I am new. And I do not know much about quilting. What I would like to know is if the squares can be quilted before putting together, and then put the back on after you sew the squares together?
Carol68 from Iowa

You can do this. I am trying one at the moment first time and I am sewing a row of blocks together then putting the batting under and then the back piece. Someone told me to leave 1" batting and under backing all round the edge. When you quilt remember not to go too near the edge so you can catch the material when you sew it together. Hope this helps. There are books on it, but sorry can´t help, perhaps one of our friends may know the name of it. :D

Elle

Carol68:

My Mother made a king size quilt doing that method. It turned out beautiful. It was a black and white quilt.

If you go to google and type in "quilt as you go" there a tons of sites that pop up. Some sites have free instructions that are pretty good.

Welcome to the board.............You will enjoy it here.

Georgia Bonesteel has tons of books on this technique. The way she does it is called Lap Quilting. There are a few other authors who do it a little differently. If you search for "Quilt as you go" there will be tons of information and tutorials online.

I watched a video on it at QNNTV and it is work intensive and wastes fabric but is very pretty and 3 dimensional. You do alot of cutting even the batting has to be cut an inch smaller all the way around each piece you are making. It does make a reversible quilt that is the same as the front but different fabrics and it is smooth on that side. you fold the edges over and stitch on top almost like binding. You end up with little flaps of fabric for dimension.

I am in the process of doing (three) in this manner for my grown children as a surprise for Christmas this year. I got out the graph paper and drew out the 96" X 96" quilts for each of them. For my daughter, the blocks are 12" finished. I have never liked batting so, I use what is known as a "sheet blanket" purchased from Blair for my batting. I laid the block on a larger than 12" block and did some machine quilting on that, then laid that on a larger piece of backing fabric and did more machine quilting through that. I then stitched very close at the edge around the block and then trimmed them down. when you get all of your blocks done, you strip them into rows by cutting a 4" long strip folded in half and sew to the back of each block. Lay two blocks back to back and sew the two together with both folded edges out. On the front side, turn one folded edge to the left and one to the right and stitch down. I am using one of the fancy stitches on my Brother 6500 to do this part of the stitching. For the oldest son, I got brave and made his blocks at 22" using an Asian Print fabric with a solid black backing fabric doing it in the same manner as above.
I am now on the youngest son's and he has registered horses so, I cut a 36" X 36" panel of printed Horse Heads and Shoulders. Then on all sides of that panel, I have 15" long stripes of a cordinate fabric (had to draw my quilting lines on this) and then on the outer edge another 15" strip all around of another cordinate fabric. Be sure to remember to add your 1/4"
around all blocks when cutting the fabric. In the future, I would not use a large 36 X 36 panel in the center, too much bulk. I am on the outer strips of this last quilt with the second round of quilting. I will then go back do the stripping of all the blocks on each for the finished product. (one gets tired of looking at the same thing all the time). These grown kids have no idea that this is my "gold" for 2008.........Hope this helped.......Look for pictures of each around Christmas..............Katrina