Storing quilt tops
 

Hey All!

i need some advice: I do not have a sewing room (it's the dining room table after kiddos go to bed) I am not able to have a place to lay my quilt tops as I finish piecing them. Sometimes they are stored for a few days or a week depending on when I can work on them and finally get to quilting them. The problem is I have been folding them as carefully as I can and placing them on a shelf but each time, they are wrinkled! I choose not to wash my fabric but don't know how to store them if I am low on space and time without getting wrinkles.

Is this the only way to do it and just keep pressing it every so often? I feel that because I have to do that, the fabric starts to stretch ever so slightly...

Any suggestions of different temporary storage would be great. Thanks!

Well....I "store" my quilt tops by hanging them on a free wall with painter's tape, because - like you - I don't have an actual sewing room and generally not much space. No wrinkles that way (and no additional pressing either! :D)!

I hang my quilts on a skirt hanger. I gently fold in half and use the clips to hang the quilt from!

Hugs

Caroline

I hang mine on one of those thick clothes hanger, like you would hang jeans or pants on. I just fold in half, then fold again, however many folds it takes to make it fit inside the hanger. There is minimal wrinkling. And sometimes mine hang for several months. I tend to piece a lot, then go to the long arm for several weeks. I get wrinkling no matter how nice I try to fold them if I don't hang them. I haven't tried the starching bit to keep them from wrinkling.

Sometimes you can come across one of the tubes from the inside of batting or the decorator fabrics. Then just roll up your quilt on that and store. Good luck

I use bedspread hangers. Some people use the pool noodles covered with muslin.

You could also ask your local quilt/fabric store for some of the empty bolt boards (the cardboards that the fabric is rolled onto) and roll them onto those.
If fabric is folded I don't see any way you'll avoid *some* wrinkles.

Joann Fabrics lets me have the large, long cardboard tubes that upholstery fabric is sold on. Just roll the tops on the tube.

Leah Day uses pool noodles that have been covered in fabric to store her completed quilts...should work for a quilt top just as well! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmmCmYciURQ is a youtube video of her storage system!

If you are only storing them a short while, you should be able to give them a good press before you baste. Wow, I should have that problem of storing mine for a week or month! I think I have about 4 tote boxes of quilt tops waiting to be quilted - I always press them and they are fine for basting.

I put a few pieces of tissue down the middle of the quilt top, then fold and store on a shelf. The tissue seems to really help with wrinkles.

That's what I do.

I almost always give the quilt tops a quick press before I long arm them. It makes my job easier. I have 2 ironing boards I abut end to end for a long pressing surface. I also have a Euro Steam iron that NEVER spits and I can control the steam output limitlessly. The iron surface does not have a heating feature other than what comes from the steam.

We have an open stairway with a railing upstairs. Mine lay over that railing!

I hang my tops that have not been quilted this way too in a closet.

I have many pieced waiting to be quilted...they are folded with their binding fabric piece or some are stripped already, tucked in the fold.....in a bin....when I am ready to L/A or h/q, I will take out, iron, put up and go! If there is a special backing fab I want with it that too gets tucked in with it....or else I will back with good muslin.......