Yesterday it was my turn to receive a treat in the mail. And a very yummy one! Check out this doll quilt. For my readers who are not quilters, ‘doll’ quilts are smallish sizes, say fit for a doll. Often they become decorative wall hangings.
[Disclaimer: Mommy makes all reasonable efforts to ensure that the models of this website are darling and chic, but can accept no responsibility for omissions, errors or subsequent wardrobe changes. In particular to this post, the hatwear.]
Yes! I am the lucky recipient of this quilt made by Zita of Hungary!! I love its delicious colors. The sewing is so perfectomundo!!! It is beautiful. I’ve already found its home on my hallway wall. This weekend I plan to hang it. Thank you Zita!
Timing is great, cause I am 98% finished with my doll quilt for the same swap. Just have to stitch the label on the backside and in the mail it goes on Saturday!
While I’ve got any quilters’ attention: I have a silly question to ask…
Sorry non-quilters, this is where I’m lost, so you will undoubtedly become lost too!
When I machine quilt free form—what do I do with the trailing thread at the end of a design? I find my top and bottom thread unravels and does not stay secure.
Example: my quilt below, I had a horrible time keeping the free floating leaf stitches in…ended up using my walking foot to backstitch…and this you can see in the stitching. It is not clean and mono stitch like I see in so many other quilts, and like Zita’s!
Should I have had a floating stem that allows me to free form stitch off the edge of the quilt, thereby securing with the binding stitching? What happens if you have an accidental ‘break’ in stitching, in the middle of design? Do you rip out and start over?
Or, is this where “burying threads” come in? I've heard this notion used with hand quilting. Though, once I tried to think it through with a machined piece, but I couldn’t get my head around it.
Help?
6 comments:
Oh, those beautiful outfits sooo, make me wish it got colder here in the winter! Simply adorable.
I am so glad that you like the quilt. It seems that it is in the best hands!
OK, here's what I do when longarm quilting, and the same process can be applied to regular machine quilting, I'd think. First of all, wherever possible, take your ends off the quilt edge. If that's not possible, you need to bring the bobbin thread up to the top of the quilt, and secure both thread ends temporarily (say wrapped around a straight pin) until you can bury the ends.
If you break a thread or the bobbin runs out, the best solution is to unpick back to a place where it won't show when you start the quilting again (and where you have a big enough tail to bury later) - corners, points, are good for that - the middle of a long curve is not. You CAN backstitch, but as you have discovered, it often shows.
The way I bury ends is to take both ends (by which I mean the top thread and corresponding bobbin - if you have broken a thread and started again, you will have two pairs of ends to bury) and tie a little knot in them, fairly close to the surface of the quilt. Then I thread them into a needle (I like a chenille needle for this, as it has a large eye but is still sharp) and take a stitch into the between layers of the quilt and back up again some distance away - you can then pull the threads until the knot pops into the centre and then cut the ends off (if you pull a little so the fabric bunches up, once you snip the thread it will go back inside, if you see what I mean).
One thing I try always to do when machine quilting is to bring the bobbin thread up to the top when I start, as this helps keep it from getting tangled or lost on the bottom of the quilt. Hope this makes sense!
It helps to bring your bottom thread to the top before you start and then take a few small stitches, quilt your design and finish up with 4-5 small stitches. I usually sew in the tails of these finishing threads. Hope this makes sense.
lovely hats
super quilt
love your quilt. I either go up and down on the spot then a couple of very tiny stitches, then cut the ends close (pull the bottom thread to the top as Sue suggests. Or if its special I leave long ends, then (by hand)when watching the TV I pull the threads through to the back do a knot and then push the needle in where the knot is or as close as, and then push the needle between the backing and pop it out as far away as possible, then pull and cut...thus the ends get buried inside the batting. Hope you understand and sorry its long.
The models are darlings and they seem as happy as you are to receive this quilt.
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