That's probably an oxymoron. Quilting is not cheap. Not really. However, there are some things you can do to save you some bucks. I know a lot of quilters who have either spent a lot of money, or a lot of money and time creating a "design wall." The local quilt shop has a couple of design walls in the workroom so you can lay up your pieces and arrange them the way you want them. I have no such thing at home, but what I do have is batting. That's right, I pinned a large piece of batting to the wall and all of my quilt pieces stick to it without even using any pins. This works even better than the design wall at the quilt store because it does not need pins. Well, you want to start using pins when you are sewing larger sections of the quilt together because then they are just too heavy and fall off. Another advantage of my "design wall" is that I can unpin it from the wall and roll it up with all the pieces on it if I am going to take it anywhere to work on it.
So, I have most of the blocks sewn into strips, and even some of the strips sewn together. I have to decide how big I am going to make this quilt. The size shown in the book does not match any of the quantities listed for the patterns. I find this a lot in quilt books. The book will tell you how many blocks or strips you need for either crib, twin or queen size, but often times if you count the blocks on the picture, they will not line up exactly with the finished sizes given in the book!
I think what I am going to do is work from the two opposite corners and work my way to the middle. That way I can still make it bigger if I want to by just adding some additional strips at the longest diagonal.
At this point, I want to hurry up and finish the top of this quilt. I'm really feeling the need to make some clothes for work. School starts for teachers on August 2 in my district (students come on the 5th). I will be there for the 3 days before students come because I can sit most of the day. I am not ready to stand up all day long, which is exactly what I will be doing as soon as I go back to my classroom. Right now I have until the 23 of August per the doctor. I hope I can build up enough strength in my knee and stamina to stand all day by that time. Not that I'm all that anxious to go back to work, but I really don't want to miss any more work than I have to either.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Quilting on the cheap
Posted by Nancy Winningham at 8:54 PM
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4 comments:
Your quilt is going to look beautiful! I love the fabrics you chose
If you ever want a permanent design wall, a great way to do it is to glue some Styrofoam to a piece of firm wood and then wrap it with a flannel sheet and hang it like a picture and/or screw it into the wall. I usually put the sheet on slightly wet so it stretches tight. This type of design wall can be pinned and works as a flannel board. I've had mine for almost thirty years and find it useful for fashion sewing as well.
I have a design wall, and I did not spend a lot of time or money on it. It is a 1x2 frame with a queen sized quilt batting stretched over it, stapled down with a staple gun and the whole thing is attached to the wall with L-brackets. It does come in handy for projects or for just draping fabrics for inspiration.
For a really, really cheap design wall get a flannel-backed vinyl table cloth from the dollar store and pin it to the wall as you have done the batting. It works just great!
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