Quilt in Segments for Smoother Machine Quilting
It All Starts with Making a Quilting Plan!
Whether you’re planning to do walking foot, free motion quilting, or both, it will go more smoothly if you make a quilting plan before you begin. Not only do you need to decide what the quilting pattern will be, but it also helps a great deal to map out how you’ll move across the quilt.
In an excellent article, Christa Watson explains in detail several ways to create a plan to “divide and conquer” while quilting your quilt. Her process involves breaking the quilting into sections.
According to Christa, if you’ve basted well you can quilt from one edge to the other instead of starting in the middle. Once you get to the center, rotate the quilt 180 degrees so you have less bulk as you continue to the other edge.
Depending on the quilting design, Christa may go over each section several times.
“Remember, for each pass across the quilt (ditch, echo, background, blocks) I’m working from the right side of the quilt towards the middle, rotating the quilt, and then working from the middle to the other side of the quilt. I only concentrate on one section of the quilt at a time, and reposition my hands whenever I feel like I’m reaching. By breaking down each step of the quilting plan, the whole process seems much less overwhelming.“
You’ll find a lot of great tips and quilting design ideas in Christa’s article for Diary of a Quilter (link below).
