World Wide Quilting Page
Question of the Week
Question for the week of September 29, 1997:
Our question this week comes from Tina Allmark
I am interested in doing a "Quilt as you go" project. How do you put the quilt together once you have completed the blocks?
Ruth :
Take a look at Georgia Bonesteel's books on lap quilting. Her techniques for putting quilts together in sections work very well (they are well illustrated, too). The books are available in bookstores as well as public libraries. If you can't get the books, basically what I do is use batting which can be cut horizontally, then layered (overlapped with no extra bulk) with the batting of the connecting piece (which I trim to accomodate the batting from the adjoining piece). If done carefully, there is no way to tell that the batting isn't one continuous piece and the quilt travels well to ball practice, airports, etc! Be careful, however, not to quilt to close to the edges, or you won't have room to work when putting everything together. This doesn't work with really dense batting like warm and natural.
Teri Reymann :
I once made a quilt called Tunnels. It was a quilt-as-you-go. After the top is all finished and quilted, then add another thin batting and backing and either tie it or quilt it some more. Then go ahead and put your binding on. And whalla, there you have it. Of course the quilt I did had many blocks all quilted separately and then sewn together. This created a bulk at the seams, so I had to add another thin batting, but believe it or not, it did not become too bulky or heavy. Good luck!!
Anthony :
First, let me say that I am primarily a machine quilter, but I see no reason this technique won't be helpful to hand quilters as well. I do a lot of intricate free motion quilting that is cumbersome when manipulating a fulll size piece. I also appli-quilt many machine appliqued pieces to get trapunto and other heirloom effects. My method is a bit radical and not "by-the-book", but here goes. I partially assemble the quilt by adding top and left sashings onto each block. I also add the right sashing to the last block in each row and the bottom sashing to the last block in each column. These modules I now refer to as "blocks." Layer each "block" with just the top and batting, but NOT the backing. I then quilt the block as desired, except I do NOT quilt in-the-ditch along the sashing. Once all the blocks are quilted, I trim the batting to the exact size as the block. Then put them right sides together and assemble them into rows. After stitching, trim the excess batting close to the stitching and press the seams open. Assemble the rows into the completed top, trimming and pressing as before. If there are borders, treat them the same as blocks and add them to the assembled top, trimming and pressing in the same way. Now stretch your backing, layer the assembled top and pin or baste. Secure the top to the backing by quilting in the ditch along the sashing. Since the batting is already stitched to the top, it won't shift. You won't have many quilting stitches showing on the back, but you also won't have those tell-tale folds where the backing is stitched down in the traditional method. *HINT: when pressing, I use a warm iron (wool setting) and press over a curved pressing stick (actually an unfinished broom stick) to make sure I'm only pressing on the seam line and not overly flattening the batting.
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