How to Sandwich a Large Quilt on a Small Table

hi there I'm Christine and welcome to my studio I'm going to show you a cool way to sandwich your quilt today you're going to need a few items luckily you can get most of them at the local at your local supply office supply store or your grocery store first thing you're going to need are some large binder clips and you're going to need at least six of these things next you're going to need a table you know it can be a cheap card table or cutting table the table does not need to be large that's the beauty of this method but the binder clips do need to be able to clip to the side of the table we're also going to need to buy some Spears from your local grocery store they come in these bags of like thousands you only need like you only need four and the skewers have a very sharp point on them first thing we want to do is we want to sand that point off with a piece of sandpaper takes a second just in dull it because that sharp point can puncture your fabric so it's best to have them filed down you're also going to need some masking tape okay the first thing we're going to do is you're going to lay four skewers you only need four of them whenever I got mine taped down but you're going to find your horizontal center of your table now I just happen to know that when I measured my table from the side the width of my table that it was exactly forty inches so my halfway point would be twenty I made note of where 20 was and I taped a skewer down there and then I did it on the other side so I've actually got two skewers right here but they're already taped down and I taped the entire thing down one end to the other because we don't want any of the stick showing you want completely covered with tape and then then what you'll do is you'll get your vertical Center with the other two skewers that you have and tape them down now on this table I'm very lucky because I have an inset in my cutting table one inset to the other with 22 inches so I just found where eleven inches was would be my middle and I just took my ruler like this and put my 11 inch line here so I had a straight edge here laid my skewer down and then just taped it there and I did it on the other side it's a little bit easier than trying to mark up your table now the reason why you want to have everything taped down you want to use skewers is because now this is a raised area that we will be able to feel between three layers of fabric between our top our backing fabric and our batting okay first thing we're going to do when we sandwich your quilt is we need to find the center of all three pieces that were sandwiching together our backing fabric our batting and our quilt top and just like you did when you were in elementary school in kindergarten to find the center of this piece of paper you would take the paper you would fold it in half then you would fold it the other way in half or fold it again in half and now we have a little cross cross where the center of our paper is that's what we're going to do with our quilt back our batting and our quilt top luckily for you I have already found the center of these three pieces okay so when you're putting down your quilt back because we're making the sandwich we want the pretty side all right now you can see where my crease and my seam line is indicating where my center point is now I'm going to just kind of feel around right here I can feel where that skier is and I can feel secure here so the first thing I'm going to do is take one of the binder clips and put a clip there for my for my width and pull them tight just kind of hold it in place and then I want to do my length here kind of pull it taut then you can use your extra clip so I usually do this with six clips so I had one in the center I'm probably going to move it out to the side now if you wanted to use eight clips or more you could do that as well hi see if my camera person can not get me here all right okay now the idea is if we you know if our backing is the right size our batting is the right size that we need for our quilt top when we line up all three layers with the center point we should be just perfectly aligned so the next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to get my batting and again I have pressed it I use 100% cotton batting so you can press it just like you would fabric because it's just 100% cotton it does kind of smell like a wet sheep or wet dog I guess now one of the things especially when I'm teaching my beginners is people always want to just really press out all the wrinkles on batting but bending is supposed to be fluffy and it doesn't do very well when you start taking your hands and moving it trying to move the wrinkles out you just make sure skiers are there it's almost better if you just kind of pop it down with your hand Pat it down with your hand maybe lift a little bit of air up under it put a little bit of air up under there once I have it where I wanted I can see my crosshairs I don't know if you on camera can see that but I can feel my skewers I can feel them right here right here right where my loins are so now I'm going to reach under my backing fabric or my batting and I'm going to pull the binder clip out and now I'm going to clip the batting to the table along with the backing I'm still clipping the backing and you like to do cross side so if I do one if I'm doing the width first I'm doing the width on one side and do the width on the other side hello camera you guys can't see it but I get very close to that camera when I'm doing this and I'm a tad bit camera shy very camera shy okay my corners here alright so now I've got my daddy in my backing both perfectly aligned now comes the part where we put the top on we have this gorgeous gorgeous top made by my daughter Katie this way actually I'm