Thursday 7 February 2013

Quilting Blues

My puffy quilt


A few days ago, Florence at http://flossieteacakes.blogspot.com blogged about wadding.  If only I had seen this sooner.  Her quilting is exquisite, but she was blogging about the problems of not using the right wadding. Ditto.
Having spent an enormous amount of time (and money) on my Liberty quilt, I simply bought the first wadding I came across.  What a mistake.  Instead of the elegant quilt I envisaged, I have a puffy mess.  The wadding is too thick. My sewing machine does not like it.  My quilt is meant to be quite flat and stitched in channels 1" wide. Impossible. You can see the result in the photos.
I spent last evening watching television (to distract me) and unpicking two thirds of my quilt.  I hope to finish this tedious job tonight.
I will replace the wadding with a thin, fleece-type wadding and hopefully my next attempt will be better.  Watch this space.

Uck


Ugh



Oh dear!




Oh dear!


Oh dear!


Better luck next time.



3 comments:

  1. It does look rather like those old fashioned Victorian puffy quilts (which I quite like) - sad you have felt the need to unpick it - I usually give up at that point!

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  2. Oh dear indeed! - I share your pain and had a similar experience early in my quilting journey. With beautiful, and expensive Liberty fabrics, I agree that you need a flat stable wadding. Good for you for unpicking what is there. I always unpick, no matter the pain, and have never regretted starting over. Now, if I may offer advice, do not use anything like fleece for the wadding (if by fleece you mean what we in Canada think of as a polyester fabric). I have the best luck for flat quilts in using an all cotton, or 80% cotton/20% cotton mix. Warm and Natural is a brand, see http://www.warmcompany.com/wnpage.html , that makes a very high quality all cotton wadding/batting that works very well, but it will shrink for an antique look, which I like very much. Do NOT us their Warm Blend as it is the puffy kind that you do not want. Hobbs Heirloom Premium 80/20 Batting is a very good quality mix batting that will remain flat and hardly shrink at all.
    Good luck and I am sure the final result will delight you!

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  3. I've just discovered your blog and am now following you. The fabrics in your quilt are beautiful. At one time I NEVER would have unpicked something that I was not 100% happy with but these days I've learnt to love my unpicker! You've made the right decision - you'd just feel unhappy every time you looked at the quilt otherwise. Take care - I'm looking forward to reading you archives. Suzanne X

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