What is Squaring Up a Quilt?
Squaring Up a Quilt, is the process of making sure your quilt has 90 degree corners, borders are straight and flat and the length of the parallel sides match the length in the middle of the quilt. This process is done at the time you complete the quilt top and again after the quilting is completed to see if the quilting has distorted your quilt top. The quilting can distort the quilt top if the density in the middle of the quilt is different than the edges or borders. This technique is important to insure a flat quilt that will hang or lay flat.
Benefits of Squaring Up a Quilt
- Squaring up Your Quilt insures you have a flat quilt top.
- Squaring up Your Quilt is important if you are having your quilt top quilted on a long arm machine.
- Squaring up your quilt is important for competitions. If the sides of the quilt are longer than the middle of the quilt they will have a slight wave or "potato chip edge".
Tools and Supplies for Squaring Up a Quilt
- Rulers, rotary cutter, self healing mat
- Quilting density needs to be consistent across the quilt.
What I Wished I Knew When I Started Squaring Up a Quilt
Accurate cutting and sewing of your quilt blocks makes the job of SQUARING UP YOUR QUILT a lot easier. Squaring up fabric and blocks as you go will increase the likelyhood that squaring up the quilt at the end will not be difficult.
If the edges of your quilt are "wavy" review the quilting and determine if additional quilting on the edges will contract them to be the same length as the middle.
