How do I do machine quilting?
I just made a snowball block quilt top. I see quilts on fickr with all the pretty wiggley doodles of quilting. I’ve never done that before. Do I have to buy a special presserfoot for my brother sewing machine? Do you think I should just quilt in straight lines with a walking foot? It looks kind of hard, and I’ve never seen it done.
“Machine quilting” can be tricky, but those pretty wiggley doodles of it probably have these things in common:
…they were made with a “long arm” quilting machine (which I’m sure you don’t have) …or
…they were made with a *thin* batting in a regular sewing machine using an “embroidery foot” (or a similar foot… most machines have them) plus a reasonably slick surface on the bed of the machine or adjoining table… probably by someone who has practiced this technique before, etc.
If you see straight lines of machine quilting, they’re *usually* done with a “walking foot” on a regular machine (but could be done on a long arm quilting machine too, or possibly even without the walking foot), and again not with a really thick batting.
It’s kind of tricky to make sure the whole quilt top ends up even though when doing that because the inevitable pulling in one direction or another will often cause problems or creases underneath the quilt will get caught in the stitching (there are tricks to learn to at least help with those things though, etc.) .
When doing this kind of straight machine quilting with a regular machine, manipulating the bulk of the quilt itself will be a real hassle however because there is only a small amount of space to the right side of the needle and just because the quilt is usually pretty big and the quilt needs to be turned around frequently.
(The technique called “lap quilting” or “quilt as you go” can avoid some of those problems since you’d be machine quilting only part of the quilt at one time, but then those parts have to be put together partly by hand stitching:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=lap+quilting+instructions )
videos and info on machine quilting:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+to+machine+quilt
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=how+to+machine+quilt
(Of course quilting can also be done by hand rather than machine, and that will eliminate some of the problems but will take longer.–many people enjoy the process though.)
If you’re interested in “tying” this quilt rather than hand-quilting or machine-quilting it (and especially if you aren’t using a thin batting in your quilt), check out *my* answer in this previous question for more info on doing that (and also the “easy” quick-turn method for stitching the 3 layers together):
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aj..zgsZAT_xERX8lb1pXNjty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20070531101935AAemBUZ
And this one for much more info for beginning quilters too:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ap4kilrCC4Io22pof7I4psUW53NG;_ylv=3?qid=20100103101721AAazSue
HTH, and good luck!
Diane B.
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