I have been working on a round bargello quilt since last March. I used a template and borders to make it queen + bed size. I moved the furniture and laid it out on my living room floor layering it into the quilt sandwich yesterday. I used tons of quliters safety pins to put it together. My thought is to hand quilt the round center....and machine quilt the rest. Has anyone done this and do you have any tips?

I'm still very new to quilting and this was a overly ambitious project..although I've learned a lot from it. I don't want to end up with wrinkles on the back . Any thoughts, suggestions, etc. would be appreciated.

Happy New Year to you all.

brenda,
i would sure love to see a picture of your quilt. sounds amazing.
i am not the best one to give quilting advice but when you were describing how you want to quilt it i was picturing the process. seems like you might want to check the back fairly often and plan to repin as needed to avoid wrinkles.
others are much more experienced with the quilting part than i. i'm sure you will get some good advice here.

Combining hand and machine quilting? Sure, I do it all the time. Boring, straight ditch stitching gets machined, and then I get to the fun stuff once the quilt is stable. I'm sure there are some who would do it opposite. Whatever works!

Sounds pretty!

Sure! Just try to keep the overall density that same - if you quilt closely in one area, do the same over the rest of it. Quilting causes a quilt to shrink up - the more you quilt, the more it puckers. This is not a problem unless you quilt heavily in one area and not so much in another.

Thanks for the advice. Now that I'm this far, I'm "waiting for inspiration" on how I want/need to hand quilt the round center. My husband has offered to build a frame for my quilt hoop to make it a little easier to handle....this thing is big.

I'm wondering if I should try to baste it with stitches so that it is more stable when I move the pins around???? I really am a newby........

I'll try to post a picture in the near future. (I don't know how to do it so will have to go back in the archives to get directions.)

Thanks.... It was a pretty crazy thing for a brand new quilter to start...I had no idea what I was getting into. I'm really proud of the way it looks. I will do my best to figure out how to post a picture.

Actually, we'd like to see a picture now AND when it is quilted :D :D :D

A round bargello? I'm drooling! I've done several bargellos but haven't tried a round one before.

I mix hand and machine quilting all the time. However, I think before I would ever consider hand quilting a bargello, it would first have to be a quilt I plan to keep as an heirloom quilt. If you are like me and your pieces are all between a quarter inch and two and a half inches, I would suggest you machine quilt it and save yourself a lot of frustration and sore fingers. If you have make a bargello with the larger pieces, you may have more seams than a normal quilt but it should still be possible to hand quilt it. That said, my best advice is to go with what you will be happy with.

I'm with the other ladies. I can't wait to see a picture!!
~Tiffany

Just a thought here, but if you are going to hand quilt, I think I would save myself the weight of the safety pins and thread baste. If you are using a lap hoop and the quilt is really big, those pins add a lot of weight.

If you are new to hand quilting, make sure your quilt isn't tight as a drum in your hoop. You need enough give so that you can rock your needle without breaking or bending it. I usually push the center down with my hand before the outer hoop goes on to make sure that its flexible.

I taught myself to hand quilt and that was one tip I wish someone gave me right off. I bent and broke so many needles that it wasn't funny.

Good luck, Helen

I'm with thread basting, too - when using a frame, safety pins seem to get in the way.