Quilting

I made small ones years ago but never managed to finish a full sized one. I think they can be beautiful though and wish i had the patience.

I've made a couple of small ones over the years. I love some of the old ones I've bought at auction - I can imagine how warm they kept generations. One of the other forums I visit has a few people who make some absolutely stunning ones. The craftmanship is extraordinary. I enjoy working on them, but living with lively dogs is not conducive to working with scraps of fabric. I've been reading about people with quilt walls (for looking at fabric layout) which sounds really intriguing.

Someday perhaps I will find out how this is done...for the moment..I havent a clue..dang city gals.
I am however looking for a quilt

Vivien
They sure are beautiful :-)

Beth
Wow! I'd love to have a quilt wall :-D I'm planning on taking quilting classes some day, so I know the ins and outs. I've seen some work that is breathtaking and I want to learn how to do that. I will do mine by machine since I can't see myself doing it by hand. I've finished the top of my quilt and so far, so good. Now putting it all together with the batting is going to be a task I'm sure.

Quinn
Good luck in finding your quilt. They have such beautiful ones these days at reasonable prices. It's actually costing me more to make one than it would to buy one, LOL! Good thing I'm doing it for the love of the craft because I'd starve :-D

errrrrrrrr, don't mention using a machine if you get into the quilting forums on-line. most of them refer to machine work as either patchwork or piecing, but not quilting. They can be just as political as any interest group you can imagine.

Perhaps do a small piece with hand-stitching, you'll really have an amazing piece of art. And you can definitely make a hand-pieced quilt for less than you can buy one. A good hand-pieced quilt can be in excess of $5,000.00. Easily.

Wow! I guess I better be careful who I tell about my machine quilting. I could never have the patience to do one by hand though.

5K? my god woman...for black cats to sleep on all day...Im thinking find a cheap cheap cheap one.

LOL Quinn. Yeah, so hand stitched ones are way up there, but it also takes them forever to make them, which is not my cup of tea.

Go for the machine made ;-)

Yeah, I get the whole labor and reward thing....I however would rather learn how to and get going on dong it myself at that price

It really is amazing to do a small, hand-stitched piece. Buy a big, machine-made one from Target for the cats. Actually, I think the best ones (for the prices) I've seen, in the machine-made category, in the U.S., were at Sears and T.J. Maxx.

hmmmmm. i couldn't have qualified that opinion much more.

Yeah, I was thinking that if the dang cats are going to end up sleeping on it, I bet theres some decent cheap ones...Ill just keep looking

I bought a rotary cutter and learned how to use it for the purpose of making machine-stitched quilts. I made my first small one this summer, and though it came out OK, I was surprised at how many mistakes I made because my pieces weren't sewn together precisely enough.

It takes a lot of concentration to makes clothes, which I've been doing since I was a teenager, but making quilts is a whole different level! And it takes so LONG to get the whole thing put together!

Patience, and a calm, meditativw frame of mind are needed, things which don't come easily to me!

Quinn
Sears does have a nice selection.

Dream
I gathered supplies here and there for about a year, so I have everything I need, but you're sooo right about having to have lots of patience. I think my least favorite part of it is the cutting and constant ironing. The one I'm doing is fairly large and I just hope I can fit it in my machine to put it all together. If not there's a woman around here somewhere that one of my aunts know that puts the finished pieces together, so either way I'll be all set. I'd still like to do the whole thing myself though. How big was the one you made?

It's only 36" X 36", but a lot of little pieces,(a Checkerboard in the center), surrounded by complicated patterns which took me a while to figure out. I followed the directions given, step-by-step, but mastering the use of the rotary cutter and all ther strange shapes to sew and iron out took me some trial and error. Now I've got the whole thing sewn together, but the machine quilting is difficult, too. I started from the outside and am working my way in, and I'm 1/2 done.

During the quilting is where I'm noticing all of my mistakes. Yikes!! So many things that should have lined up and are just a few centimeters off!

Montana: the rotary cutter with the cutting board and ruler makes the cutting very fast and much more accurate, once you get the hang of it. But it takes practice!

That sounds like it's going to be nice. I know I made my mistakes as well, but the way I see it is that no one is going to go up to it as close as we are getting and scope it out. If it looks good from a short distance, then I'm happy for the first one. Of course I will do my best to improve as I go along. I do have the rotary cutter, cutting board, and several different rulers, so I'm all set there. With my first quilt I'm just doing 5" squares, so it wasn't that difficult to piece together. For my next one I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet. I have some quilting books with nice patterns that I might try, or I'll just do one more square one just until I get comfortable enough to expand my horizons. If you have a digital camera, I'd love to see a picture of your quilt when you're done.

they all sound lovely and I'd love to see photos

It was hand stitching that i did - that's why i ran out of patience and didn't compete the big one, just made small items. You tack the material round paper templates in diamonds or six sided shapes whatever. Hexagons isn't it? anyway that's what i tried. Then you oversew them together - it takes FOREVER.

I've seen some really beautiful hand made 'picture' quilts with free stitching and random sort of patches and colours, made to hang on walls. I would love to have a go at that some time.

When?????? there aren't enough hours in the day!

LOL Vivien. I can't picture myself doing one by hand. Just though thought of it is exausting ;-)

Ha! I'm back to work (I'm a teacher) so the quilt is sitting there, waiting for me. In the meantime, i made my daughter a Grim Reaper costume for Halloween out of this nasty polyester stuff which is horrible to work with, but flows nicely on the body as a costume. Digital camera? I don't have one, but maybe by the time I finish my little quilt I will.