Fran Morgan leads the design efforts of Fabric Cafe. A designer and author for over 15 years, Fran has appeared on television programs including Simply Quilts, America Sews, Quilting With Shar, Sew Much More, Kaye Wood Quilting Friends and American Quilter.

The Fabric Cafe website features designs by Fran.

To keep your quilt ruler from slipping, stick small, self-adhesive felt pads used to keep furniture from scratching the floor) or the hook-side of a Velcro circle to the wrong side of the ruler.

When using a rotary cutter to cut, always push the cutter away from you, not towards you, for a safe, accurate cut.

Most rotary cutters are made for left or right handed users. For accurate cutting, the blade of the rotary cutter should be against the ruler and the handle of the cutter on the outside. If your cutter isn't assembled this way, check to see if the rotary blade can be switched to the opposite side.

When cutting multiple same-size fabric cuts, place a piece of masking tape on your quilt ruler at the measurement needed, to keep from accidentally measuring incorrectly.

When working with check, plaid and stripe fabrics use scissors rather than a rotary cutter. Use the lines in the fabric design as your cutting guide. Spray with spray starch and press to make sewing along the lines in the fabric easier.

Color: choose several different coordinating colors and at least one highly contrasting color for added punch. I prefer to work with odd number of fabrics and dominate colors – 3, 5, 7 different fabrics add punch. Try putting six prints on the wall and then remove one to see if you like the results.

Weight: choose several print sizes -- small, medium and large. I choose the largest fabric amounts for a quilt from medium sized print and balance that with a little of the smallest and largest prints.

Texture: choose several different “textures”. By textures, I mean geometrics like dots, stripes, checks and florals.

And if you find a fabric that you really fall in love with, buy more than one yard to use as your focal point in a quilt. If you like it, eventually you’ll find just the right coordinating fabrics to finish the project.

Don’t forget your quilt backs. Solid colors are okay for quilt backing, but it is so much more fun to have a wonderful print on the back. When I do trunk shows, people like to take a peek at what we’ve put on the back of the quilts. Sometimes we’ll add a left over block or two from the front piecing, just to jazz things up. And occasionally those blocks were just little mistakes that didn’t work with the quilt top.

A temporary felt wall:

If you don't have a felt wall in your quilting space, use thumb tacks to hang a piece of cotton batting to the wall. Your quilt pieces will stick to the batting and when you are finished planning and piecing your quilt, use the temporary "felt" wall to complete your quilt and there is no storage necessary.

Get organized!

Use an old silverware tray to organize small quilt tools like chalk markers, craft knives, pencils, pens, and small quilt templates.

Fold fat quarters around a manila file folder and file in a file box or cabinet for easy viewing and storage.

Hints:

Quilt blocks that turn out too small or not the right color combination, can be incorporated into the quilt back for an extra lift to an otherwise boring quilt back.

Just like scissors, seam rippers become dull from use. Purchase a new seam ripper at least once per year.