Preparing Your Quilt For Quilting

Preparing Your Patchwork top For Longarm Quilting, how well you prepare your quilt top for longarm quilting will determine how we quilt it and how the finished quilt looks and hangs.

Preparing your Backing and wadding

Your backing and wadding must be 8 inches larger than quilt top (4″ on each side) to allow me to set up on longarm machine. I can not quilt a top if the backing is too small.

Consider the colour of the backing when making your choice as the thread colour will be the same on the back and front of the quilt.

Always square your quilt top and your quilt backing material. I will be attaching the top and bottom of your quilt onto canvas leaders that are attached to rollers. If your quilt is not square, it will not mount straight and therefore you could end up with puckers or little tucks because of excess or uneven fabric. Puckers, tucks and wrinkles cannot be “quilted-out.” Pay special attentions to outside borders.

Backing Fabric: Also press the backing fabric . Press all your seams . You should make your seams larger than the normal 1/4″.

Remove selvage edges before you piece them together for a flatter seam.

Wide backings fabric (wideback) are great choices as they give you a wholecloth quilt look on the reverse. They are also very economical.

Preparing your quilt top

First examine your quilt top all over making sure all seams are joined together correctly and pressed.

Clip all loose threads that may interfere with the quilting process on the top of quilt.

Please do not add any embellishments example beads, button ribbons you can add after quilting as these may break a needle.

Then check back of the quilt for loose threads this is very important when quilting a light quilt, you do not want dark threads to show through on the front of quilt. Also check points if your quilt has them and cut to a quarter inch if needed.

Give your quilt a nice iron to ensure your seams are flat, it pays to iron each block when constructing your quilt then iron all over when quilt is completed.

Do not pin or baste your quilt together. I will make the “sandwich” when I mount your fabric to the rollers. If you are having me quilt more than one you may wish to just pin the top and appropriate back together so I can match them up when I quilt them

Mark or label the top of your Quilt Top and the Top of your backing . If your quilt needs to be oriented or centered in a particular way, please give me precise instructions.

A safety pin is an excellent way to mark the top. Do not use tape. You may wish to pin a note with instructions to your quilt.

When posting place wadding into a separate plastic bag before posting with your quilt top this prevents excessive lint getting onto your quilt top.

Useful Tips in Construction of quilt top

Taking that extra care and learning how to construct a quilt is important to have a beautiful finished quilt.

When piecing I like to use a 2 .0 mm stitch length this holds your quilt together and helps with holding the stitches together at the end of a row.

Lots of small piecing on the outside border of your quilt ? Then run a stay stitch around the out side of your quilt to prevent the stitches pulling apart when quilting.

Another tip when ironing, iron light seams towards the dark fabric where possible.

Enjoy the wonderful experience of finishing a quilt ………………..

If you have any questions on this please feel free to contact me. I will be happy to clarify for you, happy Quilting Sandra