Gift Ideas for Quilters

It’s that time of year! This year I’ve updated the list of gift ideas for quilters – gifts you can either make for or give to your favorite Quilter and people who sew every year. This list of gifts for quilters also includes a list projects you can make for your quilting friends as well as new books, tools and other unique gifts.  (It’s also a handy post you can use as a good ‘hint hint’ if you’re the favorite quilter in someone else’s life. 😉 You’re welcome.)

Many of these items are things I’ve purchased with my own hard-earned cash or are items that were gifts I received from friends. This post also contains affiliate links (meaning I receive a small portion of the proceeds at no additional cost to you which helps support all of the free content year-round on this site) as well as recommendations of items that I have been given to sample by vendors. All opinions are my own and only my genuine favorites make this list. 

Unique Gifts for Quilters and Sewing Lovers

There are SO many more fun and unique sewing-themed gift options this year! Here are a few of my favorites:

 

Maker Valley has a delightful selection of quilting and sewing themed t-shirts. They regularly have new sewing and quilting designs. I’ve bought multiple Maker Valley t-shirts and I think they just get better all the time. Sale Nov 19-20 – Use code SMART10 at check out for 10% off the 4 brand new t-shirts (top row of picture.)

Maker Valley has expanded their offerings to also include quilt kits, pillowcase kits, stickers, collectible enamel sewing-themed pins.  

Speaking of enamel pins – there are SO many cute sewing-themed ones out there! RicRac Sews has a bunch of cute ones too. And collecting enamel pins just keeps getting more popular. If you have a friend who collects pins, here are a bunch of ideas for handmade enamel pin display options. One of these would make a great gift to a pin-loving friend.

There are so many cute quilt-themed puzzles available right now. A great gift with a quilt ‘theme’ that can be enjoyed by the whole family.

Decorative Sewing Pins and Needle Minders

Decorative pins – both just for pretty eye candy or functional like alphabetized row markers are a perfect gift for any quilter. The Decorative Pin shop on Etsy has a huge variety including these pretty flower pins as well as the alphabet pins that come in a handy tin. 

I have a set of numbered marking pins that I use ALL of the time for marking rows and keeping in order rows that need to be sewn together. You could make your own using this tutorial for making quilt row markers. Another option is Marilee’s Numbered Pins.

Needle Minders are both very cute AND functional as they’re magnetic and will keep track of your needle while you stitch. Bev from Flamingo Toes has an adorable selection of enamel needle minders here (link fixed).

Another fun option is sewing themed jewelry and charms including these cute options from Charmed Collections. There’s also a wide selection of sewing-themed jewelry and novelty gifts on Etsy.

For an extra special sewing friend, check out these miniature Tiny Tin Sewing rooms, hand crafted by Sachiko Aldous. They are so adorable and they are all unique. She has a handful stocked in her Etsy Shop right now. Be advised: they often sell out quickly, but she does regularly restock. Check her Instagram for updates.

A couple years ago, Old Mountain Crafts in North Carolina sent me some of their laser-cut wood decorations and I put them together as gifts for Quilting friends. (And kept a few for my own tree.)

Handcrafted Quilting Tools

Modern American Vintage is a new company that makes the most beautiful hand-crafted quilting tools (seam ripper, hera markers, point turners and quilter’s clappers) from a variety of gorgeous wood options. They feel like butter in your hand when you use them. An heirloom-quality gift for sure.

If you’re looking for something different and useful, this is a great gift – especially for folks who are creative with their hands – Mom’s Stuff Salve. I have been using it for a few of years now – especially in the winter months. It’s a handmade concoction with 100% all-natural ingredients. It’s perfect for softening rough, calloused hands and feet, but it’s not greasy. A little goes a long way and the jars last a long time. I’ve bought multiple jars and given them as gifts.

Just Add Sunshine has a bunch of really cute, cheerful stickers.  

 

Or check out these cute sewing and quilting themed socks!

Fabric:

Fat Quarter Bundles and precuts make a great gift. There are lots of great online shops with an excellent selections and customer service.

These are a few of my favorites:

Simply Love Fabrics 

SOJO Fabric 

Stitches N Giggles

LouLou’s Fabric Shop 

Sewtopia – specializes in modern quilting fabrics

Lady Belle Fabrics

Quilt Sandwich Modern Fabrics

Green Fairy Quilts – specializes in precuts

Fort Worth Fabric Co

Fat Quarter Shop

If you’re particular in your fabric tastes, you may want to be specific in your list to Santa (or Santa’s helper) to be sure you get exactly what you have your eye on. Or request a gift certificate!

Thread Gift Sets

If you are looking to stock up on high quality thread, my Aurifil Everyday Favorites collection of 12 spools of 50 wt thread is regularly $139. For Black Friday they are marked down to $99.

