Quiltmaking 101 -- batting cleanup

Several years ago I started a series of blog posts that I call Quiltmaking 101 -- tutorials on all the basics of machine-pieced quilts.  Early installments deal with how to use the rotary cutter, how to stitch seams and how to press.  Moving along through the production process, you can learn how to efficiently sew block-to-block quilts together, how to put the quilt sandwich together, and how to quilt it.  Finally, you can learn how to finish the quilt, with bindings or facings, and how to put a sleeve on for hanging.

I think that somebody who never saw a quilt before could probably learn 99 percent of what she needed to make one by following this series of tutorials.  If you want to read them, they're all right here.

But I realized recently, as I went back to check out one of the posts, that I had left some gaps in the instruction.  Most embarrassing, I realize that I never explicitly discussed freehand cutting -- the heart of improvisational quilting -- and how to sew together a quilt with curvy pieces.  So I am putting together a series of posts on piecing curves.  By that I mean both gently curved seams like these:

and more severe curves like these:

I'll be posting these new tutorials in the next couple of weeks.  Meanwhile, I invite you to look at the Quiltmaking 101 link above and tell me if there are other basic skills that you'd like to see additional tutorials on.