Quilt as you go - How to join quilt sections without a bulky seam

[Music] hi there welcome to a new video on the sugar do channel today i will be joining three parts of a quilt so i have three parts of the sugary dough banina quilt along top and i have quilted them so here we have one part and i've quilted them with wavy lines with pretty thick thread so i've quoted this with 12 8 thread and here is the first part here we have another and then we have a third one over here so three parts they are all quilted and um every part of the quilt has a nice border around it with a batting that is sticking out and with backing so i've quilted these as if they were complete quilts so with some room on all sides um so now it is time to join them together and i'm pretty excited about that uh because there are many methods to do the kind of quilt as you go joining of blocks or pieces of your quilt and this makes quilting your quilt way easier because you have to baste smaller sections you have to quilt smaller sections so you don't have to stuff as much quilt underneath your sewing machine so yeah it's really nice to quilt your quilt in parts but then the thing is that you have to join it and what i don't like with uh joining quilt pieces together is that they are so thick so when you would sew this to the to another part with backing binding betting everything at once it's so thick and it does leave a bulky seam so what i want to do today is only join uh the tops by um machine and then i'm going to join the betting by hand and then the backing by hand so i'm going to show you how i'm going to do that it's kind of an experiment but i'm very positive that it is going to work so what do we need we need a ruler rotary cutter pins and sewing machine with a quarter inch sewing foot or i have some tape on your machine so that you can sew with a quarter inch seam allowance and then some thread and a needle for hand stitching yep that's it let's start here i have the middle section of my quilt this is the bottom section of my quilt and i have already joined the middle section to the top section of my quilt and i've also filmed it but while i was doing it i thought of a few improvements um so i'm just going to uh do it again and film it again so i can show you and give you the correct measurements to cut and the best way to do it so i am going to join this middle section to this bottom section of the quilting and um as you can see there's a rough edge on this side and on this side um so we're going to cut those two differently i'm going to call this um side or edge one and this is going to be h2 so that is consistent with how i explain it in the blog post so um the easiest thing to cut is side one so let's start with that and what we're going to do on this side is just going to trim it along the quilt top so basically i'm just going to square it off but i'm only going to square off this side so let's grab a ruler and a rotary cutter and then i'm going to cut this um what i like to do when i trim off an edge um not only pay attention to this side because as you can see it it kind of um tends to be a little bit wobbly the outside of a quilt after you've coated it so i'm going to pay attention to lines within the quilt those tend to be straighter than the ones on the edge so here i'm just lining up on this seam and then i can trim this way there we go so that is side one uh trimmed off and that is completely fine as it is so i don't need to do anything more about this so i can put this aside until we start sewing and then i have the bottom part of my quilt and i'm going to join on this side so we'll just turn it over so this is the side that's going to be joined so i'm also going to trim over here but over here i'm not going to just trim a trim off along the fabric because i want the backing fabric to stick out a little bit more i want the batting to stick out a little bit less and the quill top should stay as it is so let's start with the backing that should stick out a little bit more than the rest and we're going to trim that at half an inch from the quilt top so i'm going to line up my ruler on this edge and that is one and a half inch so this is going to be half an inch sticking out so now i'll cut through my batting and the backing so that is the backing done what i now want to do is um pin away the backing um so that i have room to um trim the batting so let's take some pins and pin the backing out of the way this is also the reason why in a previous video about quilting this part is that i said um stay away at least half an inch from the edge of the quilt where you're going to join it because then you can easily fold back the fabric without having to undo stitches of your quilting there we go that is out of the way now i am going to square off the edge of the quilt so i'm going to cut through the quilt top and the batting there we go and then the final thing is um i want to trim the betting so the batting should be trimmed half an inch to the inside so let's peel away i spray basted it so it's still a little bit sticky for this i will just move to the other side of my table so now i need to trim away half an inch of my batting and don't cut through my top so now i have everything trimmed on side too so let me see what we have we have the betting is trimmed half an inch inwards and this is trimmed half an inch outward from the edge of the quilt so that's done now we want to sew the top of this section together to the top of side one and in order to do that i'm going to leave this as it is so i'm just going to put those pins back in and since i'm sewing with a quarter inch seam allowance i don't really need to um pin the batting bag but on the other side on side one i do so this one is already ready to be sewn together and then when i go back to side one so the first edge that we prepared um i want to sew the top to the top of side too but in order to do that i need to pin back the batting and the backing out of the way otherwise it's just not going to work so there we have that pinned out of the way because the following steps we've now cut everything and the following steps would be that we sew the two quilt tops together with the machine then we fold open the batting and hand stitch that together so the the batting is just going to meet it's not going to overlap so there's not going to be any bulk and then the backing is going to overlap we can fold that and then hand stitch it so that's going to uh be your plan to join these sections together without having any uh bulky seams whatsoever now what we need to do is to stitch section side one two side two and i like to find the center of the section so that i have three points of reference to start stitching of course you have both sides but also just