Machine Quilting on Your Home Machine – Part 1

Hi everyone! I will be on the road for a bit so I thought I would cover a topic I&#;ve done before: small project quilting on your home machine. For the most part, I hire out quilting on my quilts that are larger than 48 x 48&#;. My long-arm quilting friends, who quilt large quilts as a business, definitely do a better job on anything larger than that.

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So, this week&#;s and next week&#;s posts will guide you through machine quilting those smaller projects yourself. I hope to give you the confidence to give it a try and have fun doing it! Read on for my tips. This week, I will cover how to prepare the quilt top for quilting.

Preparing the Quilt for Quilting

Step 1: To start, you need to make what is referred as a quilt &#;sandwich&#; by layering your quilt top with batting and backing. For home quilting, my first tip is to cut the backing and batting about 1-2&#; larger on all sides than the quilt top (photo below). This guarantees that the whole quilt top will have coverage to the edges. If you cut the backing and batting exactly to the size of your quilt top and it shifts during the basting and/or quilting process, you can end up with an area along the edge of your quilt that does not have batting and backing. Believe me, you don&#;t want to pick out machine quilting stitches!

**Extra Tips: For your large quilts you are sending to the long-arm quilter, be sure to ask them how much overlap of backing (and batting if you have to provide that) they prefer. 1 -2&#; works for a small quilt top on a home machine, but they generally require more. I cut my backing  6&#; larger on all 4 sides for a quilt that will go to my long-arm quilter. Also, if you need to seam together fabric for your backing, be sure to iron the seam open and flat to relieve bulk (photo below). This is a backing tip I received from my long-arm quilter.**

Step 2: To prepare your quilt top to be &#;sandwiched&#;, make sure all its seams are pressed flat, whether you press them to to the side or open. Flat seams make for a flat, less bulky quilt top for quilting. Also, remove any stray threads from the quilt top. Especially the ones that are in the seams. When you&#;re piecing a quilt top, threads often get caught in the seams (see circled areas in photo below).

Step 3: Next make sure your backing is pressed and as wrinkle-free as possible. Find a large table and tape the backing, right side down, to the table top to keep it smooth and tight without stretching it out of shape. Start on one side and make your way to the other side while smoothing out the backing as you go. If you are lucky enough to have a large, hard floor space to do this, that works too.

Once the backing is secured, lay the batting on top, smoothing it out. Be careful not to wrinkle the backing below.

Step 4: Center the quilt top on top of the batting. Smooth carefully so wrinkles are not created in the batting and the quilt top is not stretched out of shape. Use a ruler to make sure you did not stretch it out of shape. To do this, place the ruler on the corners as shown below. If the quilt top has not been distorted, you&#;ll have a nice 90 degree corner that matches the ruler.

Step 5: The final step in preparing the quilt for quilting is to baste it together to hold everything in place. You can either do that with thread or with safety pins.

• Thread Basting Method: You can use white thread and a long running basting stitch in a grid pattern. Space the stitching 4 to 6&#; apart. Start in the center of the quilt sandwich and work your way out. Since the stitches are long and widely spaced, you can clip and remove the basting from each section you are quilting as you go.

• Pin Basting Method: This is the method I use. I pin 3 to 4&#; apart, starting in the center of the quilt top and working out to make sure the quilt top remains smooth and flat. I also like to stagger the pinned rows and I use curved safety pins made specifically for quilt basting.

So that is how you prepare your quilt for machine quilting at home. Now you are ready to head to the machine and quilt it! Next week, I will share tips on the quilting process and my mini video tutorial that demonstrates it. My main goal with this post and next week&#;s installment is to make machine quilting on your home machine a bit less intimidating.

Share your questions and tips below in the comments. If you are a home machine quilter, do you have some advice to share? I am going to do a drawing among the commenters for a pair of machine quilting gloves that I like to use.

The drawing will be from comments from this week&#;s and next week&#;s posts so it will take place on Monday, February 6th. **We have a winner&#; Congrats, Marsha Thornburg!**

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

All week, I have been explaining the process of making a quilt to showcase the beautiful Banyan Batiks Jungle Rose Cool Banyan fabric. Yesterday I pieced my quilt together and now I&#;m ready to demonstrate my method of quilt sandwiching.

