It’s a QUILT not a blanket!

So what’s in a quilt?  Besides a lot of love and hard work.

Your heirloom quilt starts with high quality quilting cotton fabric pieced into a flimsy.  Some sewists know them as UFOs and WIPs (unfinished objects and works in progress of course).

These are all words that sewists or piecers use to describe their quilt tops.

What’s a ‘piecer?’  A person who sews flimsy’s, WIP and UFO’s … silly.

Flimsies are the top piece of a quilt sandwich.  Kinda like peanut butter and jelly, only not so sticky. 

Flimsies go on top, batting (or a warm layer of filler) in the middle and the backing.  Put them all together in layers, and you get your quilt sandwich.  Then you need something to hold all the layers together.  That’s where longarm quilting comes into play.  Longarm quilting is one of my services. You can send me your pieced tops for longarming.  Or, if you’re not a sewist, you can order a customer made quilt either from my gallery or from a pattern of your own choosing.  Contact me for details.

But if you’ve already sewn your own quilt top, 

Here’s what you can do to help make your pieced quilt top longarm ready:

Press your quilt top and back. While you’re doing that, snip any long
threads and remove them so they don’t show through light fabrics after
quilting. Be careful not to trim too close to the seam so that the seams stay
secure.

Mark if your quilt is directional, or you want one edge to be the top, pin a
note to let me know which end is up. Do the same with the backing.

Run a Victory Lap! No, not around the block, around the border edge of
your quilt about 1/8” to ¼” from the edge, all the way around. This will help
keep your seams in place during handling, and help the fabric not stretch.
If your quilt top has borders, you can skip this step.

Measure your top width and length for the order form. Multiply the width
times length to give you square inches. You’ll need this information for the
order form.

Backing must be 8” longer and 8” wider than your top so that I have room
to attach properly to the longarm frame. If your backing is pieced fold the
two pieces together, lining up the selvedges and trim to square it up. Do
this on the bottom edge of the fabric too.

Batting, just like the backing, should be at least 8” longer and wider than
the top, so that I can load the quilt sandwich on the machine properly. I like
to have a little extra in case there is any shifting or the batting is not cut
straight. If you prefer you can purchase batting from me and I will ensure
the proper size for your quilt.  There is a spot on the order form for this information. Send me a message if you have questions.

Fold everything neatly and place in a plastic bag for shipping. This will
help keep your quilt top clean and dry. A clean trash bag works fine and
dandy! I’ll even send it back to you when I’m done.