Notions and Sewing Supplies

Finally, you can never go wrong with traditional quilting notions. Any of these would be great gifts for quilters. A few of my favorites include:

• Wonderclips (that come in a wide variety of options)

• Clover Fine Glasshead pins (I LOVE these)

• Little House Glass Head pins are luxurious and come in a cute tin

• black Elan dressmaker scissors (very affordable and stay sharp. I LOVE mine)

• Olfa rotary cutter (I have 4 different kinds). My favorite is the Olfa Splash, but I also love the 60 mm extra large size for cutting lots of fabric layers at once as well as the 28 mm version for cutting applique pieces and around templates. Make sure it’s an OLFA though. They’re so much better than most rotary cutters.

• Flatter Smoothing Spray (available on Etsy or from Amitie Textiles in Australia)

• Rotary Cutter replacement blades are always in demand (just make sure you buy the right size for the rotary cutter you’re using.)

• I love these handy little Sewing Machine Cleaning brushes from Quilt In a Day.

A new pair of scissors is always a super handy gift, not to mention pretty, gift. (Speaking as a person who seems to have a lot of scissors.) Here are some of my favorite recommendations (L to R):

Heirloom Embroidery scissors are always a pretty gift. You can find all kind of shapes and sizes.

Omnigrid mini needlecraft scissors. These scissors are super sharp for their size. I keep mine with my english paper piecing projects because they’re not only good thread snippers, but they’re sharp enough to cut fabric when needed and they’re small enough I can take them on an airplane.

This year I’m gifting myself a new, pretty pair of Gingher shears. They’ve been on my want list for a while now. I love the pretty ceramic handles in the designer series. If you can’t find them in your favorite shop, you can find a large variety on Amazon.

Olfa Precision Scissors – these are hands down, some of my favorite scissors. The blades are small and sharp – cutting fabric easily, perfect for cutting intricate work – but the handles are large and comfortable enough for real fingers to get a good grip. I use these constantly.

• Sadly, the red polka dot scissors are no longer available. 

Other useful tools (that would make great stocking stuffers)include:

A Hera marker– used for making a crease on fabric  – perfect for marking quilting lines without having to use writing instruments

Another favorite seam ripper by Clover (can one really have too many seam rippers?)

Also useful – a new colorful cutting mats. This mini cutting mat would be a fun gift to give, or receive.

It would be fun to gift some of these notions in a cute jar like this one from The Polkadot Chair (which includes the cute free-printable Sewing gift tag.)

Mini Travel/Craft Iron

One of my favorite nifty, new tools is the Oliso Mini Craft Iron. Oliso sent me one to sample and I have loved it. I took it with me on a recent retreat and it was so handy to have close by. It comes with a silicone trivet for use as both travel/storage and as a sole plate for the iron to rest on in the face down position. It’s small and lightweight, and fits ergonomically in the palm of your hand, but has the weight of a heavy duty iron when pressing. Also a nice tip for detailed pressing and getting into those seams.

One feature that I like is that it stays hot and ready to press. No waiting for your iron to heat up when you need a quick seam press. (This is also something to be careful of if you’re prone to leave your iron turned on for extended time – you definitely don’t want to leave it plugged in for extended amounts of time.)

Some iron accessories that you could make include a personal, portable ironing table, or an iron travel caddy – useful for carrying your iron safely, even if it still needs to cool down.

Best Gifts for Quilters: Quilt Pattern Books

Quilt pattern books are always a great gift for a quilter. They not only come with a variety of patterns in one place, but often they are full of beautiful quilts and inspiring photography.

One of my favorite new quilting books of 2021 is Quilt Recipes by Jen Kingwell.  You can preview more of the projects from Quilt Recipes here.

Below is a list of some of my favorite pattern books: These have some really fun projects for using your stash, FQ friendly, or small, handmade gifts and projects. Each book would make a great gift as they all have a variety of projects and patterns that would appeal to almost every quilter.

The Big Book of Little Quilts from That Patchwork Place – this 240 page book has 51 patterns for assorted mini quilt in a variety of styles (traditional, modern, etc) and skill levels. 

Fresh Fat Quarter Quilts by Andy Knowlton is a brand new book with 12 patterns designed specifically for using Fat Quarters. A great resource for ideas to bust through your stash. I have a quilt in the works from this book that I’m so excited about!

Patchwork USA by Heidi Staples has 24 adorable projects from zipper pouches, pillows, and bags as well as quilt.  It’s full of gorgeous photography to fuel your creativity. It’s already a favorite of mine.

Perfectly Pretty Patchwork by Kristine Czepuryk is another one with a variety of sweet patchwork projects, big and small, with lots of details.

If you are looking for a book for beginners, definitely check out Pat Sloan’s Teach Me to Make My First Quilt.

Books with small sewing projects: 50 Little Gifts, compiled by Susanne Woods, is a super fun collection of easy patchwork projects to make for yourself or as an adorable handmade gift.

Lori Holt’s book, Vintage Christmas. It’s another winner from Lori. Lori’s book’s are some of the best bang for your buck because they are chock full of ideas and multiple ways to use her amazing blocks and patterns. You can see some of my blocks here.

If you’re looking for a beautiful coffee table style book – not quilt patterns, but images of 230 modern quilts – check out Modern Quilts; Designs of the New Century put together by the Modern Quilt Guild.