For smaller projects and in particular this Fireside Modern Drunkards Path lap quilt. It&#;s great to use my domestic machine as I love the peaceful time of just sitting at my sewing machine and quilting. I love being able to focus in close and isolate just the area I&#;m working on. It gives me a real sense of control and focus over my quilt as compared to standing at my long arm machine.

The sandwiching of the quilt is always a bit of a challenge because you have to spread it out on a big surface and make sure it&#;s totally stabilized before quilting. I have a few great tricks I think will take the work, mystery and stress out of sandwiching a quilt.

Steps to sandwiching a quilt for domestic machine quilting

1.  Make sure the backing is ironed.

2.  Make sure the quilt top is ironed.

3.  Make sure the batting is relatively wrinkle-free. TIP Place the batting with a damp tea towel in the dryer for 5 minutes on high heat to remove excess wrinkles.

4.  Make sure the backing and batting are at least 4&#; bigger all around the quilt top to allow for quilt sprawl (the quilt will expand slightly as it is quilted).

5.  Lay the quilt backing right side down onto a large floor area or table(s) and tape the edges of the backing down with masking or painters tape. You&#;re taping to keep it flat but not to make it taught. I tape one side and then the other and then the top and the bottom in an alternating fashion ensuring the backing is flat. Notice how gorgeous the Jungle Rose Cool color #-63 backing is? It also has no wrong or right side because it&#;s batik fabric making it easy as pie to lay out.

6.  Get out some quilt basting spray. I use SpraynBond Basting Adhesive. What&#;s awesome about SpraynBond Basting Adhesive is:

• It&#;s a temporary basting spray manufactured to baste fabric layers together.
• It&#;s repositionable so I&#;m not in a crisis if I sandwich layers and need to move the fabric. What a great feature.

• There&#;s no arduous task of getting down on hands and knees and pin basting through 3 layers with this method. It&#;s so much faster than pin basting.

• Spray basting is a time-saver, a body saver (no sore knees) and a physical energy saver.

• This spray is also &#;sewable&#; and will not gum up needles.

Safety Note: Remember, with all spray products, only use them in a well-ventilated space.

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7.  Spray the backing all over, holding the can 12&#; away from the fabric and move your hand and the can quickly, a little goes a long way. Try to focus on the quilt backing only so as not to overspray onto the surface area. You don&#;t need a lot of spray for it to be basted sufficiently.

8.  Roll the batting up starting at the top width (it will look like a large pool noodle). Lay it down on the spray basted quilt backing starting at the top as shown below.

I have used Fairfield Quilter&#;s 80/20 Quilt Batting, it&#;s a super-soft needle punched quilt batting preferred by hand quilters for it&#;s easy needling and smooth drape. What I have also found out by years of using 80/20 batting with machine quilting is the 80% cotton and 20% polyester blend yields a beautiful antique look and is an ideal batting for machine quilting and clothing. This batting has a nice loft from the polyester blend holding the cotton together and allowing it to bounce back. It&#;s also warm and breathable.

The batting is rolled out onto the backing as shown. The rolling trick is so easy and so effective because the batting naturally rolls out nice and even and smooth with this method.

9.  Keep on rolling, rolling the batting towards the bottom of the quilt. Roll the batting out smoothly and rub with your hands to remove any wrinkles if necessary.

10.  Spray the top of the batting with SpraynBond Basting Adhesive as was done with the backing (12&#; away from the batting and moving hands quickly). Less is more as the saying goes.

11.  Roll the quilt top up as I did the batting (rolling so the quilt top is facing upwards) and starting at the top of the batting, roll the quilt top towards the bottom as shown. Remember the basting spray is repositionable and it can be moved if necessary so the quilt top is smoothly rolled out.

12.  The basting process is complete. The quilt is now ready to be taken to a machine to quilt.  Remove the tape off the surface and the quilt backing and pick the quilt up.

Come back tomorrow when I discuss how to appliquilt this quilt and suggest some really neat quilting options to complete this quilt.  My favorite part&#;.. the creativity involved with quilting this Fireside Modern Drunkards Path quilt with Banyan Batiks Jungle Rose Cool fabric and some awesome quilting options. Can&#;t wait to show you.

I hope you are having a lovely Thursday!

This is part 4 of 5 in this series.
Go back to part 3:

In this fashion, piecing a drunkards path quilt is a breeze!

Go to part 5:

Creative quilting options for Fireside Modern Drunkards Path quilt

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