Question for any quilters out there??

[Vix1980]

Hi, hope you dont mind me joining, ive been doing dressmaking for many years now but have recently started making quilts too just for family and friends, im dying to know though how i can achieve the pattern that you usually find on quilts, for example it will all be stitched into the finished quilt in a lovely pattern.

Is this done by a machine perhaps or do you just have to be great at designing and sewing?? im not even sure what its called but have tried googling it for months and cant find anything on it, any help is much appreciated, thanks

Normally this type of quilting will be done on a machine - called a long arm quilter.

The quilt will be basted ready, loaded on and then either the machine will sew a preprogrammed pattern or the quilter will do it freehand

i think that it is called stippling or free-motion quilting

Crazymom also has a video tutorial (and a great blog)

You don't have to do it on a long arm machine, it can be done on a normal machine - we did it on our quiliting course a couple of years ago and it is quite hard but doable with practice and so long as your quilt isn't massive. You just need to be able to put your feed dogs down on your machine.

There are businesses around with long arm quilting machines who will do it for you for larger quilts but it costs a lot of money (£50+ for a cot quilt)

Do you mean the pattern like on the Crazymom video though? You can sew any pattern on to a quilt once it is basted so long as the gaps between the quilting is not too big. There are templates available and you can make your own.

Hi, yes yes, you are all brilliant! the video is exactly whati wanted to find just didnt know what to search for and its exactly what i want to achieve, id prefer the pattern in dizzyday07 video but will definatly have a try myself like the crazymom version. Im only makin a runner for my bed but really wanted to have this pattrn on it so it looks more professional.

In the second video there seems to be a unusual foot on the machine, do you know what this is called, ive been dressmaking for years and have never seen on ein the shops so im guessing its specialised to quilting?? thanks again!

One of these I think. I searched on free machine quilting foot. This is the only UK one but there are loads of others from the US (well a few more anyway!) with a better picture of the foot so it should be the right one.

Good luck!

typically they use a darning foot or free-motion embroidery foot. You probably have one already. It just gives you a clearer view of what you are doing. They vary quite a bit. The one that came with my machine is like a circle but you can get u shaped ones that would be even easier to see what you are doing (and sew your finger lol)

I have had a try but it is not easy!

I had a littleplay today and think id need a good few years practise first!! but then thought od drawing a pattern on in wash out ink and sewing it that way,i use the pens for makring on clothes for alerations etc not sure how they would take on a whole bed spread, other than that was think of printing the pattern on some stitch & tear and trying it that way, ooh il have to have a good go at it soon!

thanks for finding the foot for me, ill have a look through my sewing stuff tomorrow to see if ive got anything like it, i dont think i have tho so maybe investing in this very soon! x

I only had a little go but my quilting teacher seemed to think it was easy and she had no trouble. Perhaps it is a knack. I think you have to be a bit fearless and not go too slowly and not think about it too much which I did. Drawing on a pattern might work so long as you weren't too bothered about following the lines really closely because it isn't that important - it is meant to look random.

Perhaps you could start off just doing the borders and use an 'easier' method in the middle like quilting in the ditch or something?

I would do a patchwork quilt instead. Much more fun.

Hi, i love the amy butler free quilting designs, but on some of them she uses this pattern method so just really wanted to have a go, i think patchwork looks fab and have made some already but this runner is 1piece of material so thought to liven it up id try this, im definatly going to practise a bit more before i set my sewing machine on my silk fabric! thanks for all the help! xx