How I Quilt It! Episode Two

July 24, 2024 Amanda Murphy

Hello, fellow quilters! I’m BERNINA Expert Amanda Murphy and I am excited to be back guest-posting on WeAllSew with the second episode of How I Quilt It! This month, we’ll explore quilting Courthouse Steps blocks. In the example shown I pieced four 10-1/2” blocks together to make a 20-1/2” pillow, quilting a different design on each.

HowToQuiltIt_EP02_01 — My “Courthouse Steps Pillow”, in my Midnight Flora & Fauna collection for Contempo of Benartex.

HowToQuiltIt_EP02_02 — Suggested layout for a Courthouse Steps Pillow, in the Midnight color story

HowIQuiltIt_CourthouseSteps_Forest — Suggested layout for a Courthouse Steps Pillow, in the Forest color story

I used my newest Good Measure Quilting Templates for Brewer Sewing, which are available for pre-order now at your local BERNINA dealer or on my website! Brand new are three sets of semicircles, allowing you to quilt circles that are 1-1/2” in diameter all the way to 17”! Then I added texture with free-motion.

Download the instructions to piece a block below:

If you’d like to make a pillow, make four blocks and piece them together.

Watch this video on BERNINA’s YouTube Channel to learn how to quilt the first two designs.

Then hop over to my YouTube channel and watch how I quilted the other two blocks, and please subscribe when you visit!

Watch now: https://youtu.be/7m_0KujiT1M

I’ve quilted on the best machine of all time – the BERNINA Q 24 longarm on a frame, but these designs can also be done on a sit-down Q Series or a domestic machine. You’d quilt these designs in the same order on a sit-down, but you’d want to hold your templates with both hands (instead of the one hand that I’m holding them within these videos since I’m on a frame.) To see more about the technical side of quilting on a sit-down machine, including how I hold templates, check out the videos I did for the first Diamonds Quilt Along.

Have fun quilting and I’ll see you back here in fourth quarter with another block!

Amanda