r/quilting

I’ve been wanting to learn to quilt for years and finally completed my first project as a gift for a friend who is expecting.

Patchwork:
I didn’t follow a pattern but used a reference photo for the design. In hindsight I wish I would have been more diligent about lining up the corners. Also wish I would have bought a square ruler with 45° lines for more precise trimming AND an ironing board. I was using a cardboard square and a towel lol.

Quilting:
This was my favorite part! I quilted on my domestic machine with a walking foot. It was my first time using the walking foot and it was great. The only thing that would have made this part go smoother is having more alignment on the patchwork.

Binding:
I was nervous for this part. Making my own binding was tedious but not bad. When I got to sewing it on, I panicked on the corners and kept going. I tried to machine sew both sides and it ended up looking super sloppy. I quit at 11pm and ripped it out the next day. I found a better tutorial for the corners and redid it! It looked so much better and I ended up hand stitching the other side.

All I all, I think my next one will go much better. I learned so much at each step, quilting is no easy feat!

Reading Nook came out shortly after I started quilting and I was dumb and thought it would eventually go on clearance but it sold out quickly and I was only able to snag three charm packs and a jelly roll.

I found a pattern for three charm packs in the Charm School book by Vanessa Goertzen that I thought did a good job of showcasing the larger prints and utilizing the smaller prints. I am not super happy with how the background fabric looks, but it was difficult finding something that had enough contrast with all the various fabrics.

I did have a charm that was too close to the background fabric so I bought a fat quarter from the Hello Alice line to substitute for that fabric.

Today I completed a quilt for our huge shelter fundraiser this Saturday. (Yes, I am a huge procrastinator!) I used the Dog table runner blocks and the Paws Edge-to-Edge Quilting designs from Sweet Pea Embroidery. Hoping to bring in some good donations for it!

This is my very first quilt. I just got the top done and want to add a (3”ish) border to increase the size a bit and finish it up. I’m having trouble choosing a fabric/color. I made a few mock-up images of fabrics used in the patchwork, which I’ll add in my post.

I also do not have fabrics picked out for my binding or backing yet, so any suggestions for those are welcome as well. Thanks so much for any opinions/advice!

So my aunt gifted me this quilt pattern (really it's all applique), and I've been busy picking fabrics for all the birds - lots of fun! I'm still in the stage of cutting, so nothing has been appliqued yet.

It just occurred to me that a WHITE quilt is not going to be practical for the person I want to give this to. I'm wondering what apps y'all use to tweak images to try out different colors?

We love batiks and bright colors, but I think we need something subtle in background (in place of white) to show off the quails and eggs (I want to keep the black/white egg theme).

Thanks - tillie

My partner lost her mother earlier this year and I made her a memory quilt from her mom’s “grandma sweaters” and lightweight jeans. The dark and light blue inner boarders and the squares are all her jeans and the bocks are her sweaters. It’s my first quilt and I’m so proud of how it came out!

My entry is due tomorrow for a quilt that won't be turned in until mid September. I'm vacillating between entering under small pieced (it's roughly 24" square) or entering under mixed technique for a juried show. I feel like mixed technique is the way to go, but I keep getting hung up on the definition of surface design. This is all dyed fabric I've made up using a few different tie dye techniques, and it was because of this one method I've used for the majority of the fabric that kind of has this landform flow look to it that I chose to make a mountains block and try to simulate an abstract mirrored mountains at sunset kind of look. So I feel very strongly that the dyework is a good 50% of my effect here with the piecing technique being obviously the other major component. But internet articles seem to not be consistent as to whether dyework really counts as surface design. They usually say painting counts, but not necessarily methods of dyeing. And I'm not confident about declaring that my piecing is so pristine that I should be in a category that is all about the piece work.

Also, I'm trying to decide on how I'm quilting this. I want the dyework and the piecing to be the star, but I'm also guessing that minimalist quilting is not going to be looked on favorably in the judging. This is only my 2nd juried show. All shows I've done in the past few years have been popular vote choice, so high technical skill isn't exactly what rocks the boat of your typical show attendee. Anyway, back to the quilting, I'm thinking I could just do gentle waves across the whole piece? Maybe that wouldn't mess up the overall effect (such as it is). But I'm happy to read suggestions. I think this is eye-catching, but it does kind of read off chaos vibes because of all these intense colors. So, I don't know, I'm proud of it tremendously but also feeling like it's not going to hit the marks I'm trying to hit (if that makes sense).

No, I’m not fixing it. I do need to iron it though.

How to quilt?? Newest project, Lakeshore by RasingReaQuilts! Finished top in a day, while having pneumonia 🙈😂 But as always stuck on how to quilt my projects🤔 It has just top+back (backing is merinowool) so i dont want a dens quilting pattern. Any ideas on quilting pattern? Have included sketch of what I'm considering, but i live alone so I need input 😅

Oh my goodness…so many imperfections. But it’s finished, so that makes it perfect, right? 😬 (I used the QAYG method.)

A huge THANK YOU hug to all of you who helped me through the endless snags since I started it June 1. 🫂 I couldn’t have persevered without you.

EDIT: Because of the angle of the photo, it looks much taller than it is wide; it's actually approximately 74" x 74".

I got a quilt kit from my Fat Quarter Shop Sew Sampler box about five years ago that I started but really didn’t like as I started assembling it. I put it aside and forgot about it for a few years.

