Friday, September 19, 2008

Quilt Marking

I finally got around to starting the quilting of my Aunt Bec's 9 Patch (Amitie) quilt today; its taken me a while to sort out what pattern I was going to use. I liked the flowers used on the shop quilt, but hadn't been able to find a matching stencil. In the end, I traced the quilting from the picture in the magazine, scanned it, then printed it out in the size I wanted.

I'm curious about the way other quilters go about marking their quilting designs on their quilts. I refuse to go near my quilts with any sort of marking pen, in fear of it not coming off, and I'm also not too keen on washing a quilt unless it absolutely needs it.

So my way of doing it is to trace my pattern onto tracing paper, then using masking tape to stick the paper to the quilt.

Then I just stitch over the top, and tear away the paper. The stitch lines act as perforations, and it tends to tear away very easily. Stubborn bits can be carefully removed using fine scissors or similar.


The final product looks like this (sorry it's a tad blurry)

And, as always, Bella likes to be involved in the process. When I have the quilt spread out on the floor she likes to burrow under it. And when I'm quilting, she usually likes to walk across it. At least today she is politely sitting next to the quilt.

6 comments:

Debbie said...

Hi There is a Glad product called bake and seal.It comes in a roll like glad wrap and it just sticks to the fabric, you can draw on it and sew then peel it off. It has thousands of uses, you can google it.
Good luck.

Wisdom.Courage.Love said...

Still loving this quilt, the flowers look great!!

BizarreQuilter said...

I have used the "press'n'seal" product Debbie posted about.

Only use it when the quilting is not too close together. I had an absolute nightmare with it when it was too close! Tweezers and many hours later. *gasp*

I use a water based green Artline green fineliner/medium width pen from the newsagent. They cost me $2.50 and wash out even when you iron it. I wash all my quilts. If I can't wash them, what's the point? (unless it's a wallhanging). I make enough quilts to use them and wash them, and maybe put them away later. :)

Christine said...

Will have to try your tracing paper idea. I sew along 1/4 and 1 inch tape when I quilt straight lines. Never use pens.

Myra said...

I will have to give this a try! Still at a learning stage for my quilting...

craftapalooza said...

Loving yours. Might give that quilting method a go, love the flower pattern