EdNerd

My wife and I are finally ready to do the quilting on a quilt she started for my daughter 5 years ago. She's the sewing master - I'm just the heavy lifter and technician.

We finally have the sandwich pinned - it's got two layers of the thickest poly batting my daughter could find. (And we're in Arizona?? Oh, well - it's what she wanted!) My daughter marked out very large circles (from 6 to 12 inches diameter) on top that she wants done in various colors of embroidery thread (DMC six-strand).

We bought a Flynn frame to put this in so my wife could hand-quilt, but then decided it was going to be too much fiddlin' around to get it mounted. It's 72 by 85, and doesn't roll up well. So then I bought a Dritz PVC floor stand from JoAnn. Had to tie the side "clamps" on to get them to stay down over the quilt!

The problem is how to maintain the circle on the bottom? We can get a nice circle on top where we can see and follow the lines. But there's nothing marked on the bottom, and we couldn't see it if there were! We can put the needle down through the top, and push it back up on the line, but there's not guarentee we're getting a smooth circle underneath.

Any ideas are most welcome!
Ed

Tartan

Since the batt is so thick you can't do a rocking hand quilt stitch. When that is the case you have to stab stitch which it sounds like you are doing? That is when you push the needle down from the top and pull it out the bottom and then come back up through the sandwich for the next stitch. When I stab stitch through thick spots on a quilt, I use my long pins around the area I am working on to anchor the layers together, this helps to keep the fabric layers from moving as I stitch.Since your sandwich is extra thick you may need long thin corsage pins to do the same? Try and keep your needle going straight down rather then at an angle.

adamae

Have you all hand quilted before? if reassurance is necessary, one can always use a mirror to inspect their efforts.
personally, I have confidence that what I work from the top through the sandwich will be as lovely on the bottom as the top. As long as one is sure the stitches are going all the way through the sandwich, it should be fine, it takes practice to do the rocking stitch but the result is very satisfying.

EdNerd

Never hand quilted before. My wife has done some sewing, not much quilting. (I used to be a mechanic at a Wrangler jeans factory.) Not too worried about shifting as long as we go straight down and through and and up - but any kind of running or rocking stitch could be problematic, trying to squish down all the batting.

It's not so much anchoring the layers into place to avoid shifting as it is making sure we've got a smooth circle on the bottom. Thought maybe I should sit underneath so I can see where to poke the needle back up??

Ed

NJ Quilter

When you are poking back up from the bottom just make sure you are as straight as possible from your previous stitch (until you are rounding edges, of course). I think that's about the best you can hope for in this situation. And lets face it, you're going to be looking at the top side of the quilt, right? Not the back side on a regular basis??? And even though you are using poly batts, you will probably still get a tiny bit of shrinkage after it's washed and absolutely no one will be able to see if your circles are completely round on the back!

joe'smom

Since you're stab stitching the quit, I wonder if it would be easier to do it in a lap-size hoop so you could turn it over to see what you're doing on the bottom. However, you'll run into trouble with those pins using a small hoop; thread-basting is a better option for hoop quilting. I've never worked with so much batting, but I wonder if you couldn't do some big stitch quilting using a rocking stitch? The only options I see for your present set up are to rig up a mirror so you can see the quilt bottom, or one of you get under the quilt.

adamae

Ed, you are putting us on, aren't you?by all means, sit under the quilt...and provide pictures!

MadQuilter

You could cut out the circle in the right size out of freezer paper and iron it to the top. Then use wash-away thread in the top and bottom and sew around the freezer paper. Remove the paper. Now you can see the circle outline and don't have to worry about the basting stitches as they will wash out.

barny

I'm wondering like Adamae. Sounds fishy to me too. Would love to see pics.ha,ha.

GEMRM

Or, you could quilt the top with one layer of batting, then do the bottom with one layer of batting, then tie them together, or join in some other manner.