Quiltingboard Forums - weighted textured quilt

Quote:

Originally Posted by cindyb (Post 7926271)

Have any of you used weighted quilts for charity quilts? Are they hard to make? What gives them the weight and is it washable? Maybe this would be too much for a guild project. But, what a valuable project this could be.

This quilt was only hard to make in that handling the weight was difficult for me with my limitations due to fibro and neck and shoulder issues.
I don't know the proper way to do it, but I added the weight by using extra sheets for lining instead of using batting for the layers. This quilt has 2 cotton sheets plus one flannel sheet between the pieced top and the fleece backing.
To make it easier on me, I did the outline quilting of the top to the two cotton sheets, making sure I secured around each block to help keep some of those fabrics from fraying, such as the flannel, cords and denim. I used a fancy stitch that did a zigzag to either side of center to help hold those edges. I hope that will make it washable on gentle cycle.
After quilting the top 3 layers, I then layered all 5 and quilted them together using a much sparser pattern that just holds all the layers together in enough places that it holds together as a unit, sort of like a tic-tac-toe pattern across the whole thing, and around the edges. Then I added the binding.

I have heard of some people using some kind of bead to add weight but I don't know about how that works. I think that a classroom for special needs would welcome a donation of weighted quilts as a guild project. I know my daughter is a special ed teacher and has one in her classroom, as well as I spy matching game quilts.