Straight line quilting okay for this??

[Susan B.]

I'm finishing up my son's comic strip quilt and it is a doozy. I am beyond thrilled with it --- it's my own design, and I drew it in EQ7, and it actually looks like the picture!!! whee! That is a fun feeling.





anyway, top is done (although photo of top, below, is before the pieced border went on) and I'm thinking through how to quilt it. I am very much NOT GOOD at FMQ yet; I've only had my machine since August, and I've only quilted 2 things on it so far --- a baby quilt and a Christmas tree skirt (that didn't have a batting layer); both of those I did diagonal straight lines in both directions. Easy peasy, done done.

I want something a little more.....cool....for my son. Not just straight lines. He's 15, it's a full sized quilt (for a full sized bed; it's 82" x 92" with the borders on, but will shrink a smidge when I quilt/square/bind), and it needs to be cool looking but NOT detract from the comics in the center --- the comics are his own drawings, printed on printable fabric, and the rest of the quilt was designed around those.

I have gray or red to quilt it with. My thought was to ditch stitch down the seams between sections (vertical), and across a few of the seams horizontally to stabilize, and maybe around the border seam, then for the red, do straight lines that follow the path of the red. So, straight, pivot, straight, pivot, etc. and repeat that a few times within the width of the red fabric. In red thread. Just going for texture here, not showing-up quilting.

Then I thought in the black and white sections I could do sort of an improvised design, what I'm terming a straight line meander. So, shorter straight lines, with straight, pivot, over, pivot back on itself, pivot, etc. I draw it on paper all the time, but not sure how to replicate here in type Sort of maze-y in effect, and taking the width of each section as the "field" to fill in. Or rather, the width of one block at a time (the blocks are oversized rail fence, so each block is a 12" square), but down the length of the whole quilt.

Am I crazy???? I know it will be a LOT Of awkward pivoting and turning and hard to wrestle a big ole quilt twisty and turny like that through my home machine. But I think regular straight lines will look.....not right....when they cross over the lines of the opposite direciton in the fabric. If I do all vertical or all horizontal, I think it will look odd. Won't it? Plus, I'd rather get this RIGHT than feel like I took an easy out. My very first quilt, a family member quilted and talked me into a panto which is not what I wanted. It's fine, we just use it for the couch, but I sometimes look at it and wish I'd quilted it how I wanted to (though 'twould have been crazy impossible back then, as I had no machine even). I don't want regrets like that with this quilt.

What do you ladies think? If it helps, the design I want to do is also in one of the fabrics used in the border, which I think makes it fairly cool. I AM open to ideas/suggestions, though, which is why I'm asking. If there's an easier way to make it look really good, I'm all ears!

[Margo C.]

Heather, your quilt looks GREAT and I really like your ideas for quilting, but think that you would probably get very frustrated with all the pivoting with a quilt that size on your domestic machine. Free motion quilting really would be easier! It may be time to make a small practice quilt sandwich to try your straight lines and pivots. After you have filled a small sandwich (maybe 24" x 24"?) with lines and pivots (WITHOUT TURNING THE SANDWICH!) I'm pretty sure you will be confident enough to tackle the big quilt!

Good luck!

[Margo C.]

Heather, your quilt looks GREAT and I really like your ideas for quilting, but think that you would probably get very frustrated with all the pivoting with a quilt that size on your domestic machine. Free motion quilting really would be easier! It may be time to make a small practice quilt sandwich to try your straight lines and pivots. After you have filled a small sandwich (maybe 24" x 24"?) with lines and pivots (WITHOUT TURNING THE SANDWICH!) I'm pretty sure you will be confident enough to tackle the big quilt!

Good luck!

Oh!! so, use FMQ foot/feed dogs down, but do straight lines and not turn the sandwich???? *that* might just be brilliant. I did do a squiggly loopy thing FMQ and it was.....okay. But straight and such might be even easier than loopy squiggly stuff.

Hmmm. I have cheapo fabric for practicing, I think I'll do just that and see how it works. If I can manage (and definitely I don't care if the straight lines are a little bit not straight), that will be excellent! So glad I asked!

I really cannot wait for my skill level to catch up with my imagination

[Margo C.]

