a question for the quilters

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

I know that this is still not knitting, the knitting is coming, eventually. In the mean time I have finished this months book-keeping, made good in-roads on the web development job and tonight I have spent an hour or so on my knees with 170 safety pins and am happy to say that I have basted the layers of Isabelle’s quilt together.

I tried doing some of the quilting and it didn’t go so well. The good news is that I am confident I will actually be able to sew straight lines. The bad news is that the 2″ by 2.5″ table I work on is woefully inadequate as a workspace and Jan was right, the top layers are bunching up, so tomorrow I will see if I can get a walking foot for my machine. I don’t know how I am going to fix the workspace problem though…

And now for the question. I am planning to stitch in the ditch around all the squares and the seems between the borders. I am then thinking I will go round the edges of the appliques and make similar shapes in the plain squares for decoration. The question is - can I put the binding on once I have done the stitch in the ditch along all the seams, but before outlining the appliques? I am worried about time you see. I have to have this done by Sunday week and I figure I can give it to Isabelle without the appliques outlined (and fix it later) but I can’t give it to her unbound…

If you have any other tips of the quilting and binding processes please feel free to share, I suspect I will need all the help I can get.

3 Comments

Comment by Angel on 24/2/2005 @ 12:35 am

The reason why you always want to do the binding last is that just in case the fabric is pushed outward a little from the quilting, you may stretch the borders a bit while binding and still have a relatively flat, no bundling quilt. Since you are going to stitch in the ditch the seams between the borders, you will not have the problem that I just described. Therefore, I think you will be fine to finish the binding now and stitch around the appliques later. Definitely get a walking foot, it helps a lot.

By the way, the quilt is lovely. I am sure Isabelle will love it. I made a lap quilt (not as pretty as yours) for my daughter when she was an infant, she is still using it for naps at preschool.

Comment by Belinda on 24/2/2005 @ 9:50 am

I agree - as long as the in the ditch quilting is done, bind away. Looks lovely!

Comment by Kate on 3/3/2005 @ 4:00 am

Hi… experienced quilter here! I would do the stitch in the ditch, do the applique and then bind… if you are worried about the “movement” of the quilt fabrics, use a little “3M spray adhesive” to hold the layers together… this actually works VERY well… there is a quilting version, available pretty much everywhere… good luck.

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