Prequilted Fabric Session 2: What Can I Do with Prequilted Fabric

So we know that pre-quilted fabric is a new fabric trend. That's coming on the market. And it's a revival of something that we saw back in the early Oh fifties and sixties. The fabric used to look kind of like this. It was the same color on both sides. It was usually a chintz or abroad cloth fabric that was machine quilted. And usually it has a polyester bat in it and believe it or not, it's starting to make a resurgence in the market. Except instead of just seeing it in the traditional plain colors. We're starting to see it in some interesting new colors and trends. This was a piece that I picked up. I found it on the internet. And when I talked to the shop owner. She's a quilt shop owner. She said that they actually have a group of ladies who go in the store pick out the different fabrics that they wanna combine and they actually quilted up themselves and then they sell it as pre-quilted quilt fabric. Interestingly enough, this is done with a stipple stitch for the pattern for the motif. I was in Joann Fabrics the other day picking up some notions. And I happened to notice that they are also carrying some of the newer pre-quilted fabrics. They were all done with a larger diamond pattern probably about an inch and a half wide diamonds but they were using prints for front and back. So we're seeing more and more of it and people are saying, okay, it's out there, but you know what do I do with it? Because we're so obsessed right now. If you will or focused might be the better word on patchwork quilting, on art quilts, even on whole cloth quilts. So I thought it would be fun to kind of explore this new phenomena and see what we can do with it. A couple of years ago, I made this it's a Christmas tree skirt for my kids. My daughter-in-law has a very nice modernistic style and she was going for kind of the white look with her Christmas tree, very elegant, very regal. And so I thought it would be fun to do a whole cloth designed a Christmas tree skirt for the kids cause they didn't have one. So this is a white bridal satin. To be honest I just used some fabric that I had in my stash ended up. She loved it and thought the reverse was kind of fun. I put it on my longarm as probably a 54 by 54 piece of fabric with the batting in there. And I used a metallic thread and one of my pantograph patterns that I really liked and away I went. In fact, this pattern is by a girl named Kim Diamond of Sweet Dreams Quilt Studio. So any of you longarm quilters out there that's who did it. And what I recommend to people is if you don't want to quilt your own which I'm gonna show you in a minute how to do that. Hire a longarm quilter. It doesn't cost that much to have a smaller amount of fabric done. And there's so much you can do with it. And with the thousands of patterns that we as longarmers have access to. You'll be amazed at the beautiful designs and possibilities that will open up to you with those types of motifs. We will be discussing how to make this tree skirt in a couple more segments. So hold on to this thought. And in the meantime I want to show you some other uses for pre-quilted fabric. My dogs, we live in Colorado. It gets a little cold here and they love dog jackets. So the pre-quilted fabric is wonderful because all I have to do is cut out my pattern, bind it and we're ready to go. I used to use Velcro on the jackets to hold them on but my dogs move around an awful lot. There are a couple of little squirmy Cocker Spaniels that are always moving and wiggling and waggling. And the belly straps and the neck straps were constantly coming undone with Velcro. So I have now switched to elastic and button configuration and it seems to work out much better. And I'll just talk to you about that in an upcoming segment when I show you how to draft the pattern for the dog jacket. Pre-quilted fabric can also be used for glass cases. It can be used for appliance covers. It can be used for potholders, baby bags, you name it. You can do an awful lot with pre-quilted fabric. You just have to use your imagination. The nice thing is it saves you a lot of time when you're in a bind. Especially if you're trying to make a gift for somebody it's quick and easy rather than having to piece something and then quilt it and then bind it and all those wonderful things we do. So if you're to pinch, give this a consideration. Probably the most popular thing that I'm seeing now with the pre-quilted fabric are the reversible bags. Maybe not reversible where you turn it inside out and use the other side. Although if you are very careful with your seams you can probably do that. But rather with coordinating contrasting prints. I like to use it especially for grocery bags. So that's why this one is large because I can get a lot in there, you know picture the cereal boxes in here or even heavier items. And that's why I've used the webbing. And we're gonna show you how to make this bag in the bonus project. But for right now I just wanna get you thinking. I wanna get those creative juices going. And the way is to make the fabric your own is what you do after you have it. If you have a plain piece of fabric are you gonna applicate? Are you going to embroider it? What color binding will you use? There's lots of different ways to really jazz it up and have something that's uniquely you. One bag I made not too long ago instead of just a plain pocket. I did a photo transfer of my daughter-in-law's beloved little Boston Terrier. And did the bag in a Boston Terrier print. And that was a Christmas gift for her that she just really enjoyed because she just loves and those so much. So consider photo transfer as a way to personalize it. But perhaps the best way to personalize it is to make your own. You can save some money by doing it yourself. Although will take a little bit of time and it's a good way to use up your scraps. So I just wanna show you the basics. You're going to need obviously a piece of backing. You'll need your batting and that can be whatever your favorite batting is. Whether it's wool, whether it's cotton whether it's polyester. It's your fabric make it the way you want. And then your top piece. The traditional way is the grid. And I've marked it out here as a two-inch grid. All you have to do is take your ruler and your chalk marker. It'd go across and draw your grid. Probably the biggest concern as you put your square together is making sure that you have sufficient pins. When we do quilting on a domestic machine, we typically say we want to make sure the spacing between pins is no more than a fist. And that's true on a fabric that you're going to do yourself. Over here, that spacing is just too far. You're probably okay edge to edge, but right in her, it's too far. You don't have to go crazy pinning it. If it's a smaller piece, like for a bag or for a dog jacket something that's small and you're not doing yards and yards. You don't even have to get the fancy quilters safety pins. Straight pins are fine. I like the clover head pins just because they're easy to pull out. But here's what I want to warn you of. If you don't have enough pins do you see how we're getting these ripples on the back? And if you haven't pinned it enough and you have those ripples when you're sewing from the top all of a sudden you're gonna have puckers and pleats and your back will look horrible. You need to make sure after you pin it that you'd go over the back again one more time. And then make sure if you're still seeing those ripples. Either give it a quick steam with the iron. And or see how you turned it over. There's the ripple factor again. Make sure you're giving it some more pins. While this method does work. When you put it on a longer machine the advantage to the longarm quilting machine is that it is stretching the fabric and putting tension on it along with the batting. So you don't have this puckering. That's one reason I kind of recommend going to the longarm quilter or if you're a longarm quilter. Certainly put it on your machine and have fun. But for a small project if you take your time, you prepare it correctly. You'll have no problem. What can you quilt? You can quilt the grids. You can quilt it on the diagonal. You can quilt it straight. You can quilt it as an off asymmetrical offset type of design. It doesn't have to be a perfect square that repeats symmetrically. You can certainly do a stipple on it. You can do any kind of quilting that you're comfortable doing. It's your fabric, make it the way you want. And that's what you can do with pre-quilted fabric.