Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Lucky Charms Quilting: part 1

Remember this quilt?:



This quilt lived on my design wall for many months last year, and I am so excited to finally quilt it! I thought I would film some of the steps of custom quilting to give you an idea of the process.

First, the details:

Pattern: Lucky Charms by Pat Sloan
Batting: Quilter's Dream cotton, select weight
Quilter's Dream wool


The quilting, part1:

The thread: InvisiFil, 100 weight polyester from WonderFil
The needle: Size 14, because the thread is really fine


After layering the backing, cotton batting, wool batting, and the top, I basted the edges of the quilt and began to stitch-in-the-ditch. On a longarm machine, this involves using a ruler and a ruler base. I chose to use the Handi Quilter Mini Scallop Ruler for the stitch-in-the-ditch because the ruler is a nice size (8x3 inches) and has little stoppers at each end. These stoppers help line the needle up with the ditch and also make sure that I won't quilt off the end of my ruler.




I stabilized the entire quilt by stitching-in-the-ditch around each border and around the edge of the center block.

Next week I can begin to add decorative quilting!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I just picked up one of these rulers - can't wait to use it for stitching in the ditch. Do you have any cool ideas for using the wavy side of the ruler?

Unknown said...

Hey Debbie. Great work on the videos. It seems like little visits with you. Have fun next week at Patchwork. Miss you. Dr. Jeanne

Angie in SoCal said...

Debbie, these are wonderful videos - just what I need to advance my quilting forward. They give me the speed of the machine, and the confidence to try it.

Thank you so much. I'm going to bookmark your blog and follow!