ABC Wednesday--A Quilter's ABC--Q

Initiated by Mrs. Nesbitt. Maintained in the ABC Wednesday Anthology. Accessed individually at the ABC Mr. Linky.
All worth a visit.

Well, were you wondering what I could possibly come up with for Q?

Of course, Q is for QUILTING.

All of the blocks and procedures that I have shown in my Quilter's ABC lead up to the almost final step--QUILTING!
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Quilting is the stitching that holds the layers of the piece together--the top, the batting (known in some countries as wadding) and the backing. A quilt can be held together with ties, with hand stitching, or with machine stitching. The stitching can be very straightforward or very decorative no matter how it is done.
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Here are the hand quilting stitches of my grandmother. Very utilitarian, a bit uneven.But remembering her age and eyesight when she did this quilt, very special to me. Here is some machine quilting by my friend Julie. She is a wonder at it. Julie is into miniatures, BTW, so note that these squares are about an inch.

These stitches are what shows on the back of part of the balloon wall hanging that was in the paper piecing post. Stippling is used to fill in space in some pieces. This isn't very good stippling, but it serves.

I don't do hand quilting. Many people still pride themselves on their hand quilting. I just can't do it. I am improving quite a bit on my machine quilting, though.

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These are some tools of machine quilting. The one on the left is an even feed foot, usually called a walking foot because of the way it moves. The walking foot helps the fabric layers feed evenly so that they don't slip and change position. Of course, the three layers are securely basted and tight. (B could have been B is for Basting.) I baste with pins. The walking foot does great for straight lines or gentle curves.

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On the right is the free motion foot. This is used with the feed dogs lowered (the little gizmos that pull the fabric through.) They do not pull the fabrics at all and so any motion is possible in any direction. Julie used free motion on the purple piece.

Also needed are lots of bobbins. Quilting uses a lot of thread.

Once the foot is in place and the machine threaded, it is wise to do a practice piece to check the tension of the thread and get a feel for the motion.

If you have a particular design in mind, you might use stencils to mark it. It takes a lot of practice to follow a marked design.

But it can be done.

So, here I am machine quilting one of my Breast Cancer Awareness Quilts. It took me a few days, working a half hour or hour at a time to stitch the names of Breast Cancer patients--both survivors and those who've been lost into this quilt. For me, stitching words is like handwriting, and much easier than following a marked design. I kept the writing fairly straight with lines of masking tape.