Quilts look absolutely beautiful when finished! Placing one on a bed or hanging one on a wall for decoration adds a homespun touch to any place. People get inspired by viewing these works of art to try their own hand at making a quilt. Putting the initial pieces together isn't too bad, but then you have to do the actual quilting. Sometimes quilting feels like a fight with the machine, and the operator ends up feeling like the loser. An option to fix the problem would be to do all the quilting by hand, but that's a daunting task.
Leah Day, a quilter in Shelby, N.C., started a quilting business to, "educate, inspire, and empower you to create beautiful quilts and to learn and grow as a quilter every day." The business is run by Day and her family and has grown since its founding in 2009. She teaches online classes, makes YouTube videos, and provides patterns for other avid quilters. For some inside tips on machine quilting, check out her tutorial below.
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Day's desire is to help make quilting simple enough for people to enjoy, so the tutorial on easy machine quilting, walks quilters through some basics for straight-line quilting and free-motion quilting. For straight lines, Day recommends using a walking foot on the sewing machine. She pre-marks her lines on the material to save time as she stitches the lines. Keeping tension on the material with your thumbs is going to be one of the keys to successful straight-line stitching. Also, Day points out that you need to be patient and make sure the material doesn't bunch up in front of the foot.
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For free-motion quilting, Day does away with the walking foot. She marks her material with Cindy Needham's Ultimate Marking Ruler. To save time in the quilting process, Day stitches in the "ditch," joining each circle together. Since the "ditch" is actually the seam, an indent is already there, and the stitching doesn't stand out. Be sure to use proper marking pencils, and then you don't need to worry about whether the marks will remain on the material. They will wash out when you are finished. Once your quilt is complete, your masterpiece is ready for show.