With the quilt top and back both done, I was ready to transform these pieces into an actual quilt. And that means making a quilt sandwich. That is layering the quilt back, then batting, then the quilt top.
This has to be my least favorite part of the process. I find it difficult to get everything as smooth and flat as I’d like it to be. Since I find it frustrating, I forgot to take photos of this step. Sorry.
Basically, you find a big flat space (i.e. the floor, if it’s too big to lay on a table) and layer everything and smooth it. Then you secure all the layers together with a bunch of curved safety pins. It took me between an hour and two hours to put together this large quilt sandwich.
With that step done, it was time to turn this blanket into a quilt.
Up until now, I’ve been using the normal foot on my sewing machine. But now I’m switching to the walking foot for the remainder of the project. The walking foot is just a special foot that helps feed thick or heavy things through the machine. My machine came with one, but they are only around $20 if you have to buy one separately.
My sewing space in our basement office was just too cramped for this project, so I brought my machine upstairs. I used the large flat surface of the dining room table to support the quilt and it made all the difference.
I kept the actual quilting very simple. One, because I’m still very much a beginner and two, it’s somewhat of a challege, wrangling, rearranging and wrestling something this size through the machine. Even if you’ve never quilted anything, just imagine having a twin size blanket bunched up in front of you, spilling onto your lap, while pushing it through the machine, trying to keep everything straight and smooth. Not easy.
I sewed long straight lines across the width of the quilt on either side of the seams. It took almost four hours to do all of the quilting, but I imagine a fair amount of that time was actually just re-positioning the quilt, smoothing and lining it up to go through the machine. This isn’t quick stitching.
I missed my arbitrary completion deadline of Elise’s birthday, but that’s OK. I’m in the home stretch!
Total time spent so far: About 18-19 hours.
Next step: Binding!
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Other posts in this series:
1. Planning and cutting
2. Assembling the quilt top
3. Assembling the quilt back
4. Quilting
5. Binding
6. Finished Quilt
