EPISODE 86 ~ Preparing to Quilt a Large Quilt on My home sewing machine

hi everybody good morning this is Jean here from true love quotes for you I'm not necessarily a tutorial this morning it's a it's a cold and snowy day out everybody has off from work and off from school I think we're gonna get like seven to ten inches or something like that nice um I've been working on my quilt um that that you've seen me from sort of start to now I'm quilting it um this is hard that to be a really large group as you know I just started making blocks let me just start sewing together this is a fairly large but it's about 95 inches by 90 inches um decent sized quilt as you can see alright it just keeps going um pretty but I just wanted to show you a lot of people who are beginners say say yeah oh I've made my quilt top I've pieced my top together and I'm so thrilled but now what no how in the world do i quilt it um I only have a small home domestic sign machine and how do I get my large quilt into this this small machine well first of all as I was saying if you're a beginner beginner beginner don't make a large quilt you'll be discouraged you'll get fed up and you'll probably stop quilting um I always say start small make make a placemat and then you can quilt it with straight stitches and then make a table runner you start out with a coaster what do I always say just start small but then if you do have the confidence in your you're a confident beginner you're working your way up to a nice sized quilt perhaps not this size um but a decent sized quilt and you've you're wanting to do it yourself and the reason I say you're wanting to do it yourself there are alternatives when you um want to get your quilt quilted you can do it yourself on your home selling machine or you can send it out and what I mean by that is probably the most of you know so excuse me but if those who don't there's there are people that are called long-arm quilt and what a long-arm quilter is is an individual who has invested a lot of money like between 15 and 50 thousand dollars for a massive usually 12 foot long table roller configuration machine large machine set up in a workshop just to quilt large quilts or has the capacity to quote a huge king-size quilt they wrote they loaded onto the rollers with the backing and the batting and they they turn it and the machine is this way in front of you and either a computer-guided or manual guided the individual then runs the threaded machine over your quilt top creating a very pleasing design or a computerized to design that thread is put on buttons or push design is chosen that's unbelievable and boom you walk away your your cross going down and being quilted um awesome expensive it's inexpensive it's an expensive investment so it's an expense to have it done and a lot of people I mean this quotes cost me I don't know $150 for the fabric already and I I can't afford to send my quilts out now most of most of you people have a small selling machine what I what I do is after I do the basting I pin-based there's method methods a basting you can spray based or you can actually thread based I pin based it's my mission my quilt sandwich together my backing my batting and it's a heavy with the pins it's a heavy proposition I mean this is heavy this is heavy on my lap this is heavy so the the most important thing is if you're going to embark on quilting your quilt is to have a support system which mostly is tables and/or my ironing board I am fortunate enough to have this configuration of tables I have a good 40 inches behind my machine here to support my quilt as I go along I also just lower my ironing board so the majority of my quote is not on the floor it is supported by my ironing board so now what I would do this quilt which is big there's a lot of ways to get it into this what's called a throat harp I forget mine is about the eight and a half inches so my my big brother machine is about eleven and a quarter inches from here to the needle this isn't quite as big and some machines they're only maybe six inches and you're like well how in the world do I smash that all this fabric what you do is um what I do is I go to the center of my quilt the very hardest and I find my the center of my quilt so that means so that on this clock there's about forty five inches forty eight inches of fabric in here on this side right so you're only dealing with half your quilt and when I start in the middle of my quilt is to get get rid of it first get it done first this is hard it's hard um this quilt I'm not quite sure how I'm actually going to quilt it but I am sure that I want to I want to secure my sashing as you know it's six blocks across seven rows down with two inch sashing so I'm going to secure the quilt top just with a stitch in the ditch right along the stitches of my sashing just to secure it the body of my quilt then I'll come back and I'll figure out if I want to do a decorative stitch I might use my quilting rulers I'm not sure I'll get to that one I do but I just wanted to show you to this morning um how I how I actually achieve working on a large quilt a lot of people again they they roll this they roll the XS real nice and neatly makes sense they roll it up into a little tube and they put it in there and it makes it's a bit it's tidy it's nice um there's also what's called a suspension system I've never I've seen it but I don't I wouldn't do it but it's good like over here the quilt is suspended by clamps and that's what that is it's just taking the weight off but I find off the needle because what you want you want this part right here to be nice and loose this is where your quilting and with all of this material and with