Preparing to quilt!!

This past weekend, I showed you the finishing steps for the Star Explosion Quilt Top……

Now it was time to make the back and get it basted.

For the back, I decided to throw in a row of rectangles from the front fabrics…..

The problem with doing this is that it is too easy to get the front on at a different angle so that the back looks lopsided!! Ask me how I know this???

The method that I use to fix this problem (or at least make it less visible), is to mark both sides of the quilt with masking tape that extends beyond the edges….

Then, when I lay the top onto the back and batting, I can still see those markings and line my quilt up appropriately…..

As I spray-basted this top, I kept finding snippets of thread and corners that needed to be trimmed so that they wouldn’t shadow thru to the top. Although I ended up with this pile of Smutz…..

….I obviously missed a bunch because I ended up having to fish out two orange threads and there are a bunch of orange and navy points that are showing thru…..VERY.BIG.SIGH!!!

Once I had laid out the top and trimmed the bits, I folded the top in half…..

…..and spray the batting….

I can then work from the center and carefully position the top in place.

Then, I repeat with the other side.

The final step for me is to add a few safety pins to the edge to hold them in place….

Now is the big question…..

HOW WILL I QUILT IT????

Basting Sunday

On Sunday afternoon, I decided that I wanted to accomplish one item on my To-do list…..get two quilts basted and ready for quilting.

The first one was another Charity quilt that I will use to practice Free motion quilting with a ruler. For this one, I was using batting that had been given to me so I used a spray baste. I previously talked about spray basting in this post, but I did noted one change that I would make the next time.

So, this time I used a sharpie and marked the outline of the quilt top on the batting so that I would know exactly where the spray needed to go……

With the first one accomplished, it was time to move on to my Brown Stripe quilt and was using Fusible batting for this one. My favorite batting is Hobbes Heirloom 80/20 Fusible……

I used to lay out all three layers of the quilt and iron them all at once, but I was never completely happy with how the backing looked. Several years ago I changed the process, starting out by slightly stretching the batting and taping it to the floor.

Then I spread the backing out over the batting and smooth it in place…..

Now I take the iron and slowly iron from the center of the quilt out to each edge, vertical first, then horizontal and finally diagonally…..

I normally accomplish this by kneeling on the quilt and ironing heavily…..

When it is ironed in place, I remove the masking tape and turn the quilt over so that the batting is facing up…..

One nice thing about this method is that you can easily see the back of the quilt and can ensure that the top is straight.

Now I place the top on the batting, smooth it out and start the ironing process again.

But, this time my knees (particularly the replacement) were NOT happy kneeling so I decided to keep standing and just bend from the waist to do the ironing……

This is where the “WOW” moment happened…… As I ironed, I realized that I had previously been pressing down HARD with the iron which meant that sometimes the seams were distorted. Ironing while standing meant that I was pressing lightly with the iron but letting the steam do all of the work!! The result was a better basted piece with very little distortion…..AND no sore knees!!!

Once the top was ironed, I trimmed the excess batting and backing fabric but got a LITTLE too close here…..

I let it sit until it had dried completely and then moved it to the guest bedroom to wait until I can start the quilting process…..

It fits really well in this room!!!!

I have not made all of the decisions about how to quilt this, but I am pretty sure that I am going to do the “square spiral” design in all of the white blocks. I will do one, see how it looks and then keep going with others…..or pick out the quilting and find another idea!!!

How to Spray Baste a Quilt

I was wanting to try out some new threads for quilting and was given a charity quilt top to practice on.

Before I get to the quilting process, here is a video about how to Spray Baste it!!

Now on to the quilting……

ARGH!!!!

My first project when getting home was to start quilting on my Henna whole-cloth quilt. I had finished marking it just before we left on our trip and I was ready to get started on it…..

I was planning to use two battings with this and was concerned about how to get it basted properly. Many years ago I had used spray basting with great results so I pulled out the can and started basting. In about an hour it was ready to hit the machine!!