like to find the center that is over here there we go just marked it a little bit with making a crease um yeah let's open this up and pin it together because this needs quite a lot of pitting in my opinion because the sections are pretty heavy so it's going to pull a little bit if you don't pin it enough then it's going to pull while sewing and i'll just place my sections on top of each other lining up this corner and then i can find the center that i've marked with a crease yeah that is nicely lining up with that clip so there we go that's going to be the first part so let's start pinning and maybe it is easier for sewing to also pin back the betting so even though the batting is not going to be in our way of sewing a quarter inch seam it can be nice to have this out of the way just to make this space a little bit bigger for my walking foot and as i said i'm doing lots of pins so that everything keeps nicely in place when i'm sewing because those sections are kind of heavy and will pull on the seam while you're sewing so everything is pinned let's take this to the sewing machine and sew on a quarter inch from the edge so it is kind of a big stiff package to manage but with all the pins over here for me this this works the best but if you rather not fold it in a stiff package like this and have it more um crumb pulled up or how do you say that that's also completely fine of course the only goal is to sew those quilt tops nicely together with a quarter inch seam without pulling too much and after you've sewn you just want to check your seam so this was the front of what i was sewing and this was the back so i just checked the seam to see if i've catched the back along the whole side but that looked okay so um you can now remove all of the pins that you've placed in and when you still have to quilt your quilt i know it's sad to keep half an inch away from the edge while quilting but i think when you leave an inch if you stay away an inch from the edge of your quilt while quilting that makes this easier because then you can fold the batting back a little bit further and that makes sewing this seam that i just did just a little bit easier so then it's time for the next step and that is to iron the front of this and on the back of the quilt to finish this we need to do some hand stitching and we need to do two types of hand stitching actually so we have two things that needs to be joined here so we have the batting and we've cut the betting in such a way that it exactly meets in the middle uh and that prevents any bulkiness so let's say we've joined the whole batting what's then going to happen then we fold back this backing fabric and then this batting backing fabric is going to overlap so for that i'm going to fold it a tiny bit overlap and then stitch it together uh yeah that is um that's the two types of hand stitching that we need to do and all you're left with is a tiny seam on the back that you've hand stitched so that is all you will see or feel because first we will join the batting by hand stitching and then we will join the backing by hand stitching and to join the two sides of batting i'm just going to stitch from one side to the other there's not going to be any tension on the batting or anything so it just needs to be nicely closed so it won't um crumple up like this inside your seam because that will feel bulky when the quilt is finished so if you're sewing it together like this then you will be sure that it will stay nice and flat in your clothes [Music] now the quilt up and the batting are sewn together the only thing left to do is close up the backing fabric that's the final step um i think until now i found the um sewing the top the hardest part so keeping that together while the big quilt sections were clunky and big and pulling a little bit on the scene that i was trying to sew that was the hardest part but sewing the batting together is easy breezy and if you know how to cut the cutting is also very doable i think so now we only need to sew the backing together let me show you how i do that so here's the scene that we need to join the short side of the backing can be folded back and that long side of the backing is going over over it and to make a nice clean sewing line i'm going to fold this just need to decide how far i'm going to fold it back but i think a little bit over a quarter of an inch something like that just going to lay it like so and then hand stitch it yeah so that's the plan let's um your thread and start sewing i'm going to use a kind of the same stitch as i would use to and sew my binding go into the top layer and out from the top layer and then into the quilt and out from the quilt and there i'm not going all the way through the front of the quill of course but only going through i think the backing and maybe a little bit of batting this might look a little bit messy but that is where i started quilting or ended quilting so that's going to be um trimmed off anyway um so yeah going in on top layer and out from the top layer and then going in the quilt out the quilt that is a nice invisible stitch that i also like to use to sew my binding to my to the back of my quilt so that's what i will be doing all the way along the seam so in the top layer and out and then in the quilt and out in and out in and out [Music] [Music] and then it's done then all the sections are joined so here i have my finished quilt i'm so looking forward to my new studio because then i have enough space to show you the whole quilt in the frame oh my god i'll try so here we have the first rows first section and over here starts the second section and then over here starts the third section everything is nicely joined you can't see a thing at the front of the quilt and at the back of the quilt it's also really nicely um hidden with only one small seam so that is how i joined already quilted sections of a quilt i'm very curious if you're going to try this method please make sure you tag me on instagram or just let me know in the comments below if you're joining your quilt like this or doing it in a different way i would love to hear from you if you want to read all the details about what i just showed you in this video hop over to the bernina blog because there i'm going to write it all out and so you can read it again at your own pace that's it for this week's video and then next week there will be the very final final video on the sugar duke quilt long where i'm going to attach the binding to the quilt so that's it for now hope to see you again next week bye you

Channel: Sugaridoo

Views: 45,332

Rating: 4.9465427 out of 5

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Id: gCSY0tZJja8

Length: 23min 44sec (1424 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 07 2021