all of this you might find it's dragging on your needle and that's what you don't want you want to be able to have it nice and loose that's where your quilting if you followed me you can find some of my free motion quilting and you can see I'm just concentrating on what's in front but it's imperative that your quilt is supported um I don't roll it necessarily I just sort of squish it I just sort of smooshing it and squish it keep it on my lap keep it on here make sure everything's fairly loose make sure no I'm just I'm stitching where I need to I'll just start these are just straight stitches down my sashing just to secure it I take the pins out as I go along again I pin base and my pins are about every five inches or so with a long arm quilter you're going to probably get a ninety nine and nine-tenths percent perfect quilt back court design it stretched it taut it's beautiful it's flat with this with human imperfection me completely I might get a tuck the fabric might shift a bit I don't care I feel fairly strongly myself personally that this is my quilt from start to finish from from picking out the fabrics and to the thought of the final quilt quilting and binding you will find that there's a when you're in your quilting journey that there's some aspects of quilting that you hate whether it be the cutting or the measuring or the the constructing or the basting or the quilting and the sandwich or the binding and and I just think mine is basting I don't love basting and and then I can make a quilt top the type of a quilt I get caught up in a day to days the quilting of the actual quilt this might take me 25 hours to quilt so a lot of people don't have the energy don't have the strength have the money Oh more power to them and they send their quilt tops out to be quilted Skog quilting by checkbook awesome fantastic I prefer quilting my quilt doing it from start to finish I mean from all the way all the way through I'm dying to be understand this up I'm working on this I should say it's it it's as a huge quilt but I just wanted to show you that it can be done again um I'm I'm offer starting at small most important thing most important thing is once you start quilting perhaps a larger than normal quilt you're going to start quoting with your shoulders they're going to start quoting with your chest and all of a sudden your shoulders are going to be up around your ears and you're gonna get a pain in the back of your neck and you're gonna get sore and you're gonna think what because we tend to be you were working with a lot you're pushing you're shoving it is a little bit physical it is so what I recommend is be very very aware of keeping your shoulders down rolling your neck rolling your head taking breaks just do just do a little bit getting up and walking just keep your shoulders down by all means literally if you if you would like a glass of wine just one but I'm not near your quilt or if whatever it takes to relax a cup of tea I like I like a beer I like a Guinness just something that will make you just slightly relaxed because you're going to end up tense and you're gonna walk away and you're gonna go oh I know that hurt I didn't enjoy that I don't like quilting because it hurts me so be very aware of that this isn't a marathon if this takes me a year to quilt takes me a year to quilt that's okay I'll do a small project I'll come back I'll do something small the whole thing is I want to enjoy this and that's the whole thing with you so just smush it smooth it support it OSs like look at this thing it's it's massive but I will get through it I've just soldier on through again I'm very very fortunate I have my table back there as you can see I've stored again you send my sash thing I've started in the center I just smushed it and I smooth it this is where I'm working right in front of me I'm working right in front of me my machine is awesome go he's very very quick this is just a straight stitch again I'm not quite sure how I'm gonna actually quilt this um I haven't gotten that far I'm coming to the end of it so you can see 80 inches is over there so got a nice folding table I think you can get them at Walmart or Costco or Target you know for 30 bucks or so if you don't have the room and if you're if you're actually I'm sewing against a wall or you know you have a lovely unit and their walls here that could make it a little bit more difficult also because with a large quote all of a sudden here's here's my wall here and I have all of this here I really find it very important that your quilt is supported on your on your you know behind your machine and to the side of your machine and then you can just smush it again even the largest foot you'll have about 50 inches if you're not doing 100 100 inch quilt you'll have about 50 inches again I've done I've done I think I said I've done a king-size quilt on a smaller machine it was hard it was hard but it was very very rewarding the very end of the day I thinking oh I did that and it wasn't wasn't perfect because I'm not a computer I get some tucks but if you pay those if you if you're out based well enough and you're you know you take your pins out as you go along and you get to the end here and I've done that you know that's it that's a nice straight stitch there right down the middle and oh when I'm quilting a quilt with blocks and sashing what I do is I start in the middle of one bit of sashing and when I get to the end of that row I don't go back and do I don't go back and do all the sashing top to bottom top to bottom top to bottom what I do is I do top to bottom and then as I just did now I'll turn my quilt I'll find my middle sashing middle of the quilt about the middle