A Tutorial For ZuZu...

I received the comment from Zuzu of A Cottage In The Woods, after I finished the lavender quilt top last weekend.

Zuzu said...It's gorgeous! What wonderful times these lucky little ones will have snuggled up in their quilts! I am very interested in how you finish your quilts, Donna. I made a quilt top years ago, but never finished it, because I just don't know how to. If possible, could you share how you pin the layers together & finish them? I'd love to learn! :)

Zuzu, dear, this is for you and anyone else who wants to know...I'll post a few photos here, but anyone who wants to know more about how I finish my quilts can get all the steps and processes by clicking on my Flickr album here. I don't have room to do large quilts in my studio, but these photos will give you an good representation of how I do the stitching on my own smaller quilts. I do my pinning on my antique oak table in our dinette area. (And, if I had more room, I'd certainly follow the same procedure for a larger quilt.)
In addition to the items I have on hand to do the quilt assembly (shown in this photo), I also used 100% cotton batting and bull dog clips (clamps). I machine quilt, so of course, Prissy got busy yesterday afternoon, too! (I couldn't do it without her or Miss Ellie. I have a nice, big quilting table surface attached to my Espire (quilting) sewing machine (nicknamed Prissy), so she's my go-to gal for these projects.
Here's what the "quilt sandwich" looks like after it's pinned and ready for sewing. Remember to decide on how you want your stitch pattern to look and then pin the pieces together so that you don't stitch over them when you're actually sewing the layers.
You can see in this photo that I have everything assembled, pinned, rolled and ready to quilt. The first photo is my finished "stippling", also called "meandering", pattern. I was lost in the movement of the fabric under the needle in the afternoon and time just seemed to fly. I haven't tackled the binding yet. My plans are to finish stippling the other quilt top and then doing the binding on both on the same day.

I hope you enjoy looking at the album (sort of a tutorial, I guess). Thank you, Zuzu, for the request. Anyone wanting more information from my posts, should know that you're welcome to ask me anything, anytime and I'll try to accommodate you. I really appreciate your comments and like to help whenever I can.

ps. I'll post the balance of this tutorial when I trim the quilt edges and add the binding in the next day or so. Then the tutorial will be complete.