Quilting questionHow difficult is it? Options

[Mrs. M]

My little boy is in need of a twin size quilt. The prices for store bought ones are simply too much for me to afford. I made him a small quilt using his receiving blankets and that project was pretty simple and quick, but I didn't quilt it properly, I think. I simply pinned the top, middle, and bottom together and stitched over it up and down and across with my regular sewing machine. This was fine for this small quilt.

My question is how does one go about quilting properly and is it difficult or just as easy as regular stitching by hand? I know I should do a bit of real research before attempting this project, but I wanted a quick reality check if it would even be a feasible project for me to do.

Thanks for any help.

[Vivian Lee]

My little boy is in need of a twin size quilt. The prices for store bought ones are simply too much for me to afford. I made him a small quilt using his receiving blankets and that project was pretty simple and quick, but I didn't quilt it properly, I think. I simply pinned the top, middle, and bottom together and stitched over it up and down and across with my regular sewing machine. This was fine for this small quilt.

My question is how does one go about quilting properly and is it difficult or just as easy as regular stitching by hand? I know I should do a bit of real research before attempting this project, but I wanted a quick reality check if it would even be a feasible project for me to do.

Thanks for any help.

For me, it is as easy as hand sewing/embroidery. It is more time consuming, but the rewards are great. When I started hand quilting, I was taught to baste the three layers together so they do not shift/pucker, and I learned to quilt in a large embroidery hoop. You do not tighten it as you would for embroidery, just enough to hold it together while you hand quilt. Your backing should always be a few inches bigger all of the way around than your top. Once you have the quilt quilted, you trim off the excess to be even with the top, and put the binding on.

I don't like working with a hoop, so these days I use large stainless steel safety pins. They work great!! They make the project heavy, but sometimes I take some of them out if I'm done quilting in a particular area. I place them about every 3-4", and turn every other one in the opposite direction. It holds beautifully, and if I don't get it finished timely, the pins do not rust.

I hope this helps you......

[Mrs. M]

Excellent advice, Vivian Lee. Thank you very much. I'm almost certain I can do this know thanks to your advice. Thank you!!!

[Vivian Lee]

Also meant to tell you that if you use the safety pins, that is the same as basting, so need to do that....it saves a time consuming step! You do need to have enough safety pins to baste/pin the quilt all at once. You will have some shifting in the unquilted part if you only pin part of it. If you don't want to make the investment in the pins, you would need to baste to keep it from shifting much. You can buy them by the bag at Joanns. If you're on their mailing list, you will get a 40% coupon every month for one item not on sale. You can save 40% this way.....do this for a couple ofmonths while you're making the top, and you can get them all at 40% off! You'll need a lot of them....

[Lynn]

Good luck on your project, Mrs. M! I have made a fair number of quilts (none larger than twin size) but have never done the quilting by hand (only by machine, and a couple baby ones I tied). You will have to let us know how yours turns out. It sounds like you got some excellent advice from Vivian Lee.

[Mrs. M]

Thank you Vivian Lee for the advice regarding safety pins. I will definitely start to gather a stockpile.

Thanks for the positive reinforcement Lynn. It may take a while, but I will certainly show the quilt once it's finished.

[Pumpkin]

I have never attempted to make a quilt...always wanted to give it a try. The advice on safety pins sounds like a good idea. Good luck with your quilt!

[Denise]

I do quilts by hand. I have a full size one that I put on a quilting frame. At that time I had never heard about basting a quilt but since it was taut on the frame it worked well. The frame I have is a large one that you use strips to hold the quilt in place and also along the edge of the frame. Then as the quilting is done you can roll it onto the bar that is the top of the frame and it will keep out of your way. The frame is long to accommodate wide quilts but there is a short span between the quilting bars. These work best if making say full size or queen size quilts. I have never quilted by machine. Look forward to seeing your finished quilt!

[Molly]

You have a fun project ahead of you, I hope it will be wonderful! I'm no hand quilter but I do recall the old Alex Anderson HGTV quilting show having a really good episode on her hand quilting technique. It looks like once you 'get' the rocking stitch you can get going pretty quickly. For me, it is just too slow and painstaking a process. Love the quilts I put together on the machine...they are tough, got done quickly and really hold up through the washer and dryer too.

