How and Where to Begin Quilting
Heather ThomasDescription
When it comes to quilting, figuring out where to start can be both confusing and intimidating. See how to take the worry out of the quilting process with expert tips from Heather Thomas.
Plan Ahead
Whether you are making your first quilt or you’ve been piecing quilts for years, planning ahead can help eliminate a lot a quilting fears. When you first start a quilt, begin thinking about possible quilting designs or motifs you think would look good on your quilt top. Doing this from the very beginning can make it seem like less of a process when the final quilt top is pieced.
Begin Quilting
When you first learn how to start a quilt, there are generally instructions that tell you how to piece a certain block or part of the quilt. There aren’t, however, instructions that tell you where to begin quilting. Heather explains that she likes to start in the center most part of her quilt and then work outwards. For the example quilt she is showing, this means starting on a center most row made up of blocks and sashing strips. Heather then breaks it down further, explaining what areas of the blocks and sashing strips she starts quilting and why.
Heather explains that how you decide to quilt your quilt can depend on the quilt designs, but that once she has found the centermost part of her quilt she begins by quilting the smallest area. Quilting small areas first and then moving on to larger areas allows you to more easily deal with areas of fullness in the quilt. Once you have learned how to start a quilt in terms of quilting, Heather then explains how she decides what type of quilting to do in different areas of the quilt to enhance the overall quilt design.
It can be really hard sometimes to know where to start quilting your quilt top. And one of the best ways to go about doing that is to find a middlemost area and quilt that area first. What I mean by that is if we take a quilt like this, this quilt has a diagonal rows of stars, with sashing in between, and it's a relatively large throw quilt. And so what I did is I simply decided to quilt down the first or middlemost diagonal row, which was this row right here. And then I quilted the sashing and then this row, and then the sashing and this row, and then the sashing and the corner.
And when I go back to quilting it, I will quilt this row and continue quilting each row until I'm finished. That being said, what do I quilt first in that row, and where do I start in that row? That's where I then start at one edge and work my way down. And I always start at the same edge and work my way down. The main reason I don't start at one edge and work my way down and then start at this edge and work my way the opposite direction is that I'm going to pull things in opposite directions purposefully when I don't have to.
So I always start at one end, finish at the other, start at one end, finish at the other. Where do I start quilting? Because I'm quilting uniquely to the pattern. I'm quilting a very simple floral design here in the center, wavy lines here in the star tips, stipple in the background, a swirl here in the sashing, and a repeat of the flower from the center here in the cornerstones. So, what gets quilted first?
The smallest area gets quilted first. What's the smallest area on most of these? Well, it's pretty much the sashing areas and maybe the center or maybe the star tips, I'm not sure. But I know the biggest area is the background, so I'm going to leave that for last. I leave the biggest area for last, because every time I quilt in one area, it pulls that a little bit and makes it tighter and leaves the areas that are unquilted full.
If that area is really small, then it's hard to work out that fullness. If that area is big, that it's easy to work out that fullness. So when I quilted this first row, I came in and I quilted the centers of each of these first. Then I quilted the star tips and the sashing, the star tips and the sashing, star tip, sashing, and so on. And then I quilted the backgrounds.
That means I'm changing my quilt, or my thread color. I'm using black threads sometimes, red thread sometimes, and a tan thread sometimes. It's worth it to me to do that. I like the quilting to basically go away into the surface of the quilt. I want to have enough quilting to hold everything together really well, to possibly affect depth, push the background back, allow the star tips to come forward.
But I don't want the quilting to be the thing. I don't want them to go, "Oh, look at that quilting." What I want them to say is, "Oh, look at all those fabulous fabrics "and all those funky weird squares or stars "and that really cool sashing." I want them to see that. So that's why I quilted this particular quilt in this particular way. But I always start in a centermost row, and I always quilt the smallest areas of that row first, leaving the largest areas of that row to quilt last. So that's how you go about deciding, where do I start quilting this quilt?
I have watched many of Ms. Thomas' videos. And understand when she says that in this quilt she doesn't want to "showcase" the quilting. Do she use clear thread here so that the quilting doesn't stand out? She may have mentioned it and I missed it. Thank you1
Are you quilting by hand, or with machine? If by hand, do you not need a big "quilting frame"? (As you can tell I am a complete newbie. I have seen quilts being made, but it was more than 30 years ago. Trying to learn to see if I will be able to tackle one (a baby quilt) on my own. Thanks.
Thank You :)
Are you using a long arm or by hand
Your tutorials are so easy to understand and interesting. I love the sashing on this quilt and have been slowly going nuts trying to figure out how it is made!! Is there a tute on this?
I love your shows. I would like to know when you are talking about where to begin quilting, if you have already done the stitching in the ditch. Seems unlikely to me that you have done any at all with this quilt. Thank you for your help.
Thank you for your tips! Very helpful