I have a favorite flannel throw that I made quite a while ago. At the time, I only tied larger quilts and hand quilted my smaller wall quilts. Since then, I've learned to machine quilt (took me a year! to get up the courage to mush my queen bed quilt through my regular machine, but it came out well).

Anyway...this throw is tied and I'm thinking I wish I'd have machine quilted it. Can I machine quilt it now that it's all done and been well-loved already? Anyone ever tried doing that and if so, how'd it turn out? Would my ties be okay as my basting? They're actually a crow's foot embroidery stitch through all the layers instead of ties with little tails sticking up. Oh, and it has poly batting (now I use cotton, but at the time I was into the poly but I haven't machine quilted with the poly ever). I appreciate any input or thoughts.

Hello,
I'm not sure what anyone else would tell you. I would be tempted to undo the ties & take it apart & put the cotton batting in it if I were to redo it. That way you might possibly have more control to prevent puckering. If you were thinking of hand quilting it, then you might be able to have more control? Not sure as I'm a machine quilter mainly. Maybe someone else has a better idea??

If it's been tied awhile, there be holes that won't close up when you take the ties out. I've never tried to machine quilt one that's been tied for awhile. Good luck. I'd be interested to know if it can be done also.

hand baste the dickens out of it to prevent unwanted puffs and puckers. no more than 2" apart.
leave the ties where they are. quilt around them and make them part of the new design.

Thanks for the suggestions! I think I'll try it as Patrice suggested. That will take care of any holes, especially since it's a flannel. Since my "ties" are basically an embroidery stitch, it would still look okay, I think. I'm in the middle of making me a new flannel throw, so once I finish that one (HAVE to have at least one flannel throw for me to cuddle up on the couch!), I think I'll take a deep breath, baste it to death and try this. I'll let you know how it goes.

This is a little off the main subject but I've had bad luck quilting flannel. My DH and I have a mid-arm machine with a Gracie II frame. We have tried 2 different times to quilt with the backing made of flannel. Both times we had to abandon the project. It there a trick to using flannel. I haven't had problems with flannel in smaller sizes just using my standard sewing machine.

I am on the homequiltingsystems group at http://groups.yahoo.com and quite a few of the quilters there have successfully used flannel for backing. I don't have a frame system myself, but I know there are different ways of setting up sandwiches for quilting -- full and partial floats, side tensioning, etc. Someone on that group should be able to help; perhaps even someone with your machine and frame.

I machine quilt flannel all the time, and have never had any problem. Actually I have made quilts with the top and back both flannel and machine quilted it without any problem, just make sure your back is big enough and allow for any stretching.