A year or two ago my local quilt shop carried a bunch of Frank Lloyd Wright fabric. I realized my UFO complimented the fabric and I tried designing a quilt around the fabric.

The quilt wound up being way too large to add the borders I wanted to add. But I did get to use one of the fabrics in the center of the Irish Chain blocks.

I have a dozen fat quarters and some leftover scraps from this quilt that I can use to make another quilt with the fabric I didn’t get to use for this one.

only my second quilt (first was normal, this ones supposed to be a rag quilt)

just set out about half of my squares to start sewing some strips and i'm a little underwhelmed by how it looks together? I don't know if its just the way i've set them out (if theres a problem area thats just throwing it off) or if i should try and make more of a pattern rather than just the random squares, but i'm not sure if a pattern would match the vibe of a rag quilt?
Any advice please?

(Also, this was supposed to include some squares of sage green gingham, but i decided i had enough already so didnt cut it-- do you think that would help balance it out?)

I am on vacation with my sister and I showed her an image of some peacock fabric that I purchased on a whim and the various blenders that I also purchased at the same time, because well I could not leave the store with just that peacock fabric. It would have been lonely. Then of course I had to pull fabrics from my stash so that it had plenty of blenders to choose from once I had down time to look for a pattern. I always take a photo of the potential grouping to help me look for patterns. What I should have done was measure the size of those darn peacocks so I knew off the top of my head what size the fussy cut blocks had to be.

First step of the program is to admit that I have a fabric shopping addiction. No one said I had to take a second step and stop shopping and planning. Anyway in my downtime during this 2 week vacation with her, she said that when I have the time, she wants her king sized quilt to be made with this peacock fabric. This puts her in my family que for a quilt. She is currently now vying for the 5th quilt to be made since 3 other relatives have fabric selections but no pattern. I generally give them three patterns to choose from once the main showcase fabric is selected.

I had already committed to myself that I would make a quilt for each of my family members. I had to justify my longarm purchase that occurred last November. I did the great niece first. She received her colorful twin quilt in June. A niece who got married in February just received her piano lap quilt in August. Quilt 3 will be my daughter’s quilt that I will start enlarging to a queen size once I get home from vacation. It was a double just waiting for borders when I stopped working on it years ago. She wants it to be at least 86x86 if possible. The cuddle that I consulted Reddit about is sitting at her home to use as the backing so I am hoping to get her quilt done by the end of September. Helpful reddit friends explained that 86x86 may not be possible so I may limit it to 84 inches wide because of her choice of cuddle backing.

My 34 old nephew is quilt 4 which I hope to have his queen done by the end of October. He chose a queen sized version of a boho blanket pattern called “Zip it”. I bought their pattern , but I will have to expand it since it did not have a queen sized version to purchase. It will be done in green batiks that he has finally finished selecting. So as I said before, my sister would like to be quilt number 5, but she needs patterns to choose from. There are 3 other family members with fabric selected, but no quilt pattern selected.

So my reddit question is if anyone has a pattern to suggest for a fabric that needs to be 12” or 14” inch solid square to showcase the peacocks?

This is my baby blanket and I still have sleep with it every single night. I take way too long to wash it solely because it sheds SO much every time I do.
I mostly hand wash it but have to clean out the tub, dryer, & shake it out.

I’ve looked up “no fray” but I do NOT want it to feel different. I would be okay if it looked a bit different (like if I had to reinforce it with something), but I’d desperately want the feeling of the blanket to stay the same.

My baby blanket is slowly disappearing and I don’t know what to do. Please any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

(Not so much a question, as it is more of an answer, and I’m making this post for the newbies out there to learn from my error)

So I have a cat, and he is a curious guy in a way that’s super frustrating, and at some point I decided “spool nets 24/7!”

And it never occurred to me that this coincided with finding that I had to turn my tension down to 1, or even close to zero (I was worried my knob was going to come off)

Anyways, the piece I’m on, has some variance in block size plan vs execution, and I’ve been maybe stretching it during piecing groups of blocks together (I know, shame) (it’s THOUSANDS of half inch squares so I’m not in a position to take a half hours getting each piece perfect. Anyway, I wanted to get red thread to match so the seams wouldn’t be as obvious when I had to… force it.)(because there were some that maybe were pulled to fit…)

WHICH BRINGS ME TO TODAY.

New cone of thread, new spool net, rethread, and man… there’s just some more resistance…

And I’m dialing down upper tension, and tightening my bobbin tension and it isn’t enough…

And then I think “I’m going to take the spool net off.”

The first pass through is a salad of thread on the bottom side because that spool net was creating so much tension on the top.

And now I feel a tad silly, but Smort for finally figuring it out.

Anyway, I have loads of prep tonight for delivering to the state fair tomorrow (Nebraska) so naturally I am posting to reddit instead of doing that…

/but I really am going to go do that now…

My mother REALLY liked my last quilt and requested one from me. Of anyone, she is nearly the only one I accept requests from, as she understands the work that goes into them. I told her I would make it but she would have to come get it, lol. Shipping a package like that would be … prohibitive. She was fine with it, an excuse for her to come for a visit . Anyway… another scrappy Irish chain quilt will be in the works soon. Happy quilting!

Given today.