Originally Posted by
Marycumi
What you may want to do is quilt your fabric before cutting out the pattern. It is easier to quilt a larger piece of fabric than trying to quilt an odd shape and size. Lay your pattern on the fabric to get an idea how large a piece to quilt and add a few inches for shrinkage due to quilting.
This is what I do and I always lengthen my stitch too. When I didn't do that, the quilting shrunk up my fabric about 2"