HOW I MAKE QUILTS

HOW I MAKE QUILTS - START TO FINISH

I am often asked "How do you make your Quilts, and How do you get that huge pile through that small gap on the machine?"

Here then is how I do it, I hope it is of interest and possibly, help, to you. There are other things of interest along the way, you may find useful too.

1. Smallest machine I could find!!!...
2. The design - Single Wedding Ring or Crown of Thorns, plus the squares cut ready to sew...
3. Making half square triangles...

4. My 'real' machine, this is the only one I have, this makes all my quilts whatever the size...
5. Making a half square triangle, using the 'thread savers'...
6. Stitching second seam of half square triangle...



7. Chain piecing the squares, they always fall into a neat pile behind the machine, how helpful...
8. Still chain piecing, but the second seam now...
9. Streamers are us, note they are all linked together, see the thread saver too?...



10. Now they have to be cut through the centre line to produce the two squares,
11. Chopping off their ears!! ouch!!!.....this is the way I do it, you don't have to...
12. What a waste of fabric!! Anyone want these triangles? JOKE!...



13. Pressing the finished squares and look the squares match...amazing!!!!...
14. My homemade mini pressing table;...
15. Its just one of those boards from a bolt of fabric, ask at your shop, they chuck them away...



16. Tada! Yep, looks like the picture, always best to lay it out...
17. Pick up the first two squares from top left hand side...
18. Flip over, take to your machine....



19. Stitch to end, do not remove from machine...
20. Pick up the next pair, flip over, take to machine...
21. Just continue stitching, this is called chain piecing...

22. Stitch to end...
23. Go back, pick up next pair, keep stitching like this, use thread saver when at end, then...
24. You should have this, two rows linked with a little thread, DO NOT CUT APART, can you see the little bit or orange fabric pinned to the top of the left hand square, that is to show you it always has to be in that position, that way you wont turn your quilt by accident, Handy Hint...

25. Do as before but now you are only picking up one square an attaching to previous row...
26. Four rows done...
27. All rows done...



28. Now pick whole thing up, and stitch rows together, across previous stitching..
29. Two done..
30. Three done..



31. All rows joined both ways and pressed..hm mm...
32. That's better give it some borders...
33. Sides stitched on...



34. Cornerstones stitched to the green bit, ready to attach to quilt...
35. Pressed ready to Quilt...hm mm...
36. How the heck is this big thing gonna fit in that little space?....aha...

37. Get your HUGE piece of wadding and mark it into thirds, see pencil placements...
38. Cut long gentle wavy lines one end to the other, DO NOT MOVE THESE...
39. Pin on some coloured markers to the tops of the edges of the wadding, different colours, so you will know what piece goes next to what later on, DO NOT FORGET THIS PART...

40. Lay the backing of quilt down and place centre portion of wadding on this...
41. Lay your Quilt on top again, see the wadding in the centre...
42. Pin or tack your quilt to within a couple of inches of your wadding, then roll the sides up, tightly, you can, no wadding there, no bulk...

43. Quilt as desired the centre portion, then take pins out, unroll the sides, flip quilt top back,
lay wadding on, put quilt top back, repin, then quilt away...

44. Unpin second side, flip quilt top over, put wadding down again, put quilt top back, back to
machine and quilt to hearts content...
45. Your Quilt is now quilted all over, you didn't have to struggle with it in the small gap, easy
peasy eh?....

46. Now you can easy Quilt your borders, if they are huge too, quilt them before you move the
sandwich about, I like to do my borders in a continuous line though...
47. Hubby took these piks as I was sewing, not bad are they...
48. Pattern out of my head, no measuring here, no plan, just go for it...

49. 50. 51. All as I was sewing... Yes the petals are all different, I don't mind, do you?...



52. All quilted...
53. I always do a narrowish zigzag around the edges so it stays put for the binding part...
54. Oops, not quilted these squares, don't forget them Janet...

55. That's better...
56. Quilted and trimmed ready for the binding, can you see I always cut it 1/4" away from the
edge of the quilt, leave a little of the wadding there, it helps to 'fill' the binding, nothing
worse than 'empty' saggy binding...
57. This is pointng out to you I joined the backing, I did it so I could show you, if you have to do
that, NEVER EVER have that join across the centre of your Quilt, too much strain for it,
always offset it a bit...

58. Yes, I cut the wadding with my rotary cutter, an old one, but look at the messy board...
59. Good old sellotape, press it on the wadding, rip it off, and...
60. Voila, nice and clean again...HANDY HINT...

61. Not sure if you can see the line of stitching, I am adding the binding now, putting it on the
back first, remember this is the way I do it, you don't have to; I am stitching about 1/4"
from the edge...

62. and 63. Here is the corner, stop 1/4" from it...



64. Hospital corners, girls, up, down, carry on sewing...

65. This is how I join the binding together, some people mitre it, sometimes I do, not very
often though, OH I also never use bias binding, I always cut on the straight of the grain,
saves a lot of hassle I find, and contains the edges, I never get wavy edges using it
straight, and I always cut it 2 1/4", then fold in half...

66. Binding joint ready to finish off...




67. More ears trimmed off...
68. Can you see my binding peaking over the wadding?...
69. Mitreing the corner...



70. Don't forget the label on the back...




71. One finished Quilt.

OK, so the quilt wasn't sewn with that little machine, I placed it here to show you the size ratio to the machine and the quilt, and no, it's not really a quilt either, it is just a block, but, up against that little machine, it looks like a quilt. Anyway, I didn't fancy getting a huge quilt done in a short space of time for this demo, so hope you will forgive me. This is done for you to see you CAN quilt a HUGE quilt on your domestic machine, just split the wadding, any Quilt, any size, process is the same.
Give it a go, let me know how you get on. Just Quilt it.
This has taken me three days to do, from cutting the fabric to getting it on the computer. WHEW!