Also --- in the comic squares themselves, okay to just frame them in beige/cream, but not quilt over the printed portion itself? I could use the FMQ foot for that too just to sort of frame them out and stabilize each square (the printed portion is 5x7, the cream/beige fabric is an 8.5" square). Would that be stable enough for the quilt? Or, well, looking at it, probably I'll do gray there to further pop/outline the blocks....or maybe even red......!

thoughts on that?

[Rita C.]

Hi Heather, your quilt looks great! I am wondering what kind of batting you are using? The kind of batting determines how close you will need to do the quilting. IMHO the grey thread would be what I would use - probably all over the quilt. I also think that there is a lot going on in the fabrics and I would therefore be more inclined to do an all over design. If you are worried about FMQ then you could use the walking foot and do straight lines or even wavy lines (your machine probably has a kind of serpentine stitch). Ideally you should stitch in the ditch ESS (every stinkin' seam - as Cindy Needham says). Did you watch the programme with Jacquie Gering? She just does straight line quilting and it is very effective and it is all done with the walking foot rather than in FMQ. It takes a lot of FMQ to feel comfortable when quilting a big quilt so if you do decide to do it you will need to do lots of practice first.

[Rita C.]

Hi Heather, your quilt looks great! I am wondering what kind of batting you are using? The kind of batting determines how close you will need to do the quilting. IMHO the grey thread would be what I would use - probably all over the quilt. I also think that there is a lot going on in the fabrics and I would therefore be more inclined to do an all over design. If you are worried about FMQ then you could use the walking foot and do straight lines or even wavy lines (your machine probably has a kind of serpentine stitch). Ideally you should stitch in the ditch ESS (every stinkin' seam - as Cindy Needham says). Did you watch the programme with Jacquie Gering? She just does straight line quilting and it is very effective and it is all done with the walking foot rather than in FMQ. It takes a lot of FMQ to feel comfortable when quilting a big quilt so if you do decide to do it you will need to do lots of practice first.

Hi Rita! I really have no idea what kind of batting it is. I have three choices here --- a probably polyester (labeled as acrylic) batting that is stiff on one side; the same thing, but stiff on both sides, or a cotton one that is not stiff on any side. It is not a high loft batting but I have no idea anything else about it; there's no label and it was cut from a roll at the LQS here.

I was wondering about busy quilting amongst the busy fabrics; I was thinking the "straight line meander" as I'm calling it would be more like an all-over design, even though straight lines.

Which series is Jacquie Gerling in? I'm only basic member, but have a few of the series on DVD......Can a basic member *buy* access to one single show on TQS?

I will do the practice piece that Margo suggested and maybe come back and post pictures; that will give an idea for you ladies to see what I'm envisioning and if it will look good on the quilt. I can even make my practice a quick rail fence so that it mimics the quilt itself, though I don't have those same fabrics leftover. Hmmm.....that's a good idea......maybe do a rail fence like the quilt, and in one half do the all over thing I'm thinking, and in the other half do straight/wavy lines.......then I can practice more as needed.

Lots to think about! Thanks for chiming in! I definitely want the comic strips to be the focal point of the quilt, so don't want the quilting to detract from that. and the fabrics and the back are all so busy you won't see the quilting, other than as the texture.

[Lotti D.]

heather, great ideas all around - love the quilt - so special.
another idea taking the comics panels into consideration: i've always loved the old batman & robin tv-show - you might have seen the old reruns from the 60's i think they were - real live people - but whenever they get into a fight with catwoman, the joker, whoever - there are these huge stars, bubbles and clouds with BANG! Boom! Kaboom! etc. written inside them that appear all over the fight-scene... just like in the old comic books. i think an adaption of this (suited to your son's - or taken from your son's comics) could be great fun for quilting a "comics-quilt"

[Rita C.]

Heather the Jacquie Gering show is ep. 1202. I don't know anything about how the different memberships work so I can't help you there, sorry.

[Rita C.]

thanks! I'll look it up!

[Margo C.]

First of all, try to contact the shop where you bought the batting and see if they have any info about it. Fiber content? Distance apart the quilting needs to be??

As for thread color, I am a proponent of monofiliment thread any where I don't want the thread to be obvious.

If I were to quilt this project on my domestic sewing machine, I would layer the sandwich and pin baste it about every 4"-5", then use a walking foot to stabilize the vertical and horizontal seams by stitching "in the ditch" between all of the blocks. If you place your safety pins away from those seam lines, it will make it quicker to stitch!

