mary74

I am going to tye a quilt that I pieced together. It has a cotton top, batting, and back is flannel. The tying will be about 8" apart. Do I still need to stitch it the ditch??

Tartan

The tying needs to meet the quilting requirements for the batt. I usually like to tie about every 4 inches myself because I don't think tying holds as well as quilting.

dunster

I think it's fairly unusual for someone to both tie and quilt on the same quilt, unless the ties are meant to be purely decorative. I do think 8" apart might be too far, but check your batting. (Problem is, many batts are not labeled with quilting requirements, or they don't address tying at all.)

Prism99

What batting are you using? That dictates how close together the ties need to be.

JustAbitCrazy

If you are going to stitch-in-the-ditch, you may not need to tie the quilt at all, depending on the sizes of the pieces. That type of quilting makes the quilt hold up longer than simple tying, but tied quilts are usually the warmest. As always, there are pros and cons to everything.

sushi

All the above advice is sound, imho.

romanojg

I taught my daughter to tye and also how to stitch in the ditch with her first quilt. It was a big block quilt. She did the stitch in the ditch and got tired of tying really fast. I told her the only other thing she could do was to quilt it some more. It was going to be for a baby and it will get washed alot. She kept on tying; now she does it so that it looks nice. The tying would be good by itself but the SITD just makes it more secure. We do it about a fist width apart, I think that 8 in is too far apart unless its small blocks and you are also doing the SITD, then its more for looks when it comes to tying. We use the varigated emb floss and separate it down to 3 threads, the varigated gives a nice looks and you can chose the color of thread to compliment your quilt.

pocoellie

It depends on the batting, personally I prefer tying about every 2", I like the looks of it better.

GreyQ

Tie a little closer together, an easy way to measure is to use the width of your hand or about 4". I love a tied quilt, that's how my Grandma made all of her quilts. It makes for a soft & warm quilt.

Lori S

You can always use machine tacking as a fast alternative to tying. Just a thought.