quilting on linen?

[Lorna B.]

My quilt guild had some purple linen and I just put it in the wash. I am hoping to use it to back a quilt. I thought preshrinking would make it useable. It may not be easy to quilt through though. We have a charity for families and children who are hospitalized and live in a house while they are in that situation. It allows the family to be close. So my first meeting I got to see the quilts that were made. Wow. Nice job. I was and still am going to make some simple minkee backed baby blankets. I hope they take them but if they don't, I am sure I will find someone who does. This linen is pretty thick. I think a thin batting and a jeans needle changed frequently might work. Jan

[wendy w.]

Sounds a good plan though I'd have used it on the front.

The baby quilts sound comforting for families in those situations. I've not used Minky yet, do you use a batting?

[wendy w.]

I suppose embroidering it would be nice. But I have a top that looks like a wild log cabin but is whole cloth. THey call it cheater cloth. It would go with the purple linen on the back and I could just quilt along the edges of the block design. It's very cheerful fabric.

On the Minkee. It sheds til you sew it. It comes in 58 or 60", so you can get two approx 30 inch by say 36" quilts out of one yard of Minkee. I sometimes have used a batting, which makes it warmer. But the easy way is to put right sides together and sew around leaving a place to turn it right side out. Then you can topstitch it closed and all the way around if you want. It is so soft. And it comes in a variety of colors and textures. I have one now that's criss crossed. And I made one out of a raised dot minkee. I stretched out the minkee on my carpet with t pins and then basted with straight pins. It was so much easier to use straight pins than the curved safety pins.

Can't wait to get some sewing in. The linen looked ok after washing and drying.

[wendy w.]

I met a lady that used Fleece on the back, and no batting. The quilts were very nice.
I read that if you put Minkee on a longarm, be sure to put the direction of most stretch side to side. That way you don't get it stretching as much. As I have a longarm machine, I've been thinking about putting the top on the back bars, and floating the Minkee on the top, that way I could use my glide foot and it shouldn't stretch at all. You couldn't use this idea if the top needed to have specific quilting lines, but if it was an all over edge to edge design it seems like it would work.
So, that being said, maybe you would get less distortion on a domestic machine if you could do it 'upside down'.
Hope things go well for you, whichever way you decide to finish it off.
May God bless the work of your hands,
Luann

[wendy w.]

Would love to hear about using Minkee on a longarm. If it works I might be tempted to send a quilt out to be longarm quilted with minkee on the back. Big girls have admired my baby blankets, and I said have a baby and I'll make you one. But that may not be in the cards though I pray my niece finds someone really great to marry I hope. What do you mean about an edge to edge design. God bless you also!

[wendy w.]

Jan,
I will let you know if I decide to try it. Edge to edge, (E2E) designs are achieved by using a pantograph or, in my case my computer. It really just means NOT putting different designs in each block, also it is NOT quilting the borders different than the central portion of your top. i just finished doing some table runners that were a size I could do the entire piece with the machine going just once from side to side. I have a Fusion so it's a nice large open area for quilting. I planned the design by finding a block pattern I liked, resized it to fit my space,and repeated it across.


If you have more questions, just ask me. I'm in South Carolina and I am accepting clients pieces by mail. But at the moment, I will pass on the Minkee backs until I'm comfortable with the results. But, soon?!
Luann

[Dawn S.]

Jan, I have heard that using Minkee on a longarm, can be a nightmare, due to the stretch of the fabric. I made two t-shirt quilts for a friend who requested Minkee on the backside, but with a lot of basting, I had great success FMQing them on my domestic machine.

Dawn

[Nancy R.]

I also follow a professional longarm quilting Web site and they quilt with Minky on the back all the time. It quilts up beautifully! As Luann says, you need to load it so that the stretch is perpendicular to the rollers. You also need to reduce the tension on the back. The only real problem with quilting on Minky is all of the fluff on the cut edges. But you can reduce that by putting the Minky in the dryer after cutting it and emptying the lint filter FREQUENTLY. I've used it for the backing on quilts quilted on my domestic machine several times and think it turns out lovely. When basting for the domestic, also be careful not to stretch the Minky.

[Nancy R.]

Nancy,
Would you share the website address that you are following?. I'm always open to learning from others and it may be a site I haven't gotten to yet. Thanks
Luann

[Nancy R.]

It's Machine Quilters Resource mqresource.com. You can learn a LOT there.

[Nancy R.]

Thanks for the info

[Nancy R.]

When I did my last minky backed quilts I didn't pay attention to the stretch when basting. I rushed them for a birthday party for the neighbors 2 boys. But I do remember stretching the minkee on my carpet with T pins probably with the stretchy grain being what I stretched across from right to left. Ooh a new thought: Does the Minky wash without shrinking? Thanks for the info, Nancy. I remember when you referred me to the Youtube video on how to use foam insulation to make my dining room table the same height as the machine stitching surface. It enabled me to sew 75x75" quilts that would have been so much harder to free motion without that support. I think it was u because who could forget your cutie pie dog in the snow.

[Nancy R.]

Hi Jan -

I don't remember that video so it probably wasn't me, but we've definitely communicated about a lot of things through the years. Minky does wash without shrinking. It's polyester. However, if you are using the textured Minky, you can lose the texture when you wash so I would test that before washing.

[Nancy R.]

That's great that it doesn't shrink. I should have bought some today at Joann's while I had coupons.

[Jennifer D.]

This video sounds very interesting...any chance you remember the link? Always looking for ways to make quilting with my domestic easier :silly: