Quilting

Step 10 Quilt stitching

Almost as important to the finished look as the fabric piecing is the decorative top stitching that holds the layers together. I am not great at precision stitching and also I don't have a longarm sewing machine, which is specialty sewing machine designed to give you space between the foot and the body so that you can rotate bulky layers, so I always think of the quilting step as an afterthought. However if you're good at it this step can be ever bit as artful as the piecing construction. The idea is to hold the layers of fabric together while also drawing decorative lines across the surface of the quilt.

Much like piecing, quilting is all about the design you've chosen. This is an opportunity to define color borders, jazz up open spaces with repeating patterns, or create line drawings on top of your quilt. Take a hard look at your design and decide where quilt stitching would enhance it, then use tracing paper to sketch the lines that you intend to draw. Attach the tracing paper to the quilt with basting stitches and sew right over it as a guide (once the quilting is done it will tear off with no ill effects to the final outcome).

Try to make your quilting stitches follow long continuous lines rather than starting and stopping a lot of stitches. Also, try to make the beginnings and endings of lines run off the circumference of the quilt so that the ends will be hidden under the binding. Depending on your concept choose threads that blend in or contrast, with the one word of caution being to test your thread colors and quilting technique on an unimportant scrap before you try to work on the project that you've already invested so much time into. If you make mistakes you can cut out stitches with no (or nearly no) harm, but it's frustrating and a real pain.