the QUILTING! – Seeing Stars Quilt Along

June is the month for the best part of the Seeing Stars quilt-along…the QUILTING! I don’t know about you, but it’s my favorite part of making a quilt. Adding personality to a quilt top with just the right quilting stitches, thread color, and designs makes my heart sing.

Here is my process with some tips and hints along the way:

Loading

First up, load the frame with backing fabric.  I assembled my backing so that the seam would run parallel to my poles. That makes loading the backing and getting it smooth so much easier. Then I load the quilt top onto the top pole and roll it all the way up. The batting is next.  I don’t like trying to press out all the deep creases and folds from batting. The large piece is so hard to manage and batting stretches so easily. So, I drape the batting over the top of the poles. I lightly spray the batting with water. And during the night, while I’m sleeping, the ironing fairies come and press out all the wrinkles and creases.

I select my thread and bobbin thread. For this quilt I used Superior Threads’ Omni #3051 Corn Silk and a matching pre-wound Super Bob for the bobbin.

Designs

Inspired by the backing fabric, I decided to quilt butterflies. I wanted something a little elegant for the big open solid diamond blocks. After all, the solid light colors are where the quilting will show the most. Nothing in my design stash quite fit the bill. So I went to Pro-Stitcher Designer and digitized just what I was imagining in my head. I love having the perfect tools to let my imagination become reality. Because I am a Pro-Stitcher Patterns Featured Designer, the designs I created for this quilt are available for purchase here, https://prostitcher.com/shop/butterfly-5-piece-set/. I created the fancy diamond block, a single butterfly triangle design for the solid-ish triangles and a simpler triangle design for the pieced triangles. To finish it off I made a border design with a matching corner.

The Quilting

Stabilization

I always quilt from the outside in (unless I’m doing and edge-to-edge design). I start with basting the top edge and the sides, within the throat space. Then I stitch-in-the-ditch the borders and the blocks that are in my first quilting space.

Sometimes I’ll do it manually with a ruler. One of my favorite rulers is the Baby Grand by Handi Quilter (it used to be called the Peace Out ruler) . It fits nicely in my hand and has different curves and a straight side. It’s super versatile!

Sometimes I use MARK on Pro-Stitcher for the SID work. It’s the bomb! If you want to learn how to use Mark, consult the User Reference Manual on page 98. You can download the manual here.

Design work

Then I start the design work with the border. Since I used a corner design I stitched that first.

I like to position and stitch both corner designs and then stitch the border in between the corners, adjusting it for a perfect fit.  It’s also possible to layout the corners and the border and stitch the whole thing in one go. Both ways work.

Once the border is stitched, I work on the interior of the quilt that shows in my throat space. Block and triangle designs. When I advance the quilt, I baste the edges and SID the borders and blocks. Most of the time, I like to turn my quilts to stitch the side borders. The borders need to be basted in place as I advance through the quilt. I use pins for borders up to about 6″ and stitch baste with 1/2″ basting stitches for anything bigger. These borders got basted with pins as I worked my way down the quilt. I place a pin horizontally about every 3-4 inches.

If you’d like to know more about turning the quilt to stitch the side borders, check out this blog post.

I made good use of the Triangle Skew feature of Pro-Stitcher Premium to quilt all the triangles on this quilt. Sorry Pro-Stitcher Lite users, triangle skew is one of the features you do not have on Lite.

Once I quilted all the way down to the bottom of the quilt, I removed it from the frame and turned it to stitch the side borders. I find turning the quilt to be the fastest and, most importantly, the most accurate way to stitch side borders.

I haven’t been able to get a photo of the entire quilt yet but this one shows all the quilting designs I used.

What about Pam?

Pam finished her quilting as well! She quilted using an Edge to edge design with her Amara 20.

She chose the Simple Stars design from the Simple Shapes 5 for 25 Collection at prostitcher.com.

The Simple Shapes designs stitch fast and are perfect for smaller throat machines like Moxie and Simply Sixteen with Pro-Stitcher Lite. The 5 for 25 collections are a great way to build your design stash at a great price. You get 5 designs for only $25.

We can’t wait to see your Seeing Stars quilts. Post pictures on Facebook or Instagram using #handiquilterqal or #seeingstarsqal. Search on those hashtags to see what your fellow quilt-alongers have made!

Remember to Quilt Every Day!

by Mary Beth Krapil