KH
How to Fold a Quilt to Prevent Damage
Kelly HansonDescription
If you’ve been quilting for a while you have probably started to get a large enough collection that all of your quilts can not be displayed at the same time. If some of your quilts are being folded and stored, watch this quilting tip to learn how to fold a quilt in a way that prevents damage- Kelly Hanson shows you how.
Bias
The first step in learning how to fold a quilt is knowing what the bias of fabric is. The bias is the cross grain of fabric and is where it has the most stretch. Typically quilt blocks are not cut or constructed on the bias, depending on the design, as doing so can cause blocks to distort when they are being stitched together. Because of this, when looking at a completed quilt the cross grain of the majority of the fabrics used to make it should run from corner to corner across the quilt.
Folding
Once you know what the bias of fabric is, Kelly shows you how to fold a quilt. She makes all of her folds along the bias of the quilt, bringing in each corner to the center. It doesn’t matter if your quilt is a perfect square or not, the same technique can still be used. From there she can fold the quilt in half again to make it a little smaller and easier to store. Do not try to fold the quilt too many times, as the more folds you add the more chance there is for damage or creasing. Another great quilting tip Kelly shares is how to store the quilt once it is folded. She recommends either making a pillowcase or using an old spare one to store the quilt. This will help protect it from exposure to dust, light and anything else that could harm it.
If you're like me, you have many quilts. And so you're always taking them out and putting them away, putting some out on display, then putting others away. There's a really great technique that we use to fold them that tends to not have them crease as readily. And what we like to do is we like to fold them on the bias. Now, if you know what the bias is, it's the part of the fabric that's got the stretch. It's the cross weave is where each of the threads intersect. So what we're not doing is we're not folding it upon itself, where we are bending and we're breaking fibers. We're actually working with the fabric. So the best way to do that is corner in. So we're gonna bring this corner in to the center and then we're gonna bring the opposite corner in to the center. Now I'm gonna take this corner, and I'm just gonna bring it up this way. And I'll bring this corner back towards me. And now I can actually fold it, like this because it's already on the bias, so I know that this is also the bias. The best thing to do with it when I get to this point is I can either make a pillowcase for it, or I can just have an old pillowcase that I have, especially for this, stick it in a pillowcase, stick it in my closet, and it's ready for the next time I wanna bring it out and show it.
This is brilliant! I will definitely be using this method for my quilts, and for my customer quilts in the future! In fact, I'm going to go refold a customer quilt right now, as she will be here to pick it up any minute! :D Thank you so much!