DawnFurlong

Okay, so I decided that for my almost king size top (110 x 110) - I was going to cut the batting into thirds since I am FMQ on my domestic sewing machine. I have never attempted to quilt one this large and was worried about being able to manage the bulk.

I have the middle third quilted. I used my Singer 15-91 to FMQ (love that machine!!!). While it was nice having less bulk, it was NOT nice adding back the batting to the sides. I had a heck of a time getting everything to lie flat, smoothed out. I did try to leave 6 inches un-quilted on the edges. On a few small sections, I got closer to the edge than 6 inches. I used the heat-bond tape to attached the batting together (cut it in a large s wavy line). Only have one side of the batting reattached, that is all my patience would allow last night. I am worried that I am going to have problems with batting puckering on the back of my quilt as I FMQ.

I have never had problems with puckering on my backing. And, I have already decided I would rather learn to manage the bulk of the quilt that mess with cutting the batting in thirds again. I think my 15-91 turned out to feel much roomier than the size would dictate. As I spent a couple of frustrating hours trying to get just one side of the batting situated right (am using 505 adhesive for spray basting) - am thinking there has to be an easier way to reattach the batting on the remaining side when the time comes.

Any tips to help this along? I found that my batting did not lie smoothly against the wavy lines I had cut (I made sure to mark the top right and left side of my top and batting so I knew which side went where). Correction - it did match for about half of the length. I had to do some trimming on the other half to help it fit along the cut. I am absolutely dreading having to add back in that last third of batting.