Quilting

Nairn - it's a lovely site, Ill investigate properly later.

My husband has put up 2 shelves over my sewing machine, and so this week Ive been sorting out, throwing out and re arranging the room - haven't finished. One job leads to another, and so on and so on.

Sherish - I have a Quiltmaster too but I had to buy a walking foot for it. Now my son has it - LOL. He has a degree in costume design and tailors lovely clothes, but he wanted to make a couple of quilts. A very good job he's made of it too - nothing too difficult, just squares to start with.
When it comes back I'm going to experiment.

Patchwork and Quilting is my main hobby and I love it. I am the Secretary of our local patchwork guild and last weekend my husband, (a wizard with all things computer based), helped me to build a website for our guild - Lagan Valley Patchwork Guild. Do please visit this site and say hello.
www.omni.org.uk/patchnotes

you're welcome squaredog - she's very good. I have lots of her videos in my 'saved' file.

I've just finished 'tying' my king sized quilt. If any of you have read the Jelly Roll books, it's the one on the cover of the 2nd book, but with sashing in between the chevrons. I'm sooooo pleased with it - and the cats have approved it too!
I do however have split fingers from the needle - small projects for a while I think.

Does anybody else manage to get to The Bramble Patch exhibitions in Weedon Northants? We, as a group, go twice a year and have a lovely afternoon. A lot is learnt from the exhibits, and in the workroom, and of course we never get out without a good spend-up!!

Quiltingnana, thank you SO much for Rose Smith recommendation.

It's now on my 'favourites'.

I bought a Toyota Quiltmaster machine a couple of years ago and it includes a walking foot. I also have a good amount of cotton squares I have bought over the time from Ebay. Have I quilted any? No! I really wish I could get around to it, even cushions for the garden furniture. i have always loved the look of quilted items and would feel it quite an achievement to create soemthing. Maybe a New Year's resolution then.

Since starting this thread I have finished my first quilt and started on my second. First one was single quilt for my latest DGD. I did not make it childish, but something she could go on using until she finds someone to share a double bed with!

I am now making one for my other DGD. It is very restful I find - and very satisfying.

Hello ladies
I'm new to this site, but not to quilting or patchwork. I've always done sewing of some sort or another, but I love quilting. I prefer to hand quilt, although my aim this year is to learn how to machine quilt.

At the moment I am 'tying' my king size quilt instead of sewing it - rather a nice change I think. My daughter's was tied, and was a great success.

I started by joining a group in our local Arts Centre, and then moving onto an evening group in a local village. I learn a lot from You Tube, and have started following a lady called Rose Smith, who will send you tutorial videos at no cost.

As was mentioned earlier, exhibitions local and especially the N.E.C. are a great way to see techniques and learn from others. My friend and I take ourselves off to Birmingham every summer for a complete 'get away 'day and come back much lighter in the purse. We take a packed lunch and this year sat with 2 fabulous ladies on a tour from America. We actually learnt quite a lot about their techniques, different to ours entirely.

Shop sites, like the Cotton Patch (mentioned) and our favourite shop - The Bramble Patch have many ideas and materials as well. But the best thing I think is to get into an existing local group. We are all great friends and help each other too.

Thanks for the tips MamaCaz - I had never thought of hairclips ( or Stansgran's giant duvet pegs) or the gloves idea. I shall give them a try !

Agree with you about the copious quantities of tacking. It always seems to take ages but is well worth the effort and saves time and temper in the long run!

I use giant duvet pegs from Lakeland . Worth their weight in gold.

Perhaps an obvious, but useful (I hope) piece of advice: use a lot of tacking to hold your layers together for quilting, in order to prevent the top layer from "walking".
Alternatively, use 505 glue to hold them together. I started using it after I saw it being used on an American quilter on her excellent blog, and it saves so much time!

Another thing that I do is use hair clips to hold the fabric together at the edges instead of pins. Firstly, they save you from pricking yourself, and secondly, they remove the danger of a sharp pin accidentally ending up inside a finished quilt!

Oh, and when I'm free-motion quilting (which I am still not very good at!), I wear gloves to give grip between my hands and the fabric as I move it around under the needle. Mine were actually intended as gardening gloves, but the sort that have the rubbery palms for grip, and they do the job perfectly.

Put a safety pin where you finish - easier to see than a needle. Tie a ribbon onto it to make it even easier !

Thanks lots for the advice - gratefully received! I have just had a go with a friend's hoop and found it a total pain, so I don't think I will use that and I too am concerned about distorting the fabric and the wadding.

The main difficulty I have is finding where I left off when I have to visit the loo/make tea or whatever. There are lots of fabrics in the design and it is very hard to find your way back.

It is indeed keeping me arm as I sew - a definite bonus!

I agree ith everything you say Tiggy except I use betweens and thread all of them at the start so as not to interrupt the flow. I've bought and given away a hoop.

I am quite an experienced quilter but NOT a purist so some quilters may disagree with me !. As I have said before - if it works it is right !

I don't use a hoop as I find they get in the way and as they need to be attached firmly and can distort the fabrics. I like to quilt in the winter as I can then almost wrap myself in the quilt and keep warm as I sew it on my lap.

I do use special quilting thread as it does not shed fibres quickly and so therefore does not break as easily.

