Hand Quilter's Tips

-

I've finished the appliquéd top of my first 2022 project. Now I've moved on to the hand quilting stage.  

For earlier hand quilted projects, I used a needle punched cotton batting which I felt was easy to work with since it is fairly thin. "Needle punched" means that the cotton has been treated with a stabilizer called "scrim" and then it is poked with needles. This makes it stable and dense, not layered or fluffy, and the batting is more durable. However, I found that sometimes little wisps of white appeared on the surface top where the needle pierced the fabric. This is called "bearding." 

I wasn't sure why it was happening until a guest speaker from Hobbs Batting gave a talk to our guild. It turns out that, unless your needle is going through the batting in the same direction as the needle punch did in manufacturing, you are liable to catch little balls of the scrimmed batting when pulling the thread to the surface. 

It was suggested that a second layer of another kind of batting be used to prevent this. I was skeptical, but decided to try it on this quilt. And I'm happy to report it works beautifully. First came the backing fabric, second was a layer of cotton batting, then a layer of unneedled wool batting, followed by my quilt top. The extra layer makes it a bit more cumbersome, but there are no signs of bearding, . . . yeah!!!

I've reached one of the edges now and that can be a problem when using a hoop. As you can see, it's not very stable; the fabric and batting can shift, or the edge can sag and stretch.

Extend the quilt to fit the hoop by basting an extra strip of fabric to the edge through all the layers. Then the quilt can be pulled taught in the hoop. I save and repurpose old bed linens for lots of things, (including knit blocking and ironing fragile fabrics) so, rather than damage good cotton, I grabbed some sheet scraps that work great and can be used over and over:




 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

The Huntington- Galleries (3 of 3)

-
Image
If you're not into gardens, or there's just so much sun you can tolerate, there are plenty of indoor galleries to visit at our destination spot. After all we're talking about The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. ( https://huntington.org/ ) The gallery exhibits cover a wide range of art movements, styles, and periods. (In fact this would be a great place to study millinery designs for women's hats. LOL)  This vast collection is not exclusively one of painting.  Many art forms and disciplines are represented. And it's really interesting to have divergent styles to compare and contrast in one visit. We happily stumbled on the American Art Galleries. Walking into this room felt like coming home, with it's nod to American quilts and textiles.   This yarn sewn rug attributed to Hannah Rosina Maynard Phillips stood out to me. Loved the rich colors and the intricate floral design.  Contrast Hannah's piece with this one by artist Cai Guo-Qiang a
Read more
-
Ability to be Creative Ability , ( noun )- aptitude, intelligence, innate qualities, powers, potency, talent, capability, competence, proficiency, knowledge, technique, craft, skill, dexterity, artistry, facility, mastery, experience,understanding, faculty This is a partial listing of the synonyms for the word "ability" in Webster's New World Thesaurus . It seems to me that these words can be divided into two categories. The first category would be nouns which people generally think of as qualities that come naturally to the individual-  "innate qualities" . I propose that everyone has intelligence, capability, dexterity, even artistry, though some might say people possess them in varying degrees, and in different combinations. But isn't that called "individuality"? Now consider the second group of words. These are nouns that can be acquired: knowledge, experience, technique, skills, mastery . These are things you have with practice !
Read more

The Huntington- Textures & Colors (2 of 3)

-
Image
  There is so much to visually take in when you're surrounded by the natural beauty at The Huntington! Whether you soak in the vibrant colors and incredible textures of the many floral species, . . .  Or you pull back to absorb the magnificent collective textures created in the various themed gardens like the bamboo forest: or the cactus garden: There are also subtle color palettes created in garden displays that include a variety of plants: And then there are the man made textures that are thoughtfully scattered throughout the gardens: Plenty of inspiration for, say, quilt textures, and color choices; even shapes and design elements to borrow for future projects.
Read more