Time for Free-Motion Quilting

The other day I did my least favorite thing in the quiltmaking process: I basted a quilt for free-motion quilting:

Here it is, all folded up--it's 70" square and this is the back. No, I can't show you the front yet...

I have a detailed Tutorial on how I pin-baste for machine quilting. The quilt in the Tutorial is larger than this one. For this one, I used my dining room table, laying out the back, batt and quilt top centered on the table. I taped and clamped the back down, then pin-basted the center of the quilt. NOTE: I don't close the pins until the entire quilt is pin-basted. Once the center section was pinned, I un-taped and un-clamped the quilt, slid it over to one side, and re-taped and re-clamped the back. I put pins in that side, then did the same on the opposite side.

Once all the pins were in place, I carefully turned the entire thing over to check for pleats or puckers.  There are always a few near the outside edges. It is a simple matter to remove the offending pins, flatten out the 3 layers again, and re-pin. When it is completely flat, no puckers or pleats, I turn it over and close all the pins.

This process took about 2.5 hours. I should  have been playing music because I just don't find this task fun. Necessary but not fun.

UPDATE: There is a fantastic video in the Classroom of The Quilt Show, featuring Cindy Needham and her table method for pin-basting:  Pin Basting with Cindy Needham. I sure wish I had seen this BEFORE I basted this one. What a great way to be sure the back is flat and square! Just another reason every quilter should be a member of The Quilt Show--with the current "Staying at Home Special" of $19.95 for 6 months or $39.95 for a year, I truly believe this is the best bang for your quilting buck. Join Now!

Next I made a "test" quilt sandwich from several of the fabrics in the top, the same batt and back:

This will be used to test a variety of threads, their colors, and set the tension for each. It is also used to warm up before tackling the quilt each day. The batt is Pellon Wool Blend, soft, with some loft, that will give dimension to the quilting. I have several ideas for quilting designs I am eager to try on this.

Before I jump into quilting this one, I will finish the quilting on my Foothills Quilt, which I began quilting in April. I wrote about that HERE. It will be good practice to get loosened up for the quilting on the "mystery" project:

 Fortunately, I kept a sketch of the quilting design, along with the rulers used for those designs, handy, until I could get back to the Foothills quilt:

Another thing I do as soon as I baste a quilt, is cut the extra back fabric for the Sleeve I attach to every quilt I make.  The fabric is cut to approximate size and I put a note on it that says "Sleeve" so I don't accidentally use it for some other purpose. Since I know what the binding fabric will be, I have also made that already--it is saved with the sleeve--in a safe place. And that place is noted in my Journal, on the page that lists "Where Did I Put?"

I will be glad to have Foothills quilted and be ready to get to work quilting the mystery, soon.

What is your least favorite part of the quiltmaking process?

Let's quilt,

Barbara

Batting and Basting

What do you do? When you come into a bunch of batting and you have tops that ought to get quilted?

You: 1. Do an archaeological dig to find those tops that need finishing.
         2.  Find some have backs and batts with them--Score!
         3. Dig through excess/discarded fabrics in deep storage to find backs that will work.
         4. Figure out how many batts you can cut from a Queen size batt for those tops
         5. Cut the backs and also sleeves from the back fabrics.
         6. Cut that Queen size batt into the needed sizes.
         7. Clear the Dining Room table and pin baste until you run out of pins.

I was pleased and surprised to find all the backs I needed in the closet where I am storing the stuff that didn't sell last summer--some of which needs to find it's way to my Etsy shop. No fabric had to come from my studio stash, AKA "the good stuff".

Here is the sketch for dividing up the Queen size batt:

It helps to have a plan before you open up and start cutting into that very big batt. Three of the quilt tops already had batting and backs stored with them so I only needed to cut 6 batts of various sizes from this batt and so there is leftover for the next small quilts I make.

Now I have 9 quilts ready to go, to practice and to finish.

How did I happen to have extra batt? The Quilters Dream Batting company had a little giveaway on Facebook a couple weeks ago. Now I love that batt, using it almost exclusively, in Request weight, their thinnest. In addition to batting they were throwing in a copy of Catherine Redford's new book Modern Machine Quilting. I have taken a machine quilting class with Catherine in Chicago and find her a delightful instructor. She will be teaching and lecturing at my guild next month but I will be teaching out of state myself so will miss her.  I rarely enter these giveaways but this was easy to do: "Like" their page and tell them what you were currently quilting. As I had "Long Time Gone" under the needle, with Quilters Dream Request batting in it, I took a couple seconds to post that.

Imagine my surprise a few days later when they announced I was the lucky winner, selected at random from 1350 entrants!  Maybe I need to buy a lottery ticket. Here is what they sent:

7 lbs.of greatness

Twin and Queen Request weight, Twin and Queen Select weight, Queen Deluxe weight, and about 50 8.5" x 11.5" samples of Select, perfect for using in upcoming classes. AND an autographed copy of the book, which I am reading carefully and enjoying. Thanks, Quilters Dream and Catherine!

