Skip to main content

Quilting Prep Tricks

I know you all are probably sick of this quilt by now, but I wanted to share a couple more tricks I use to prepare a project for quilting. First I press everything with the steam iron on the highest setting, to get the top and backing as flat as I can before I sandwich it with the batting:

When I put the backing fabric down, either on my sewing room table (up to lap-size) or the tile floor (bigger than lap-size) I tape the corners and sides of the fabric to keep it from shifting while I'm pinning the layers together:

I start in the center of the quilt when I pin everything, and I use safety pins now because they don't stab me while I'm hand quilting. Every quilter has their own method of pinning or basting; I like to pin every six inches to prevent shifting and bunching.

Comments

nightsmusic said…
I'm not getting sick of seeing this! It's going to look wonderful.

Have you tried the pin covers? They're so much easier on my hands though your guy would probably have to put them on the pins to start, but their made for people with arthritic hands, long nails or people who's fingers just get tired when working with a lot of safety pins.

Popular posts from this blog

Holiday Prep

For Thanksgiving this year we've invited some guests from Oliver's mom's side of the family, so I have to start prepping now to get the house in shape for the big day. The first major thing is having the carpets cleaned, which we've scheduled for next week. This weekend I'll be cleaning out four rooms to get them ready for that. I started with my front dining room, which I use as my sewing room. It was kind of a mess already, so it felt good to get everything cleared out. We'll be having ten people at dinner plus two babies, so this will give me a chance to figure out how to arrange two tables in this space. I think this will be my last time hosting a big Thanksgiving gathering. Mike has started his family with a lovely girl who has a huge, close-knit family of her own, while Katherine will likely be off at grad school out of state for the next several years. I'm also not getting any younger. My guy and I will always celebrate Thanksgiving, but ...

T-minus Day

This was our little Thanksgiving dinner last year, when it was just the three of us. Time keeps whittling down my favorite holiday; this year it will be just me and my guy, and we likely won't even have a turkey.* That will be a first in 35 years. I feel about Thanksgiving the way other people do about Christmas, and while it's a lot of work it's my favorite holiday. Of all the Thanksgivings I've had in the past sixty years, only three were truly terrible: one when I was a kid that I don't talk about (#1 most miserable); the time I roasted two turkeys together and hosted fifteen people whom I cooked for and served with zero help (the largest and #2 most miserable); and the one I spent in basic training (the #3 most miserable.) I have no pictures of any of those, thank heavens. In addition to doing all the cooking I'm the one who takes all the pictures, washes all the dishes and puts away all the leftovers. I suppose no one else cares because to them it...

Fell Off the Wagon

I did cut up that plastic dollar tote to make into something stronger, but got caught up with work and set it aside. Then last night some hand-dyed silk and pretty threads called my name, and, well . . . Felt SO good to do some handwork, except my neck began hurting about an hour into it. I tried changing the way I sit and work, but it's pretty obvious that the doc is right.