Quilt Preparation

Edge-to-Edge

To make quilting your creation effective and timely, it will need a little TLC.

 

Preparing your quilt top:

  • Check all seams for gaps or loose stitches your quilt is going to be attached to rollers under tension
  • Trim all loose threads from the front and back on both the quilt top and quilt back or these may be caught up in the quilting
  • Square your quilt top and backing fabric
  • Press the quilt top and make sure the seams lie as flat as possible it will look so much better if those seams are lying nice and flat.
  • Mark the top of your quilt if directional. A safety pin or piece of fabric loosely stitched near the top works well
  • Long arm machines love a square quilt! This applies to the top and the backing.  Both are attached to the frame at a perfect 90˚ angle, so if this is out then the pattern will stitch slightly out too

 

Preparing the wadding and backing fabric:

  • Your backing needs to be squared up and 8” longer and wider than your quilt top (so, a 70” x90” top will require a 78” x 98” backing). This provides enough spare fabric to attach and clamp it to the machine.
  • If you are using your own wadding, please make sure that it is the same size as the backing fabric or I can supply the most fabulous waddings which quilt really well on the longarm.
  • If you have to join your backing fabric, please use a ½” seam allowance, remove the selvedges at the join and press the seam OPEN (yes you read that correctly).
  • Again, if your backing is directional please mark as above

 

Things to Avoid:

  • Please do not baste you quilt or join the layers in any way, all three layers will be loaded onto rollers separately.
  • Please do not use polyester fabric or sheets for backing
  • Please do not embellish with buttons, beads, bows etc before quilting. You can of course add these after your quilt has been quilted
  • Any remedial work that needs to be done to your quilt by myself could potentially mean an increase to the original estimate. This will be discussed with you before work commences.

 

Basting

Quilt preparation is the same as for Edge-to-Edge, so please see above.