and I'll come back and I will then do side to side so I'm doing this I'm going around the quilt that said that way when you're quilting your fabric doesn't shift sometimes even when you're piecing if you're piecing like a strip quilt you're just selling strips together you're thinking oh I'll just put one on top one next to each other go to the top it can't it has attended shift has a tendency to shift down and sometimes you get even a curve and it doesn't it's not as nice so if you quilt from one side and then just shift it and to quote side to side then shift it then quilt top to bottom then shift it and it makes it makes the quilting nice and even and again I have no clue how I'm gonna make do I'm how I'm gonna quilt this but I always think I was I belong to a Facebook group and they um because I asked you know I had my rulers my my my new rulers that I got I've said it a couple of times I'm very intimidated by them but this ruler is speaking to me it's the clamshell I don't know if you can see that it's just a curved thing a curved ruler and I was looking at this and I think I think with I was I was reading up on it and you have like registration marks to make smaller ones to make larger ones and the spacing very clever cleverly designed um I think I might even do this clamshell I was thinking across the entire from border to border top to bottom there is a top to this quilt the 90 inches day of the 90 inches wide to the 95 long starting at the top or starting at the bottom and then going up with this with this quilting roller I'm not quite sure if I'm going to do that and if I if I do by all means I will try to experiment and then I'll if I'm doing it on my quote I will show you how I'm doing it it will be very repetitive because I think once I start I have to keep going but I think I would quite like that it would be like an all-over quilting pattern in the body of my quilt with this it's quite a clamshell motif um it's gonna take me awhile I think because I somebody said well you can do free motion protein I can but this makes it absolutely perfect you're spacing your stitches are absolutely perfect but I don't know how to do it and as I said I'm intimidated by these I'm not intimidated by that in quilting I'll see how they they work if they work out they may not I might just do my free motion quilting but yeah that's what I'm doing oh I'm looking outside it's it's really snowing we're supposed to get seven to ten inches of snow we're very fortunate we have power still some quite a few people in our neighborhood actually across the street had had power we had a storm on Saturday and they lost their power and up the road loss of power we didn't we were very fortunate one of our sons lost power and quite a few of our sons lost power but our one son had a I'm 80 foot tree fall out of his woods and take out his whole walled in patio and clipped the side of his house not nice and they were out of power so we're prepared if we do have you know do lose power we have a nice wood stove so we can keep warm and also we have generators when several years ago when Hurricane sandy 10 years ago however long that was came through that was bad we were out of power for seven days that was nasty but we had we had our stove we had heat we had quite a few generators and also we have a large RV that we pulled up out front in our driveway and hooked up that generator so I was able to cook in the RV and then with our generator we had the refrigerator freezer plugged in the television one lamp and my sewing machine I said I got my priorities right I said I get it that so and I said to my husband I should I really should get like a treadle sewing machine I learned my step grandmother when I was about six or seven she actually taught me how to sew on a treadle sewing machine and we lived near the Amish country actually about an hour away and the Amish a lot of the Amish use treadle sewing machine so you can get parts for them the UM the big rubber rollers to keep the treadle going so I said I have my priorities right first of all problems right so anyway I would keep warm keep safe I'm gonna keep soldiering on through this quilt this might take me a year to do it's pretty though I like it I know I got my I got did I do as I say please forgive me if I did I got my backing fabric I remember I this has taken me a while because I was waiting on my border fabric and then my backing fabric which is um 100 of 104 inches wide backing fabric from connecting threads calm love it it's like a real pretty I hope you can say a real pretty tan and creamed wall it goes nice with this quilt um so I was waiting for that I bet you know I basted it together and Here I am working on it so um I might put it aside or I might work on it through or start another little project like I sometimes do not that I was saying I don't like to have unfinished projects that's not my thing but when with something this big sometimes I need to take a bit of a break so anyway um yeah it's really coming down snow so anyway everybody wherever you are stay safe stay warm and I'm have a good day thanks for watching me bye

Channel: Jean Truelove

Views: 41,970

Rating: 4.8838334 out of 5

Keywords: easy, quilt, tutorial, free, quilting, class, sewing, lessons, online, tutorials, how to quilt a quilt, quilting a large quilt, how to quilt a large quilt, basting a quilt, quilting on a home sewing machine, quilting on a domestic machine, long arm quilting, quilting at home, how do I quilt my quilt, learning to quilt my quilt, free quilt lesson, free quilting lesson, free sewing lesson

Id: 5XJC7zN0VwM

Length: 20min 37sec (1237 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 07 2018