You can get special markers for drawing the design on the quilt but I tend to use a Lakeland crayon which seems to disappear easily. The special ones sold are either removed by a splash of water which work quite well unless your hands get a bit sweaty,and the ones which disappear eventually on contact with air - these sometimes disappear too fast !
Pencil marks are difficult to remove except by washing and sometimes not even then!

Purists will always use a short 'betweens' needle but I find them too short to hold easily. I usually use a small 'sharps'.as the eye is easier to thread ( ! ) and do a running stitch rather than a stabbing quilting stitch. I find I get a much neater straighter line that way. I do try to get my stitches the same on the back and front of the fabric but if it doesn't then I am not too bothered. I am not entering competitions as I make quilts for friends and family and every stitch is done with love so who cares if they are not quite perfect.

Like any hobby / skill it really depends what you are doing it for but ENJOYMENT should be top of the list and however bad you may think your work is (because you are very critical) others will think it is wonderful !

Have a lovely time and don't forget to put a photo up !

Hello there - I have got to the stage where I have made the top section and pinned all the layers together and stitched by machine in the ditch along the central sashing to secure the middle.

I am now ready to start the hand quilting bit! So...do you always use a hoop? Do I need special quilting thread? Do I need a special quilting needle?

And any other advice that you think I might need to hear would be gratefully received!

Stansgran It was a weekend course and I just see myself as unlucky as I have done other craft courses at this college without trouble. I think the problem was an arrogant tutor who saw no need to speak the language of ordinary people.

Two other people on my course, were nowhere near as out of their depth as I was, but were not purist quilters, got more attention than me but not much. Most of the quilters were known to the tutor. The course participants were all of them lovely, it was the tutor.

I complained about the course to the college and they were very good and I am getting a discount on my next course and a room upgrade and this year the course descriptions in the brochure are much more explicit. It is good to know they respond when a course member is dissatisfied.

FlickB phone the tutor and tell her what you expect from the course. There must be nothing more demoralising for a tutor to see numbers fall away because needs are not being met. Also see if you can find a self help sewing group where you live because then you may be able t make progress between classes. Quilters are usually lovely calm people .

One thing I did learn on this course is the need for a walking foot when quilting.

Sandy217 That is the problem. There is a very serious quilting world out there and innocents step in to it at their peril.

I am working on the basis that I learn from my mistakes and I am just to sign up for a course at the same centre which mentions quilting, but makes it clear that it is also about patchwork and applique.

However I have noticed that their quilting/patchwork classes have much more explicit descriptions this year and the tutor who was so offhand with me is not running any courses there this year.

Sandy217 ................ Have you got a 'walking foot' for your machine ? These do avoid the puckering somewhat but also try increasing the stitch length and decreasing the top tension. I have also found that tacking the layers together very well in rows 3-4" apart is necessary and always start any tacking or machining in the centre of the quilt and work your way to the edges. Hope that helps and apologies if I am teaching you to suck eggs !

Seems to me a fine line between quilting and patchwork. Patchwork is heaps of fun (as is quilting) but I had to buy a new machine to quilt and even now I struggle with it puckering. Hand quilting is fun, if you have all the time (and patience) in the world. There is a weekly group meeting in a village near me and I intend to go one of these days to get some practical advice. It's certainly a lovely hobby and I've made two cot quilts and a kingsize quilt for my daughter so far. Definitely addictive . Enjoy

A warning on buying a sewing machine. Taken with the patchwork/ quilting idea, I decided to buy a new machine, that was portable. My old machine was 30 + years old and heavy.
I went down the small light machine route and found them not very reliable. They worked, but frequent thread breaks, miss sewing. Mostly due to inaccurate, cheap manufacture. I got what I paid for! Took 2 back and decided to pay a bit more and bought a more expensive JLs own brand. It is great, but not as good as the old one. This motivated me to get the old one serviced. It now stays in situ and the new one goes to the classes.x

Well, after the course I complained to the college organising the course pointing out that the language used to describe the course may have been instantly understandable to the cognoscenti but to those who were not familiar with the craft it was grossly misleading. I am getting money off my next course and a room upgrade.

To be fair my course colleagues were very pleasant and companionable, it was just the tutor.

That is so sad and says an awful lot about the tutor . It's worth remembering FB that some fantastic things were made on very basic machines. I used my mothers for years and John Lewis has a nifty little machine for under £50.

Do not confuse patchwork and quilting.

I did a very pleasant day course making a patchwork cushion cover which we then used quilting techniques on to make a quilted cushion cover.

I then decided to turn a long piece of vintage quilted fabric into a bedspread and as I wanted to applique a central motif on it and wasn't sure how to do it. I signed up for a weekend course on 'whole cloth' quilting, thinking this would show me how to make large quilts using different techniques.

I couldn't have been more wrong. As soon as I walked into the workroom and saw the top of the range sewing machines and attachments all the others on the course had, my heart sank. It sank even further when I realised that 'whole cloth' quilting had nothing to do with making large quilts but was all about making artistic quilting patterns on large pieces of fabric. There was me with my ready quilted fabric, run of the mill sewing machine and very mediocre sewing skills - plus a tutor who soon realised my error so ignored me for the whole weekend.

So if you sign up for a quilting course make very sure what is involved before you pay your money over.