Patricia Ritter is a a talented designer of both patterns and quilting motifs through her company, Urban Elementz. Today, she is sharing her method of loading a quilt on a machine quilting frame. Note: Visit Patricia’s website for great pantos, design boards and digitized designs, http:www.urbanelementz.com
Preparing A Quilt Sandwich by Patricia Ritter
- Square up your backing fabric. Mark a straight line approximately 2″ across your backing fabric from side to side on the wrong side of the fabric. Then mark the center of your backing fabric at both the top and the bottom.
- Lay your quilt backing wrong side up across a table with the marked line facing towards you.
- Lay out your batting across the backing, aligning the top of the batting with the 2″ line on the backing fabric. Let the remainder of the batting hang down.
- Beginning at the center, pin your batting to the backing. Using your regular domestic sewing machine bast the batting and backing together, making sure to keep the edge of the machine’s foot with edge of the batting (and the edge of your marked line).
- Now mark the center of your quilt top. Lay your quilt top across the backing/batting sandwich. Beginning at the center pin your quilt top to the batting, backing sandwich, matching its top edge of your quilt top along the stitched line you created in step #4.
- On your regular domestic sewing machine, baste stitch your quilt top to the backing batting sandwich.
- Take the entire “sandwich” to your quilting frame. Lay the completed sandwich across the bars of your machine and attach the top edge of your sandwich to the take-up roller. Remember to start at the center and work out in both directions.
- Flip the quilt top and batting over the take-up roller out of the way. Line up the opposite edge of your backing with the back roller of your frame. Again starting at the center and working out in both directions attach your backing to the back roller.
- Roll your backing fabric onto the back roller. Straighten and remove any wrinkles in the backing fabric so it is completely flat and square. Now flip the batting and quilt top back into place. Straighten and remove any wrinkles in the batting and the quilt top so it is completely flat and square.
- Now you can begin your quilting.
- When reach the bottom of your quilt, spray a little temporary spray adhesive on the wrong side of your quilt top to hold the edge down, and beginning at the center and moving out in each direction, baste the bottom of your sandwich together.