Hold on a second. Just because you have a finished quilt top, doesn’t mean it’s time to start quilting! This week, we’re taking some time to plan and prepare first, so that the quilting goes a lot smoother. And yes, you can start quilting once you’ve taken these important steps.
Step 1: Choose your quilting method
How are you going to quilt your project? By hand? Using a walking foot? Free motion on a domestic machine? Longarm? Send it to a longarmer? Some combination of the above? This decision will influence all of the subsequent steps. Take stock of your preferences, skill set, budget, and available time.
Step 2: Plan your quilting
The eternal question: How Do I Quilt It? We could do an entire 8-week course on this subject (and hey, maybe I will some day!) but my favourite way to plan out my quilting is to draw on a picture of the quilt top. You can use your colouring page and pencils, a clear report cover with a whiteboard marker, or a photo of your quilt top and a drawing app. Try out a few different ideas and see what looks good and what feels doable in terms of density, complexity, and efficiency of movement.
If you haven’t planned the quilting for a triangle/hexagon quilt before, you can follow my design process as I worked through the quilting plan for Rebecca Bryan’s Solstice Modern Triangle BOM.
