I finally have the tumbling blocks quilt all put together and I’m ready to start my favorite part: the actual quilting. I am a completely self-taught quilter and I have to admit that sometimes I don’t quite know what I’m doing. How is one supposed to pin all the layers together if one has neither a full size quilt frame nor a flat place big enough to lay it all out? I always manage but I’m afraid my quilts can never be as good as I would like them to be because I’m not able to give them the right start in life.
I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to quilt this one. I don’t usually mark a stitching pattern on a quilt. In fact, I’ve never tried it that way. These are extra large tumbling blocks so I need to do more than just stitch around the edges of each piece. As usual I’ll make something up as I go along and thus end up with something original and artistic. Or at least that’s what I’m going to tell myself.
Right now I’m still excited about quilting. I hope this mood lasts because I want to get this one done and do some more. I have the stuff for another top that I could get started on. And of course there are always more ideas.
January 22nd, 2009 - 2:48 pm
Apparently you’ve got the quilting stitch down, but I learned a lot from Ami Simms’ “How to improve your quilting stitch” (which is apparently out of print? NOOOOO! That’s the one I always recommend to people!)
For the mechanics of basting and whatnot I like Fons and Porter’s “Quilter’s Complete Guide.” They have a number of suggestions though most of what I learned my mom taught me.
Having a big flat place is pretty important for me – what I do is lay out the backing, tape it to the floor with masking tape, and then lay the batting and the top on top of that. Then I pin, then baste. I suppose a person could carefully roll things up and do it a part at a time. But I think the next time I have to ready a quilt for the frame, I am either going to go down to church on a day that no one’s there or over to my department on a Saturday and use a clean expanse of floor. (If I ask the custodian nicely I bet he’d make sure it was clean for me.)
January 23rd, 2009 - 7:38 am
I’m not sure I do have the stitch down. At least I know I could use some more practice.
I can lay up to a twin size quilt on the floor but I’m working on a queen size now. I had to do it a little at a time and it was a lot of unpleasant work. I’m glad that part is over.
January 23rd, 2009 - 7:48 am
If you can find a used copy of Simms’ book, I highly recommend it. It is how I (finally) actually learned to hand-quilt – my mom showed me and I tried to mimic what she was doing, but I couldn’t get it until I read a description and saw drawings (showing both sides of the quilt) of how to do the stitch.