Try looking through the HGTV show archives to see if you can locate that segment or maybe you can find it on youtube. Also try to make sure to get a nice batting for your first hand sewn quilt. I found out that I made a huge mistake selecting 100% cotton...man, was it tough to needle! There are some really lovely, lovely batts on the market now too.

Hope you will keep us all posted on how it is going, I love to get inspired by other sewers and quilters. Heaven knows I have one quilt top that has been on my machine frame for literally two years now and an untold number of tops waiting to be quilted. Just haven't had the quilting bug in several years.

[Mrs. M]

Pumpkin, thank you for the well wishes. I like to try new things, and I hated the thought of giving away my little boys receiving blankets; so when he was about 2, I cut them all up into squares and just used my imagination to create a quilt. I made a million mistakes, but when viewed from a distance, the quilt looks perfect. This first quilt was small -- crib size. Maybe you could start with something small like that if you ever get the quilting bug.

Denise -- your quilt frame sounds very nice. I'm certainly going to have to think about getting one. All the advice from the forum has been fantastic, but I definitely need to do some research before attempting this very big project. It is so good to know you are all here.

Molly -- I know what you mean about unfinished projects. My crafting time is quite limited, and I still have a skirt and apron that need finishing. I'll need to finish those before starting on the quilt, but goodness knows I'm itching to shop for fabric. Thanks for the advice regarding batting and hand vs. machine quilting.

Thanks again for all the support!

[Vivian Lee]

I do quilts by hand. I have a full size one that I put on a quilting frame. At that time I had never heard about basting a quilt but since it was taut on the frame it worked well. The frame I have is a large one that you use strips to hold the quilt in place and also along the edge of the frame. Then as the quilting is done you can roll it onto the bar that is the top of the frame and it will keep out of your way. The frame is long to accommodate wide quilts but there is a short span between the quilting bars. These work best if making say full size or queen size quilts. I have never quilted by machine. Look forward to seeing your finished quilt!

Denise....I have frames like that too. They were a gift to me from my Amish neighbor years ago at Christmas time. They are 12 feet long and will accommodate a king size quilt. I don't have the room to set them up in this house until I redo my basement. I would love to hand quilt another quilt for my daughter. I plan to get them out next year (I know....tough goal...LOL). The first quilt I quilted on them was a queen size wedding ring quilt I made for my niece for her wedding gift.....that was in 1996. It won a blue ribbon at the fair that year....I was really proud!! I did several other smaller quilts, and then had to go back out into the work world, and haven't had time to hand quilt much but small lap projects I can travel with. I usually always have a small baby quilt that I keep in my suitcase when I travel to work on in my hotel room at night. When it's done, it goes to the Linus Foundation, then I start another one. This year I am doing a lap quilt for a breast cancer patient. It is hot pink, lime green and white.

Molly.....I have a lady that machine quilts my quilts for me. She is very very reasonable and does an amazing job. She is in Kansas. She has quilted probably 30 quilts for me over the last 4-5 years. 11 of them since last October.....I am trying to get some UFO tops quilted so I can make more....LOL. I just got an Ohio Star quilt back from her just today. I'll spend the weekend binding it and fold it and put it away with the rest of them....LOL

[Lynn]

Vivian Lee, I have used someone here to machine quilt one of mine, too. It wasn't cheap (probably around $80 or so, including batting) but it was a special quilt I'd made for my son and I wanted it to be perfect. I figured it was too big for me to quilt on my small machine. I was SO happy with how it turned out. Next time I have a large quilt top, I will bring it to her again.

You all are getting me inspired -- I probably have about six quilt tops that are nearly done This may be the year to get them finished!

[Vivian Lee]

Lynn.....that is what happened to me. I pulled out over 25 completed tops and sets of blocks that just need to be sewn together with a border or two, and thought what w waste!! I gave myself a goal to have all of the completed tops quilted and bound in 18 months..... As of last October, I have completed 11 of them!! I plan to finish up the tops and then start working on setting blocks together. It doesn't help that I keep starting projects, and just joined another BOM round.....LOLOL

You'll feel so awesome when they're quilted. I keep telling myself, they are of no use to anyone this way. They're not quilts til they're finished! My daughter is not interested in quilting, so I think that if something were to happen to me, all of those pretty tops and blocks that took me countless hours to put together would be sold at auction for pennies, and unappreciated....so that inspired me too! At least as a finished quilt, I can give them away or donate them where they will be useful. I get out of control with piecing tops....piecing the tops is the passion that I love. My boyfriend asked me why I take fabric and cut iy up just to sew it back together.....I say because I can....LOL

Good luck and happy quilting! Would love to see your quilts.

