OldHairTwister

I am quilting and have two borders that are 3" wide each. So far I have stitched in the ditch around them. I am using Warm & Natural batting and it gives a 10" maximum for quilting. Do I need to stitch across these borders every 10" or will the 3" continuous stitching be enough? Also I have a 13" drop around the edges and I want to do diagonal lines 2" apart on that, again, do I need another line of stitching through the 13" to satisfy the 10" maximum? This is a king size quilt and the first large project that I have done. Thank you so much for any information or pointers that you can give this newby.

jo bauer

Usually the 10" max means that you can have 10 inch spaces between your quilting lines, but no further apart or the quilt will bunch. Any smaller amount of spacing will work--anywhere on the quilt. The two inch diagonal spacing will work fine. In fact, that should work really nice, and no, you do not need do another line of stitching if you're going to do the diagonal lines. (Might want to pin or baste the edges down before you begin the diagonal to keep them getting off grain.)

Geri B

You need to put something in the width areas of those borders...SID is not enough...it will not look good with all that "open" space.....why not just do straight vertical lines every 4-5inches on that section...just to lock it in.....again jmho

dunster

I think that the 10" means that from one quilting stitch there should be another quilting stitch - in all directions. That would mean that you should cross-hatch your quilting lines at least every 10". A more extreme example would be if you quilted lines that were 10" apart. You would obviously need to crosshatch them with another set of lines 10" apart in order to meet the rule. What if they were 8" apart? Same answer, probably. But as your parallel lines get closer, this rule seems to fall apart logically, and if you think about tied quilts, the "stitching" would never be close enough. So, my answer is, I don't really know, but I think you will be fine.

Sewnoma

My gran tied all of her quilts, and when she was teaching me she said you had to draw a mental circle around each tie, and make sure there was another tie at least within the edge of the circle in all 4 directions. The mental circle for the batting she always used was only 6", but it varies with batting type. (And I have been using my gran's quilts for YEARS and they're all still holding together just fine, even the ones where I picked out some of the ties as a child. So I trust her rules!)

So if your batting allows 10", according to my gran's rule, you'd have a tie every 10 inches in a grid across the quilt. I would consider that the minimum requirement. Sewing vertical lines every 10 inches across a quilt would be MORE than that, so I think you're set.

I've quilted quilts with W&N where I left long 8" strips unquilted down the length of the quilt and so far it's held up beautifully.

OldHairTwister

Thank you so much for the advice. As I said....just a newby but loving it! Think I am hooked

ManiacQuilter2

You can do what you want but it is advisable to heed the manufacturer's instruction. I have seen old quilts where the batting bunches up into balls. With the scrim being embedded into batting now a days, that lessens the bunching as long as you quilt within 10 inches, I would hate to see that happen to a quilt in these modern times. There is a lot of work and expense put into a quilt.

bearisgray

I think you would be fine with what you are doing.

I had one warm and natural batting I washed twice and it turned out very nicely both times.
The first washing was a planned event. One of my cats anointed it after it was washed, so that was why it got dunked the second time.

Sewnoma

Yup, that happens!! Welcome to your new addiction.