Quilting the Challenge Quilt
At this point, the quilt top is finished and
ready for the quilting stage. It has been
a lot of fun seeing how the the three
different blocks and the applique pieces
for the What’s Good For the Gal Is Good
For the Guy quilt have developed and
emerged into a whole entity. I love creating the individual parts of a quilt but it’s
also satisfying to see it all put together.
What is even more satisfying is seeing it
quilted. There are few things that need
to be done first before I can actually sit
down and quilt.
The three layers
I already have the top layer finished and
ready to go but I still need some batting
and a backing for this quilt.
Curved safety pins about a fist width apart
The batting I have and I just need to cut
it to the correct size. It’s 100% cotton,
which is one of my favorite battings. It’s
a low loft batting so will remain quite
flat when quilted. If I use a batting with
polyester, which has more loft, the quilt
would have some puffiness to it.
The backing I will create from a fabulous
piece of flannel. Now, when I started
the challenge way back when, the idea
was to create a pieced back using some
of the Eclectic Elements fabric and the
backing fabric. Unfortunately, I don’t
have enough of those fabrics left to
create a backing. But, I do have an idea
to create something else with them —
shhhhh don’t tell as it’s a surprise.
A pile of binding
The backing is a single fabric in lovely
blue flannel by Northcott Fabrics, which
will be warm and cozy to the body.
Sandwiching the quilt
The fabric sampler
I’ve rearranged my studio and put some
tables together so I can sandwich the
three quilt layers together. Once the
layers are all layered smoothly, it’s time
to do a whole lot of pinning. I’ve made
sure that the backing and batting are
2-inches larger than the quilt top all the
way around. It’s always a good plan to
have these two layers larger just in case
there is any movement of the quilt layers.
There’s nothing worse than having a
section with no backing or batting.
Thread choices
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spring 2015
I prefer pinning to spray basting even
though it does take longer. If you pin
well, there should be minimal movement
of the layers while quilting.
TIP Place pins about a fist width apart
— this will ensure optimal pinning for
minimal movement.
Binding
I like to make the binding before quilting the quilt to have it all ready to go
and I don’t accidentally use the binding
fabric for something else. I decided on
one of the feature fabrics for the binding — stripes in blue and tan. This fabric
is going to look super framing the quilt.
Plus, it looks great with the backing fabric
that it is lying on.
When I calculate how many strips to
make for the binding, I keep it simple. All
I do is add the measurements of each
side together and add an extra 20-inches
to ensure overlap for sewing the ends
together. then, I divide by 40. Not exactly
an exact science but it works for me and
there isn’t all kinds of convoluted measuring or matching involved.
For this quilt that’s 72" on each side, I
rounded up to 80" (this will include the
extra 20" I normally add), multiplied by
four to get 320" and divided by 40 which
equals eight strips of fabric. Easy peasy!
Picking a thread
I made a little sampler of some of the
feature fabrics and the background fabrics to test a couple of threads. I did both
straight stitch and free motion samples
with each thread. Because all the fabrics
are a bit different, it’s hard to get a thread
that will blend into all the fabrics. I don’t
want the thread to stand out because I
feel the design is the focal point of this
quilt, not the quilting.
My two choices of thread are a variegated blue or a variegated gray. I’ve
decided on the blue for the background
and, most likely, the gray for the feature
fabrics. But, I may change my mind when
I start quilting the feature fabric and go
with a variegated brown, since many of
the blocks have a brown tinge to them.