Quilting the Layers

When I am machine quilting a small quilt on my domestic machine, I use garden gloves to be able to grip and handle the quilt sandwich. It's alot cheaper than the quilting gloves that are sold at fabric shops and it does the job just the same.

Have you ever pricked your finger while hand quilting one of your masterpieces?  That little speck of blood not only looks ugly, it seems to want to stay there as a stain forever and ever.  I don't know how many of you quilter's out there know this little trick, but using your own saliva on your own blood stain will get rid of it for good!  No kidding!  try it the next time you get a little stain on your quilt project.  It will disappear before your eyesI! Just remember that it has to be done when the stain is fresh. Then you can launder it as usual.

When you start to quilt, make a knot as usual, and do your quilting.  When the thread starts getting short, make another knot and pull it through. THEN...make another knot (close to the quilt) , and snip it off.   You are ready to start again!  Much easier and quicker than making another knot in the air : )

Due to failing eyes and hands. If I am going to tie a quilt and just want to do a little hand quilted mofit here and there I draw the mofit on tracing paper in a dark color I can see and pin it to the quilt ,quilt the design and rip the paper off when I am done. I also do the same for putting beaded designs on wedding dresses. If I am doing a lot of hand quilting I draw the design on a piece of computer paper blow it up as large as I want and print it as dark as I want pin on quilt when done rip off.

Use regular school chalk to mark your quilt top.You can buy an extra large pencil sharper that it can be sharpen with.It just brushes away, no worries that you will have any residue over.Real cheap and you have many colors to choose from.You can easily trace around cookie cutters or your own cardboard cutouts.

Use plastic shelf liner rolls to trace your quilting  patterns on and then cut them out.You can stick them onto your quilt and then quilt around them by hand or with the machine.

They can be reused many times just don't leave them on the quilt for too long in case they leave a sticky glue behind.

use your dining table/pool table to pin quilts, if you need a larger area get a large piece of MDF or ply or even cardboard to sit on top. this protects your table from pins and if cut larger than the table, will give you a larger area to work on.

If you have a dining room set with table pads, turn the pads felt side up. Your quilt back will "stick" to the felt . As a bonus you will also have a center line and the side edges of the table for accurate measuring. If you need to you can also put pins in the side edge of the pad, but I have not needed to. If you are a beginner: put the quilt back down first, wrong side up, then the batting and last the top, right side up. It is very easy to use safety pins for basting without ruining anything!

For those of you who have my problem of not enough space to lay out a big quilt and sandwich the layers together combined with a bad back and being unable to get down on the floor for a long time, I utilize the community room at my local library. They have many tables that I push together and I can lay all of my quilt layers on the top of the tables and pin it all together. The use of the room is free in my city as long as I request it when it is not in use. I have saved my back doing this and I am more willing to tackle bigger quilts now knowing I have someplace to go to lay it out. There are other organizations that have community rooms that may allow one to use it for this purpose.

When quilting by hand, remember to make sure the needle goes through all three layers: front, batting, and the back. This seems like a simple task, but often times quilters are so focused on using tiny, even stitches they neglect this basic necessity. Also remember to "bury" your knots. On a quilt, all knots should be buried in the batting lair. The knot should be made approximately one half inch away from the tip of the thread and pulled through the top or bottom layer using a swift tug.