Quilting

[Inthehighcastle]

What do I need to buy in terms of specialist equipment for the sewing machine to do this? I have all the materials but not sure my machine will go through all the layers. Any tips welcome!

Depends how thick your wadding is! I have made quilts using a basic sewing machine and no fancy bits (!) but it can be slow going. A walking foot makes life considerably easier... Putting the section you're working on into an embroidery hoop can work too, to hold it evenly.

Thanks. It's not very thick but there's still three layers to stitch through. I'll try and get a walking foot tonight. It's a patchwork quilt so I'll only be doing straight lines but it's taken ages to get to this point so I'm scared of messing it up!

You don't need a walking foot but it is helpful. I did without in my first few quilts. Take it slow and make sure to baste with lots of safety pins!

I've ordered a walking foot. Will baste tonight if my safety pins arrive today. I've read loads of sites online so I think I know what I'm doing now with the quilting bit, finishing off the edges looks the most tricky - do you machine sew your binding or do it by hand? There's so much conflicting advice out there! I should have done something simple for my first project, this is a quilt made out of DS baby clothes so can't really just start again if I mess it up.

With such a memorable project I would hand finish the binding. To do that you first sew it on with a machine and then flip it over and hand sew down. There are great blogs and tutorials out there. I've always been a fan of Elizabeth Harman's books, her blog is called 'oh fransson' I think.

I'm self taught too and best advice I ever got is to take all the steps slowly