Goal Completed!
I have an immense feeling of accomplishment! I’ve finished the second of the two Whisle Stop quilts that I started in September!
I’m lucky to have a couple of options for quilting. I have a Phaff Grand Quilter on a 10-foot frame that gives me the option for free-motion quilting. Nice, but it’s not a longarm machine and the quilting space is limited. Lately, I have been using the walking foot and quilting with the Juki domestic machine. I’m really inspired by Jacquie Gering’s book, Walk: Master Machine Quilting with Your Walking Foot, and I quilted both of these quilts using the contour quilting method. I spent a lot of time with my walking foot stitching those lines spaced at 3/8″, and the results are worth it!
Careful Basting Makes a Big Difference
Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl recently published a blog post, Quilt Basting Tips, and Tricks, that I found really helpful. I followed her advice and taped the quilt back to the floor and pin-basted the layers together, placing the pins 3-4 inches apart. This method worked really well and I didn’t have any problem with the layers shifting, something I struggled with when I quilted this quilt. The difference is that this time I was careful to not pull the quilt back too tight. You want to make sure that the back is smoothed out and flat when you tape it down, but not pulled tightly enough that it will relax when you move to the machine.
It took me several days of quilting sessions to finish each quilt and I was super glad that I spent the extra time to baste carefully. The quilts take a lot of abuse as they are bundled under the harp time after time.
Next Up
Finish my crow! For now, here’s a photo of a happy crow. Thanks for reading!
