WAY-OT! Quilting questions

#1

I got the quilt for our scout leader yesterday that needs to be quilted.

Normally I would hand quilt the whole thing…but, in the interest of time, was thinking more along these lines.

First a description of the quilt.

Each of the girls in the Brownie troop did a self portrait on a 12x12 piece of muslin. G’ma then sewed all together, using 2 inch squares as a border around each girl. at the intersection is the “brownie brown” square. I was thinking of tying the quilt, and then just embellishing, but then thought a button at each intersecion would give it more stablity rather than tying?? Thoughts? I still will hand embelish, but this will also be a patch quilt for her as well… Thinking too that the girls could learn to sew on a button, altho I don’t think that’s a brownie requirement, but sure is a life skill requirement!!!

Also figures, the brown I have is about 2 shades to dark for the quilting…ACK…

#2

I would tie it and not use the buttons. Sounds like the girls pictures are the focus and the buttons might be too busy.

#3

I agree, ditch the buttons. Just tie it. Although teaching someone how to sew on a button can save them from having spools of thread thrown at them when they are older. :slight_smile:

#4

Do you have a sewing machine that you can use to quilt it? If it’s a block quilt, you can quilt in the ditch and if it needs more stability, you can quilt some diagonals too. Shouldn’t take too long… How are you going to do the binding? (Can you tell my other hobby is quilting??)

#5

i agree with stephanie. or just do borders around each pic…and tie… but that make take to long.

#6

I would forget tying - and would probably either stitch in the ditch, or, my favorite machine quilting thing to do…is do you your quilting in an x…oh i am having a hard time describing this, so you non quilters, go ahead and tune this out.

Run a piece of masking tape from corner to opposite corner. Stitch along it. Then do it the other corner to opposite corner. You now have a stitched x…in each quadrant, you will mark, using your tape, inverted v-s on each quadrant, each the same inches apart down to the edge. Thus you will have a series of v’s getting smaller and smaller… This gives a nice design and works with any pattern - and is much easier than I am making it sound…

#7

Sounds like a great project :smiley: . My recent quilts were machine quilted using a walking foot and clear thread. From what you describe, stitching in the ditch would work well, and be fairly easy. I like the idea of stitching on the diagonal, but I haven’t tried it yet. I would worry about stitching through the girls squares, though. Have fun!