After it is stabilized, I would start the free-motion work and do the geometric blocks first. That will determine the density that you will need to maintain in the comic strip blocks. When you get to those blocks, you can either free-motion quilt along the designs that your son drew which would make the design have some definite dimension, or you can just do some kind of a fill and stitch right over the drawings. Free motion cross-hatching or clam shells would work just fine. But I would definitely use a monofiliment thread on those blocks no matter how I did the quilting.



Just remember to keep the DENSITY of your quilting the same all over your quilt.

Hope that helps, Heather, and I look forward to watching your progress!

[Margo C.]

I have never seen monofillament thread available here, but I think the gray will blend nicely enough through the rest. I don't mind if it shows up some, I just don't want to do, say, red all over and compete with the comics for attention.

Good tip to keep the density the same all over. I don't think I'll try to FMQ over his designs; I've tried following drawn lines and am just not good at it. I would need a LOT more practice. Well, maybe I could do some; his drawings are of a volcano/mountain, so I could at least do the straight lines, and maybe the grids in the places where I put more than one comic on one sheet.

I hand-quilted something with that clamshell design once; it really makes a beautiful texture. When I hand did it (on a small project) I used a thick, stiff felt thing such as you put on the bottoms of chair legs as my guide and quilted around that; is it possible to maybe tape a guide type thing to my quilt and use it to guide my FMQ foot???

My biggest problem with the FMQ is speed control; my machine doesn't have speed control, so it's all in how I work the foot pedal. I guess practice is the only answer there, for keeping my machine speed and the speed I move the fabric through balanced out so that I get even stitches......I wonder, does it show up less with a smaller stitch length, or longer??? gosh, I have so much to learn.....

so glad I have you guys! (err, gals! ladies! whatever, you know what I mean!!)

[Margo C.]

Heather, I wouldn't try to use the felt thing as a guide for stitching 'cause if it got under your presser foot it could be a bear to unsew! :shock:
But...you certainly could use it as a guide for drawing your clamshells before you stitch!
Plain old school chalk works well for marking designs and is easy to get off. Just use a hand-held pencil sharpener to make a nice point.
Use a light hand, 'cause the chalk will break with too much pressure.

And yes! PRACTICE, Practice, practice will make your free motion quilting better!

[Lois B.]

Heather, Great to see your quilt. I think it's so fun. Love your ideas. This quote really makes me smile.

"I really cannot wait for my skill level to catch up with my imagination."

Good luck with that. I've been working toward that for years and my imagination tends to continue to outdistance the skills. Always drawn to something I cannot quite yet manage. I got tired of just practicing and went to work on some FMQ projects that really mattered to me even before I was confident in my skills. I believed that helped me improve at a greater rate. Jacquie Gering uses masking tape to guide straight stitching. Of course, just like the felt it would be tough getting out if you stitched on it. I would go for doing the straight stitching using FMQ and be happy with "perfectly imperfect" lines. You'll do fine. Caring so much about the project will boost your skill. Good luck!

[Lois B.]

Beautiful quilt Heather! Your ideas for quilting it sound really cool.

Yes you can purchase individual shows but, before you do that, check the e-mail I sent you. Hope it helps.

[Lois B.]

Heather, Great to see your quilt. I think it's so fun. Love your ideas. This quote really makes me smile.

"I really cannot wait for my skill level to catch up with my imagination."

Good luck with that. I've been working toward that for years and my imagination tends to continue to outdistance the skills. Always drawn to something I cannot quite yet manage. I got tired of just practicing and went to work on some FMQ projects that really mattered to me even before I was confident in my skills. I believed that helped me improve at a greater rate. Jacquie Gering uses masking tape to guide straight stitching. Of course, just like the felt it would be tough getting out if you stitched on it. I would go for doing the straight stitching using FMQ and be happy with "perfectly imperfect" lines. You'll do fine. Caring so much about the project will boost your skill. Good luck!

Lois, what you say is so true.

I have used painter's tape to guide straight lines; that works beautifully as a visual guide! Of course, that was with my walking foot, not my free motion foot....

I have done some small areas of FMQ; I did little hearts (sort of) in the diamonds of the baby quilt I made; they are wobbly and very imperfect, but the recipient won't notice and I am okay with that. Perfectly imperfect.....like the sound of that! You are quite an encouragement to me; thank you. Well, that goes for all of you!!