I know, another border question :roll: Here's the situation: I have the interior of the sandwich pinned and the borders are unsecured. I am wondering if I secure these also at this point. If so, would hand basting the borders within the seam allowance work? I'll be machine quilting (crib size) on my sewing machine.

It's my understanding that I quilt the interior from the center out first and then do the borders. I'm not sure if this is correct. I had originally planned to stitch in the ditch due to time constraints. Unfortunately, I missed my deadline and now time is not so much an issue and I would like to try my hand at stippling the quilt.

So, do I do the center and the borders last?

TIA,
Cindy

I was taught that if you are hand quiltlng you always start in the center and work your way out. Machine quilting is different. You need to pin baste your entire quilt, including the borders, before you begin to quilt. If not, the borders may end up shifting some and make the quilt not lay flat when you are finished. If you are machine stippling, then you can just start in an upper corner and stipple back and forth across the width of the quilt, just like if it was on a long arm machine. Hope this helps.

Thanks Marcia!

I machine quilt and I start in the middle of the quilt unless it is a baby quilt.

DD

I pin baste the whole thing (including borders), but then start quilting by working around all the large sections first. This secures each section of the quilt, then you can start to do whatever it is you want to do within each section. Make sense?

I pin baste the entire quilt then work from the inside going out towards the borders. When I am done I check the pin basting on the borders making sure they are still in alignment. If so, then away I go.
Hope this helps.
K

Thanks Everyone!

If you plan to machine quilt in the ditch around each block, then do this first making a grid over the entire quilt. By doing this, there will be less shifting of the layers. This will really stabilize your quilt and you have less of a problem (pleats) on the backing side. Then you can machine quilt in each of the blocks and can start in the corner if you like.

Suz

Suz: That's a good plan. Thanks for responding.

Cindy