Help with "pillowing"
 

Hey, everyone! This is my first post and it is a question if you guys don't mind...

My 2 year old is moving to her first big girl bed so I am making a quilt for her. She picked the fabric and the shape! But since I didn't have much time, I chose to use jelly rolls. This is my first jelly roll quilt and I am having some issues with "pillowing" as someone pointed out to me. Especially in the heart part... Is there a way to fix this? Why is it doing this?

Also, is there a good way to square this up? Any tricks? I know the bottom 2 rows are too dark, they are coming off...

Thanks everyone!

I would block it, especially since you haven't squared it up yet. Spritz some water on it, just enough to make it damp, and work out the wrinkles as best you can with your hands. Get it as squared and straight as you can, then stick rust-proof pins in the corners and edges through to the carpet and let dry. Then square the top.

p.s. I'd leave the bottom 2 rows on, I think they're fine! Or, remove the bottom row and attach it to the top. That will help balance it and I don't think ANYONE will notice the darkness at all. :thumbup:

eta: just realized you asked for help in squaring. Here's how I do mine, for the most part. I take a square 12.5" ruler, align it at each corner, and trim all corners first. Then I get my 36" long architect's ruler, fold the quilt in half (making sure to match the trimmed corners carefully), align the ruler with the cuts I just made, and trim the centers of the quilt.

What I would do is figure out which blocks are too big and causing the bulk, and take their seams in just a hair. You may not even have to do all of them to fix the problem.

Your quilt is ADORABLE and the bottom rows look fine. I wouldn't change them. They give it personality.

I haven't heard the term "pillowing", but I'm guessing you're referring to the stretched out fabric. Usually that's caused by one of 3 things:
Fabric isn't cut on on straight of grain.
Fabric is stretched during sewing
Seams are not consistent size

If it's a pre-cut, one would hope it's cut on the straight of grain, but it isn't always. If you catch it before you start sewing, you might see about exchanging it.

To prevent stretching, I heavily starch my fabrics before I start sewing. Sizing also works well.

To get a consistent seam, you can use a seam guide, a 1/4" (patchwork) foot, or a piece of tape on your machine bed to mark 1/4".

At this point, I'd suggest trying to press (NOT iron) the top with a lot of starch or sizing. It won't be perfect, but it might be good enough. To square it up, after pressing, fold it in half left to right (making sure the fold lines up with the center of the heart) and cut the 2 edges; then fold in half the other direction & do the same.

PS- I think the darker rows give a nice ground for the quilt. Maybe live with them overnight & see if they still bug you. Sometimes we can be our own harshest critics.

This is a great quilt. Your daughter will just love it. The white is pillowing because it was cut on the WOF and has a lot of stretch in it. Peckish has a brilliant idea to follow to fix it. In addition, I would use a thin, all cotton batting, like dream cotton "request". Then after quilting your quilt, I would wash it so it will wrinkle up like an antique quilt, making any remaining pillowing look natural. Work hard not to quilt any pleats into it....but remember your little girl will love it no matter what.

most of the 'pillowing' can be drawn up with the quilting later... the denser the quilting, the more it will draw up

I would lay it out flat, wrong side up, and mark seams where excess fabric is causing "pillowing". Take to sewing machine and just sew over existing seams except making the seam a little bigger in the areas of excess fabric. No need to rip out any seams as none of this extra stitching will show later. I would do this before starching and ironing, or blocking, to minimize the amount of excess fabric.

The likely cause is that the white strips were cut a bit off-grain, resulting in slightly bias edges that stretched when you sewed the strips. Spray starching the strips before sewing would have stabilized them and prevented this; however, spray starching precuts can create a different problem if the strips shrink. With this kind of pattern shrinkage would not have mattered, so it would have been preferable to starch before sewing.

Some of the excess will "quilt out", but it's best to minimize the excess as much as possible.

thank you all, I appreciate the suggestions and encouragement!

That's a beautiful quilt !! I didn't know what pillowing was until now.

I am sure that is not the "technical" name of it, but that was what someone else called it. Who knew!