A lot of my quilts are long arm machine quilted by Kim Bradley. It started out when I was making the kids double sized quilts and my machine of the time couldn't handle quilting them. I had previously made a few larger quilts on my Nana's sewing machine (going back 12-15 years ago)but they didn't handle my vigorous washing and drying regime.
This time around (3 years ago)I had spent a lot of money on fabric and time on making quilts for the kids beds, I wanted these to last & be easily washable. I also didn't have the time I would have liked to quilt them nicely.
With that I looked into long arm machine quilting and decided to give it ago. They wash perfectly and I haven't had any issue with them.
I have a formula I go by now
Who is the quilt for ?
Where will the Quilt be?
What material is it made out of?
depending on the answer depends on how I finish the quilt off
Home machine top quilting
Hand quilted
Long arm machine quilted
it also has an impact on what fabric I use as well. Picnic or outside use I'd go for a linen/ canvas or even denim. Kids beds I stick to natural fibres and adults can have a huge mix.
I also have my "go to" patterns that I choose for long arm quilting, but more on that in the next post
When I'm teaching I spend a lot of my time teaching students how to cut fabric, bast quilts, trimming & binding
sewing the top seems to be the easy bit for most once they have chosen a pattern!
I thought today I would show you how to trim a large quilt square ready for binding
This is the scrappy quilt I did back here
I like to find a large clear flat space - I usually use my dinning table.
Start by having one of the edges on the cutting matt.
I use my longest ruler, to start my first cut I like to get a nice right angle.
I line up one of the lines on the ruler on the bottom edge and then cut straight up with the rotary cutter.
I then use this first cut as my guide and continue up the side of the quilt as you can see above & below
from time to time I may use a seam & my ruler to check that I am still cutting straight - see the line on the ruler matches the line of the seam above
keep going around the quilt the next edge should be easy because the bottom will already be straight and squared
all the excess! which I go through and salvage, material goes into my scrap basket and the wadding gets folded and goes into a box for other small projects I may do
one trimmed quilt ready for binding
& another quilt trimmed & I'm starting to bind Lone Star Quilt
Every one does things differently, If you have a tutorial or info you would like to share - leave a link in the comments.
or if you have a question I'll see if I can answer it for you :)
Xx Siobhan
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