With 2 quilt tops done, it's time to get to quilting. And finishing. Here is a quick tutorial on how to sandwich your quilt to get it ready for quilting.1) Iron your quilt top and your backing fabric.
2) Mark your quilt with quilting lines. I used a washable Crayola marker and 3 dishes that gave me 3 different circle sizes. There are lots of ways to mark a quilt and many products to mark with - chalk, tape, marker, pencil. I like the washable Crayola marker (a tip from friend, Carolyn) the best because it's cheap, I always have one, it has lots of ink (I've found those special fabric marking pens run out of ink almost instantly) and it washes completely out. I choose random circles as my quilting pattern. Thought it would mirror the polka dots on the border and some of the fabrics and also break up the squares.
3) Place your backing fabric on the floor *wrongside up.* You can tape the corners to hold it in place. Just don't pull the fabric taught with the tape.
4) Spread batting over the backing fabric.
5) Lay your quilt top on top of the batting.
6) Baste the all 3 layers together. I like to pin baste mine with safety pins. There is no magic number of pins to use when basting. I'd say every 5 inches or so. I'm a heavy pinner. My need for security permeates all areas of my life, quilting included so I use a lot of pins. Most of my quilting friends use less. Inevitability there will be a pin in the way of your hoop anyway . . .
7) Finished! Ready for hand quilting. I'm not a machine quilter (YET!) so I don't know if this method works for the machine.
2) Mark your quilt with quilting lines. I used a washable Crayola marker and 3 dishes that gave me 3 different circle sizes. There are lots of ways to mark a quilt and many products to mark with - chalk, tape, marker, pencil. I like the washable Crayola marker (a tip from friend, Carolyn) the best because it's cheap, I always have one, it has lots of ink (I've found those special fabric marking pens run out of ink almost instantly) and it washes completely out. I choose random circles as my quilting pattern. Thought it would mirror the polka dots on the border and some of the fabrics and also break up the squares.3) Place your backing fabric on the floor *wrongside up.* You can tape the corners to hold it in place. Just don't pull the fabric taught with the tape.
4) Spread batting over the backing fabric.
5) Lay your quilt top on top of the batting.
6) Baste the all 3 layers together. I like to pin baste mine with safety pins. There is no magic number of pins to use when basting. I'd say every 5 inches or so. I'm a heavy pinner. My need for security permeates all areas of my life, quilting included so I use a lot of pins. Most of my quilting friends use less. Inevitability there will be a pin in the way of your hoop anyway . . .
7) Finished! Ready for hand quilting. I'm not a machine quilter (YET!) so I don't know if this method works for the machine.Oh Fransson! has a quilt-along on her blog right now. She is going through all the steps of making a quilt from fabric selection to quilting. Hop over there for some thorough, proper lessons.
For those of you making bags for the SCRAPDOWN, Audrey sent me a picture of a great little backpack she made for her daughter. She engineered it by deconstructing a similar one. It has grommets, but don't be afraid (I'm afraid) she supplied a link to a grommet tutorial. Here is the link.
For those of you making bags for the SCRAPDOWN, Audrey sent me a picture of a great little backpack she made for her daughter. She engineered it by deconstructing a similar one. It has grommets, but don't be afraid (I'm afraid) she supplied a link to a grommet tutorial. Here is the link.
5 comments:
oh I love the tip of using a crayola marker! I haven't bought a marking pen yet because they cost so much, I'm just going to grab a marker now
I know that the marker washes out (it happens all the time when washing the kid's clothes) but I'm still a bit nervous using it on the tope of my quilt :) This quilt will be all straight line machine quilting, but I'll have to try the marker on another one soon.
i know it's a bit unnerving, but it really does come out. i used a darker color last time and left it on the fabric for waaaaaay to long and it came out easily.
What a brilliant idea and makes me feel so stupid...ofcourse we have tons of washable markers and yet I have spent way too much money on the fabric markers...how come I never thought of this?! Thanks for the tip. I use the fabric markers for embroidery projects so now I will have to start a new project to test this out.
Meant to add I love the fabric you used in this quilt...especially the robots and the sock monkeys!
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