[Lynn]

Lynn.....that is what happened to me. I pulled out over 25 completed tops and sets of blocks that just need to be sewn together with a border or two, and thought what w waste!! I gave myself a goal to have all of the completed tops quilted and bound in 18 months..... As of last October, I have completed 11 of them!! I plan to finish up the tops and then start working on setting blocks together. It doesn't help that I keep starting projects, and just joined another BOM round.....LOLOL

You'll feel so awesome when they're quilted. I keep telling myself, they are of no use to anyone this way. They're not quilts til they're finished! My daughter is not interested in quilting, so I think that if something were to happen to me, all of those pretty tops and blocks that took me countless hours to put together would be sold at auction for pennies, and unappreciated....so that inspired me too! At least as a finished quilt, I can give them away or donate them where they will be useful. I get out of control with piecing tops....piecing the tops is the passion that I love. My boyfriend asked me why I take fabric and cut iy up just to sew it back together.....I say because I can....LOL

Good luck and happy quilting! Would love to see your quilts.

My quilts are nothing to write home about -- I guess I'm a proponent of the joy is in the doing, not necessarily the beauty of the finished product . Like you, I do love the whole process of piecing the tops together. I especially love using fabric I already have -- like old blue jeans, old plaid shirts of my husband's, etc.

I'll put a link here to a blog post I did a couple years ago that shows the quilt I made for my son. It's from his old marching band t-shirts, and I made it after seeing the t-shirt quilt his college roommate had. It seemed like the perfect memento for a young adult. I had it professionally quilted at the quilt shop, and they were able to make the design little musical notes to go with the quilt's theme. Here's the link:

http://queenofthecastlerecipes.blogspot.co...make-shake.html

[Vivian Lee]

VERY NICE Lynn!!!!!!!!! I love the Tshirt quilt! It's always nice to recycle old things into new. There is so much sentimental value to them. I am in the process of making 4 quilts from blocks that my Mom made years ago, 1 for me and 1 for eachof my 3 surviving siblings. They were all sewn together into a big top, but I have spent the better part of 2 months of weekends taking the blocks apart to make 4 quilts with them adding other fabric. What a job....everyday I touch them I say I am so sorry I started the project, but I know when they're done, it will have been worth it. Your sol will have that quilt for the rest of his life!!! What a great way to preserve his passion!!! You're a cool Mom.....

Loved your blog postings too by the way.....especially the milkshake in a jar idea!! I have nieces and nephews that would love that!

Thank you for sharing....

[Lynn]

Vivian Lee, the quilts you're making from the blocks your mom left behind sound like such a sweet, sweet labor of love. I'm sure it is tons of work, but what special quilts you will end up with. The older I get, the more I appreciate those handmade gifts -- sometimes it's the only tangible reminder we have of grandmas or other relatives.

I'd love to see some of your quilt projects. Do you have any pictures posted anywhere?

[Vivian Lee]

I have some posted on HGTV's website under the crafts, quilting. My name there is passionforquilting....all one word. I haven't posted there for a couple of years. There are a few here too somewhere....LOLOL

[Lynn]

quote name='Lynn' date='Mar 16 2011, 08:52 PM' post='78070']
Vivian Lee, I have used someone here to machine quilt one of mine, too. It wasn't cheap (probably around $80 or so, including batting) but it was a special quilt I'd made for my son and I wanted it to be perfect. I figured it was too big for me to quilt on my small machine. I was SO happy with how it turned out. Next time I have a large quilt top, I will bring it to her again.

You all are getting me inspired -- I probably have about six quilt tops that are nearly done This may be the year to get them finished!
[/quote]

I finished one of my quilt projects! I'm going to try to attach photos here . . . front and back of my crazy quilt, made from old scraps

[Mrs. M]

That is excellent, Lynn! I'm so happy for you.

[Vivian Lee]

Lynn....that's awesome!!!!! I love those kinds of quilts.....soft, warm and made from scraps. There is a lot of love inthose layers, and I'm sure it will be well used.

Great job....how about another??