My First Quilt: Quilting
Leading up to the actual quilting, I watched dozens of videos on YouTube and read multiple blogs about how to a giant quilt on domestic machine. And then I did that again for how to quilt straight lines. And then I practiced on a very small quilt sandwich I made with leftover material I had from my queen size quilt sandwich. And then I quilted.
It took me about 6 hours over a weekend to quilt 44 lines, each 90″ long. I went through 6 bobbins, almost finished off my spool of thread, and added 3 drops of sewing machine oil to keep the hook happy. I quilted the lines 2″ apart and ended up with 4 vertical lines per block; at the advice of Grandma and everyone on the internet, I used a walking foot and an attached guide to sew my way to success.
And I did say success and not perfection. Some of my lines do have little waves in them from where the fabric was pulled by the weight of the quilt, but overall the lines are straight and they look geat!
I used a light neutral pink thread and a size 3 straight stitch. I love the way this looks! The thread blends in and becomes nearly invisible in the off-white and cream blocks, complements the pink, yellow and brown blocks, and adds a really nice contrast to the dark blocks. The back of the quilt looks so simple and modern with just vertical lines down a white whole cloth.
I didn’t rush and I didn’t feel upset or bored or angry. Well, except for the multiple times that I was stabbed by the straight pins. Yeah, my good idea to secure the quilt sandwich with straight pins after I ran out of safety pins was actually terrible and resulted in prick after prick. Nothing even remotely like Sleeping Beauty happened, either… after my finger pricks I got to enjoy rubbing alcohol stings and Neosporin. The bandaids made for great pseudo quilting gloves, though!
I cannot stop smiling at how great the quilting came out. I was really nervous about this, thinking it might be hard and difficult, but I was so happy to find that all it took was a little time, patience, and a walking foot (thanks Grandma).
All that’s left is binding. And don’t worry I’ve got a YouTube playlist for that, as well.