gonna have to amp in this app because we want the pretty side of the quilt thanks hey sup now usually when you have square tops like this it's really easy just to kind of count your squares and find where your center is I did press mine but because I pressed it right on the scene it's kind of difficult to see exactly where that is but I've got two rows here two rows here here's where my block is up high there we go that down okay I've got my my horizontal centered let me find my vertical one two two so it's right here in the middle I need to go up just a little bit so I'm down you put just a little bit air under that usually moves a little bit better than trying to pull it we are perfectly lined up now that bright and cheery this is going to be one of Katie's new patterns coming out she doesn't have a name for it yet it's very scrappy now you'll notice it's not long enough for me to clip the end so what's not worried about that yet let's just get the clips that we have in place that we are able to clip to the top down alright and here we are we have it clipped I always like to check okay if you could hit the camera here I always like to check to make sure that I still have enough backing under my backing and batting under the top I just do a little quick check I mean it should all work because we centered everything up but I'll tell you there's nothing worse than putting 200 pins in the quilt top and finding you short on one area so just it just takes a second just to kind of check it check it over here oh yeah I've got plenty all right now since our clips on the ends they're really not holding our top what I'm going to do is I'm going to move one from the side and I'm going to sit right on the edge and then I'm going to take the other clip down here and put it on the very edge of the quilt top and then the one I had down here might just stick it in the center and I'm going to do the same to the other side down here you go behind the camera here and then we'll take this one and just put it right here in the center there we go and there you have it all your quilt layers are now layered together and you didn't have to curl on the floor and get down on your hands and knees and like I said you could do this with a tiny table too as long as you get your Center lined up you put all your pins down and then you unclip and you can slide what's pinned together over to get the part that's falling off the table so when I have this all clipped I'll pull it over I'll reclip it all down and I'll go ahead and pin this down and then I'll slide it over the other way to pin the rest of it in place there you have it so I kind of place some paper down around the block so you we can all focus in on just what one block looks like I want to keep my pins inside the block because the first thing I'm going to do when I quilt is I'm in a stitch not in the ditch but along the ditch and that's another video coming up so if you want to learn how to stitch along the ditch and other neat ways for quilting this quilt you can check out that video blog when we get it out but for right now I just want to zoom in on the quilt and this is a twelve inch block and what I've done is I placed about nine pins on the block I pretty much want one palm for every for every pin so you can see I've got like three pins here pens hair pens hair pins here and what I'm going to do is I'm just going to stick my pins in but I'm not going to close them now this is one of the reasons why I'm going to start this video blog because I I am around quilting 24/7 when I'm not working part time in the quilt store I'm down here in the studio making and designing quotes and I am just privy to a wealth of information the girls I work with they're just all incredibly amazing quilters some of them are even award-winning quilters and you just pick up all these little cool tips and hints from them and one of the hints that I picked up from why the ladies I work with her name is sue and she never closes her pins when she's sticking them in because it's really hard when your quilt is really tight to sit here and go and pin okay maybe we can do it maybe that's an over-exaggeration maybe I can do a few of them but after I do about 20 my hand is really cramping and it is just unpleasant so just go ahead and stick your quilts pins in and then when you have all your pins in place and you release your binder quilt clips on the side you have a little bit more give-and-take you can even take the quilt and stick it in your lap then just go and close the pins it's a little bit easier to close them at that point one more thing that I want to really emphasize with you guys out there if you're going if this is going to be your main way of pinning a quilt together and you know instead of taking it and sending it off to be quilted if you're going to be pinning your quotes together and quilting them yourself please please please please please invest in good safety pins you can get amateur local quilt store I've had like I said teach a lot of beginners and they come in with pins that are not quilters safety pins they're dull and they're just really really difficult to get through the the fabric quilter pens are extremely sharp they're a little bit bent to help kind of scoop through all the layers and they're just so much easier in your hands and a lot easier to use okay so once you have your whole quilt pinned in place and you can remove your binder clips and it's ready to quilt and again it didn't have to get down on your hands and knees have a great day you

Channel: Amelie Scott

Views: 489,062

Rating: 4.826406 out of 5

Keywords: how, to, sandwich, large, quilt, small, table, amelie, amélie, scott, designs, quilting, asd

Id: jnke_KzeTI8

Length: 14min 57sec (897 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 06 2012