MaryKatherine

One thing that helps me when I work on large art pieces that do not receive a backing till done is to fuse a thin interfacing to the batting. This adds no weight and makes sliding the work on the sewing surface a little easier. An added bonus is if there are any bunchy spot it the interfacing can be slit and the spot flattened before you pillow case it or back and bind it.

QuiltnNan

great idea, thanks

Onebat

This Is a great idea - especially as I just came back to update that the top layer (100% linen with a light starch) is ending up half an inch back from the 100% cotton batting over a 3ft run, with all the pins pulling! Same result with and without my Janome acufeed and with foot pressure high and low

It actually looks as though it's the *linen* that's being pulled back rather than the batting. But that can't be right, can it, if it's also happening without the acufeed?

Stranger and stranger... I guess I can live with it - but definitely oing to try with interfacing first.

@Illinois - I'll be doing a little bit more quilting here and there once the backing is on to hold it in place - but it will effectively be tying - ie much more forgiving in terms of wrinkles over a large area. I hope this will mitigate wear!

Agree tying would be much easier but they are giant picture quilts and the quilt lines are part of the design - eg they give perspective, mimic tiling etc. Complicated!

SillySusan

A long time ago, I volunteered at a church quilters' bunch that made large quilts for overseas distribution. They made them using this method and only stitched at all the outside edges... about 2' deep and tied them. Fast and easy.

Rose_P

Whose idea is it to birth these? It may seem easier, but to get a good end product it's actually more work than a bound quilt, imo. I've never birthed anything bigger than a doll quilt. Try a practice one, perhaps the size of a placemat, and see if the amount of lint is noticeable. If you have a batting that doesn't produce lint and doesn't catch on the feed dogs, perhaps it's doable.

If your machine has a programmed 4-step buttonhole, you can use one end of that to make tack-down stitches at intervals all over the birthed quilt. Start in the center and work out and place them in the ditch so they don't show much on the front. This stitch pattern starts and ends with a few stitches in place to help lock it. If there's no buttonhole stitch pattern, you can use a wide zigzag and 0 length, but it's a little more tedious, or go forward and back with a straight stitch. In fact, tacking/tying would feel like a lot (hours!) of extra work to me in addition to the quilting. The easiest way would be to quilt in the usual way and bring the back to the front to bind. Here's a tutorial that explains a method that will work on any size quilt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfv1_vbrJB4

judykay

I do this a lot especially when I use decorative stitches. I have never been able to machine quilt and have it come out until I did it this way. I don't use the birthing method but after the quilting is done I lay it out on the backing and either trim and bind the traditional way or usually bring the back over the top to bind as mentioned above in another reply.

Onebat

Oh wow judykay that's so interesting. Do you have any problems with shifting or any other challenges? I'm finding that my top (linen, so pretty tricky anyway) is being pulled away from me, and dragging backwards against the stitching, and the batting is coming towards me. I improved things by removing the Acufeed foot (Janome built-in walking/dual) but the batting still isn't moving along as quickly as the top - I can't get my head round what's going on exactly, it's the opposite of what usually happens with shifting layers!

Rose_P the decision is following the design really - I'm need an extra minimal look with no border, and the pillowcase method is the only way I've seen to get that. Then, because it seemed likely to be really hard to get all three layers smooth enough to machine quilt once I'd turned it, I thought about quilting just the top and the batting first. I'm getting a really nice aesthetic in my tests - I thought it might look very flat without the back to give resistance to the stitches - but I'd like to know what's causing the shifting issue before I embark on a whole one!

grandmahoney

I have quilted the top and batting only on my last two quilts. But I have never tried the pillow case method. so I can't really tell you how it works. But I can tell you it cause a lot of lent in the bobbin area. My machine is vintage so its easy to clean and I don't have to much to worry about in that area. But with newer machine that are computerized I would recommend talking to who ever you bought your machine from to see if this method could cause problems.

psquared52

It may depend on the batting used. I have a sit down machine and tried using fabric on top and poly on the bottom. Stitch quality was awful. Ended up putting ugly fabric on bottom so it would quilt well. I am making (WIP) a mat for a 3 yr old. It will be double sided, with train tracks on one side and a roadway on the other. I’ll include a selection of matchbox vehicles with the gift. It was the only solution I could come up with.

nativetexan

Facing instead of Binding
this might help too. using the backing fabric over the front to finish it off.