I am new to quilting and am making my first baby quilt for my niece. I am doing the card trick blocks and putting a border around each block and also a border around the whole quilt. I was thinking about tieing it instead of paying to have it quilted. Does anyone have any hints that will help with this? Like I said I'm new to this and would appreciate any and all help.
Thanks

I usually use embroidery floss to tie my baby quilts. You could tie in the centers of your borders. Elaine

If you tie in the centers of the blocks, it will hide any mismatched points, not that I ever need to do that. Mine are perfect. Right :roll:. I use crochet thread doubled and a needle with an eye big enough to pull the thread through easily. Tie a square knot and then another knot for good measure, and tie them all before I cut them. Saves lots of time.

Hi, welcome to quilting. I read somewhere that because baby quilts will probably be washed more than others, it might be preferrable to tie. I tied the 2 baby quilts I made, with embroidery floss like Purple Passion suggested, and they turned out great. I thought floss was easier to match to the colors of the quilt. I used 6 strands.The parents of the babies were very happy with them. Good luck and stay in touch.
Julie

Thanks for the great hints. I'll try and post a picture when I'm done.

I work with a group of ladies that make Prayer Quilts. We use a double strand "perle cotton" No. 5 thread to hold our quilt "sandwich" together. Starting on top we go straight down thru all layers leaving 2"-3" tail on top, make one stitch coming back up thru all layers,then repeat in the same holes ending with beginning and ending tails on top. Tie as Norah mentioned.We space our ties about 6" apart or the distance from your thumb to your pinky finger across the palm (we don't usually have a ruler but always a hand available) :wink:
We tried using crochet thread but it had to be "tugged" thru the layers of some fabrics and batting (it was too heavy or thick). The perle cotton seemed to work the best. It is a little more expensive than some embroidery thread but on rare occasion Hobby Lobby and Hancock's have it on sale. No use putting something together inexpensively only to have it fall apart with use.

My mom made some cheater baby blankets for my sons several yrs ago using pre-quilted fabric and flannel then tied with yarn. The yarn didn't stand up too well to the constant washings they required.

I hope some of this message is helpful. Sometimes I get going and can't stop "talking". LOL

What I am talking about is about the same weight, I think. The tugging problem for me was the needle being too small. I hope you don't think I was talking about yarn. It doesn't work too good. Embroidery thread does come in a lot more colors, but does it not tangle up more?

One year, I made 12 full sized quilts and tied them all. Different things happened to them. Some tore where the yarn was tied. Some of the quilts were on a bed that was jumped on by the kids. No good, they tore. If you are going to tie the quilt, make sure to follow the batting's instructions on how close to tie. If the quilts are going to get a lot of use, I would stitch close to the ditch with the machine instead of tying. Just a thought..... Irena

If you want this to be an heirloom quilt, I would suggest quilting it rather than tying it. My father made me two baby quilts and tied them, 37 years later, the fabric is torn because of the usage and it being tied rather than quilted. There is no way for me to repair this because the fabric is old and I can not find the same type of pattern.

I made several "knee quilts" for my grandmother who had very bad arthritis. They were made with flannel and I tied them with dmc embroidery floss. After several washings, the floss started to break down and I had to re-tie them with yarn.