When I first started, things were going great but as I worked further out from the center I started having trouble with my needle getting gummed up and skipping stitches!! I kept persevering but when it got to the point that I was having to re-start about every 6 inches, I decided that I needed to chuck it and start over!!!…….ARGH!!!!!…….

In thinking about this, I believe that the problem was that I over-sprayed AND, with two battings, there were THREE layers of spray!!

This is really disappointing to me, but I know of some things that I wanted to do differently so now I have the chance to do it!!

For the first tracing, I had borrowed a wonderful light box from a quilting friend, and I have now used this disaster as an excuse to purchase one for myself….it arrives from Amazon today!!!

Also, I am rethinking using the blue wash-out markers as they were pretty expensive and I wasn’t particularly happy with the crispness of the lines. I did some research and read that many people have used “Crayola Ultra Clean Washable markers” with great results. A package of Fine Point markers arrived yesterday…..

Today I started doing a product test with them and the first test was perfect. I marked the lines…..

…..ironed them heavily and then washed them out….completely clean.

BUT, in reading the instructions it suggests that you should wash them out as soon as possible, so I am a bit concerned if I don’t get to the quilting just after I mark it. To that, end, I have run another test and will let it sit for a time before I use them to mark.

I am actually having Rotator-Cuff surgery next Thursday so wont be quilting for a while so that should give some time for the test piece to “ferment”!!

I also realized (about 3/4 of the way thru marking) that, if I ironed freezer paper to the back of the fabric, it made the marking SO much easier and SO much more accurate. I am looking forward to using this technique to make sure that my circles are true!!

Finally, I was a bit concerned that, when I squared up the project, I would end up cutting off the corner peacock’s head so I am going to give it a bit more room this time.

I need to re-think the two battings a bit as both were from my stash and I am not sure exactly what one of them was made from (I really should mark them)!! I am thinking that I will use a fusible batting for the bottom one and that way I can just iron it on. I need to do some research about which “fluffy” batting to use this time!! I am thinking that I will do safety pin basting to finish out the project although I really hate to add the bulk to the piece that I am trying to push thru my machine!!

Anyway….it will be a better project this time!!!

Here’s to the return of creative time…..

On Saturday, I officially declared an end to tax season. It has been a good time and my clients were wonderful as usual, but it is truly wonderful to know that tomorrow I don’t have to sit at my desk all day long!!

Even better is the fact that my quilt guild is having a 4 day retreat starting on Tuesday and I am going!!! It is a UFO retreat where everyone works on their own projects and I am looking forward to several days of quilting on the Aussie fabric quilt that I made back in December.

So, on Saturday, Michael helped me to move the furniture out of the way and I got organized to baste the quilt. I use a Hobbes Heirloom Fusible Batting and love that I can baste a quilt in less than an hour, just using my iron.

The first step was to lay the batting out on the floor and iron the backing fabric to it……..

The batting sticks a little to the carpet but doesn’t seem to make much difference.

I then turned it over so that the batting side was up and ironed the quilt top to the batting….

So, in about 45 minutes, the quilt sandwich is ready to go.

Then I headed upstairs to get everything ready for the retreat. As I said, I am going to be quilting on a large quilt, so this meant that I want to take the drop-in table for my sewing machine, the board that sits under it to bring it up to the correct height, another folding table in case I need an extra, my swivel chair (so that I can raise it to the right height), my 16 inch square ruler and 24 inch rectangle ruler (in case I get it finished and want to square it up before I add binding), oh yeah, I need to take the binding that I made to go with it. I wonder if I will need an Ott light….better take one just in case. Now, am I REALLY going to be happy just quilting for almost 3+ days….maybe I should take along a hand project, but that requires at least three more boxes of stuff…..

Anyway, after an hour of trying to figure out what I would need, my stack looked like this…..

I guess that it is good that I am driving by myself!!!