I've got a use for the Deluxe Queen batt I hope to tell you about later...

Another shot of all 9 of the quilts, now ready for quilting magic. The small Amish quilts at the top were made more than 30 years ago, when I handquilted everything--which is why they never got done. And the first one at the bottom is waiting for more pins:

Let's Quilt!

Barbara

Basting a Quilt for Machine Quilting--and the Giveaway Winner

If you are going to machine quilt a quilt on your home machine, you need to baste the three layers together.  When we hand quilt, we most often baste with thread, large stitches basted in by hand across the surface of the quilt.  But with machine quilting you would be sewing in all those threads, then have to remove them, or they would get caught on the presser foot, so thread-basting is not a solution for machine quilting.  Most quilters use safety pins:

For a small quilt, I often just use straight pins until the basic grid quilting, like stitch in the ditch, is done.  But on a large quilt that wouldn't work:  the pins would come out or, worse, you'd get bloody sticking yourself as you manipulate the quilt through the machine.

Here is my process. (I know there are other methods, spray basting, basting guns, etc.--this is how I do it.)  First, I need to find a room with tables that will fit my quilt--no crawling around on the floor for me any more.  If you have access to a church Fellowship Hall,or a business or community center lunchroom, see if there is a time you can use that space to baste your quilts.  After teaching a class this morning at Patches & Stitches, Huntsville, AL, I put 3 classroom tables together to baste Stella's Splendid Sampler.

The back was pieced from two lengths of fabric, after removing the selvages, then the seam was pressed open.  I carefully laid the back out, RIGHT SIDE DOWN.  I centered the seam on the middle table.  I used small plastic clamps to secure the back to the table, clamping firmly but not stretching the back.If you don't have clamps, bulldog clips, also called black binder clips, often work.  At home on my dining room table I use painters tape.

Luckily, most of the back fit nicely on the table, the left and right sides hang over about 6-8":

Then I gently added the batting:

Twin Size Batting is somewhat larger than needed

 This is my favorite batting. Quilters Dream Cotton batting, Request weight, the lightest. It comes in white or natural, use white if you have a predominately white background:

After smoothing the batting carefully across the back, keeping the left side even with left edge of the back, I spread out the quilt top.  This whole process is much easier with another set of hands but it was only me so I did it myself:

An important point:  I didn't intentionally center the seam on the center of the quilt--it pretty much happened by accident.  For a competition quilt, I would have carefully lined up the center seam of the back with the center of the quilt top.  NOTE: For a larger bed quilt, the back would have been made from 3 pieces, about 40" across the middle, and two pieces sewn to either side.  OR I would use a wide-goods back, 108" or wider--then you only need the length of your quilt plus a bit for the back. This quilt is 81" square.

How much bigger is the back and batting than the top?  If you are quilting it yourself, on a home machine, with a fairly flat/thin batting like this, 4" extra all around is enough--at least 85" in both directions for my quilt.  If you are giving your quilt to a longarmer to quilt, they need 8" extra all around, this means, your quilt top plus 4" extra on the left and right sides, 4" extra on the top and bottom edges.  The thicker the batting, the more back and batting you need beyond the top.

Once I was satisfied I had the quilt as flat and straight as I could make it, it was time for the safety pins.  I was afraid I would run out so I placed them about 7" apart--they really should be closer, about 3-4" apart.  As I plan to stitch in the ditch first, on either side of all the turquoise sashing strips, I purposely did not put any pins in the 1" finished sashings.  Once the stitch in the ditch is done, I can remove all the rest of the pins to quilt in each block, whatever I think that block needs.

Put the safety pins in BUT DON'T CLOSE THEM, until all the pins are in place.  I did run out of pins when I got to the borders, I'll add more once I get home. For now each block has a pin and there are a few in the borders.  After ALL the pins are in place, remove the clamps that have been holding the back securely flat on the table:

Now you can close the pins. On a large quilt there can be more than 300 pins and that can be tough on your hands.  I used my hands but you can use a grapefruit spoon, a chopstick or a Kwik Klip tool:

Once all the pins are closed, turn it over to the reverse side and check to see if there are any pleats or tucks.  If there are, now is the time to fix them.  If you forget to fix them, you will sew them in place, just ask me how I know...

Stella's Splendid Sampler Back

Next one in line for machine quilting

Basting is not my favorite part of the process--having a friend or two to help makes it go faster--but you can do it yourself.  If your quilt is larger than the tables you have, after doing the middle portion on the table, close those pins, and slide the quilt to the side, do that side, close the pins, carefully slide the quilt back to the remaining side, and complete the basting.  Now you can quilt it!

And it's time to announce the Giveaway for the Sew-A-Long.  The Random Number Generator selected number 2:  congratulations, Donna D!  We'll get together soon to give you the prizes.  Thanks to everyone who posted their photo.

Let's Quilt!

Barbara