new pattern I learned that is beneficial to do a test block. It will give you the chance to test the cutting instructions, the sewing order, the pressing order, and to get the final size. If you make enough test blocks you can then make a sampler.

annesthreads - To quote Bonnie Hunter, "Done and usable is better than perfect". This helped me finish MIL's quilt and get it to her in time for her to use after breast cancer surgery. Was awesome to see her wrapped up in it. It was far, far from perfect, but certainly usable.

Thankyou for reminding me about this site - I'd forgotten about it, and it's such a useful tool.

I quite agree, Anne. Today a friend asked if she could buy one of my quilts (the first time this has happened). I'd only made it for my own interest and it's far from perfect, so I pointed out the main flaws, and her response was that they made it even better as it was part of the hand-made charm!!

I often use my camera when planning a layout. As you say, photos often give a different view of my arrangement of blocks - maybe a slightly more objective one. They can be very useful.