Quilt Design Software

If your quilter (or you) enjoys designing their own quilts, Electric Quilt Design Software is hands down the best software available. EQ8 is more user-friendly and intuitive than ever. Plus there’s lots of free YouTube classes and tutorials to teach you how to use all of the EQ capabilities.

It’s also the best time of the year to shop anything from Electric Quilt – including their gorgeous Encyclopedia of Quilt Blocks Book and Block Base+ design software. Use the Code 25DAYS to get 25% off everything at Electric Quilt. (Good through November 30.)

Online Classes!

I’m so glad that Craftsy is back! They have a huge selection of quilting classes available in every style and technique. And they are having sales and promotions through the Holiday Season. 

If you want to take a class with me you can find and preview my class Pre-cuts Shortcuts here!

Subscriptions: The gift that keeps on giving. Literally.

Lady Belle Fabrics has a monthly Fat Quarter bundle subscription called Little Whispers. Each month a new bundle of 10 ‘low-volume’ prints are shipped on the 15th. It’s a great way to build a stash of these useful fabrics. Option to cancel at any time.

Amitie Textiles out of Australia (owned by Jen Kingwell) has two great subscription clubs: The Stash Club and The Liberty Lovers Club. The Stash Club is a fun way to build up a selection of bright prints and colors. I was subscribed and loved getting these bi-monthly bundles of fresh, modern prints to supplement my stash. The Liberty Lovers Club is also bi-monthly and a fun way to build a Liberty lawn collection a bit at a time.

Subscription fabric clubs or gift boxes continue to become ever more popular. There are few different companies that offer subscription gift boxes such as Quilty Box, (pictured above) which is a mystery box – each month is a fun new surprise with containing a variety of fabric, notions and quilt patterns.

 

Find the Perfect Sewing Machine

Sewing Machines have been a hot ticket item this year thanks to more people spending time at home. For a while it was really difficult to find entry level machines, but fortunately that has changed. If you are looking for a good mid-level machine, I highly recommend the Baby Lock Jubilant. It’s lightweight and easily portable (making it a great travel machine) but is sturdy with a consistent stitch. 

If you’re looking for a beginning machine and don’t want to spend a lot of money, a Baby Lock Zest is the perfect machine. It’s doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles, making it affordable, but still sturdy and reliable. A friend who teaches sewing classes at a college uses and recommends these machines for their beginning students. 

If you’re ready to upgrade to a new machine, I recommend the Baby Lock Aria or the Crescendo. I’ve been sewing on the Baby Lock Crescendo for a few years now and it sews beautifully! It’s a bigger machine with lots of throat space for quilting and includes a dual-feed foot (an upgrade from a regular walking foot) and a free-motion foot. 

Gift Certificates:

If you’re starting to feel overwhelmed by the number of choices, or just running out of time, get a gift certificate! You can get a gift certificate from your favorite local quilt shop or any of the online shops listed on my sidebar. –>

(Never feel like a Gift Certificate is a cop out! Gift certificates are my favorite because I love the process of getting to use it just as much as receiving it in the first place. It’s like getting a present twice!)

A gift certificate could also be used to take a class at a local shop or an online video class on sites such as Craftsy.

 

Design Walls and Design Boards

Another useful gift for a quilting friend are these super handy mini design boards. My friend Emily made me some and I’ve LOVED them. They’re perfect of laying out quilt blocks, auditioning fabric, or just keeping your pieces in place until you’re ready to sew. Lori Holt has a tutorial to make your own Design Board (mine don’t have the decorative border, which is fine with me) or this video tutorial if you like the extra visuals. You can also buy Lori’s Design Boards ready made here in multiple sizes.

Another idea is to make (or buy) a full design wall. I LOVE and use my design wall every day. It has grommets and hangs next to my sewing table, but is easy to take down when needed. I have the Fons and Porter Design Wall which you can find at Joann’s or Amazon.

You could also make one yourself! Suzy Quilts has a list of great ideas for making your own Design Wall.

Quilt Display Ladders

Another fun gift would be a Quilt Ladder for displaying quilts. There are lots of different quilt ladder styles and options on Etsy. 

OR make your own! Here are a couple Quilt Ladder Tutorials: here and here.

And for the quilter who has everything:

Consider giving a donation in their name to other quilters who are working hard to provide the basics of life for their family, such as the women of One Common Thread Quilts. ❤

Handmade Gifts for Quilters or Friends Who Sew

As many of you are quilters yourselves, you know it’s a lot of fun to make a sweet little gift for other quilting friends. Here’s a variety of handmade gift ideas to make for people who sew. This list ranges from large and elaborate for that special someone to quick and simple that you can produce en masse. This list is geared specifically toward other sewists, but I have another list of Handmade Gift Ideas for anyone here.

What ever you make or find, I hope you enjoy the pleasure of giving!

One last thing! From now through Cyber Monday I’ve marked down almost everything in my Diary of a Quilter Shop – including patterns (both Printed and PDF versions), Fabric bundles and precuts, Aurifil Thread, and Washi Tape! No code needed.