I haven't been posting because unfortunately I ended up with bronchitis and was pretty sick.
I'll try to catch up on blogs and post something with pretty pictures soon.
But one thing I finished up yesterday during my enforced rest period was one of my practice quilts. I sewed the binding on and so now it's finally finished. The first quilt I've ever actually finished.
I have some questions though for anyone who might know.
The quilt used all cotton fabric and cotton batting and I was hoping for it to be softer and a bit more drappy if you know what I mean, but it's a bit stiff even after washing. I think it might be due to both the amount of quilting on the thing and the stitch length I used for the machine quilting. I quilted it about 1 to 2 inches apart in a grid pattern over the whole thing.
Here's the quilt before it's bound.
What stitch length do you use for machine quilting? I am going to look through my books, but I thought I'd ask here too. I didn't adjust my stitch length so I was using the same I use for piecing and I'm pretty sure that was too short.
Anyway...I hope you all had a great week and weekend. I'll post more later.
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5 comments:
I think it looks wonderful! What brand of batting did you use. I would think that would more affect it than the stitch length.
Glad you are feeling better. Bronchitis is beastly! Keep resting though, it takes a while to fully recover. I really like the quilting that you did on your quilt! I am assuming that your quilting was done on a DSM and not a long or short-arm machine. Is that right? I like a longer stitch length for quilting - say a 3. A tiny stitch will make the quilt stiffer and will also draw up the quilt a lot. But you did not do really dense quilting so my guess is that the stiffness is due to the batting. I don't know what you used but I use Warm products a lot and the quilts are a bit stiff at first but really soften up after a couple of washings.
Sorry to hear your still not feeling well. Your quilt turned out wonderful. I would guess the batting also, and it might soften after a washing. Good job!
I find that some quilts are softer than others, and I'm not sure why. Sometimes it seems like heavy quilting--1/4" to 1/2" apart--makes them soft, or smallish meandering, but then sometimes it doesn't quite turn out that way. You might try a different batting--a Hobbs 80/20 (20% poly) or a lighter weight cotton.
I lengthen my stitch just a click or two, but I agree with the others that it's probably the batting. On the ones I quilt myself, I use Quilters Dream cotton. But I mostly send my quilts out to be done, and Judy uses what she thinks will work best for the quilt. That's not much help, I know. Maybe it just needs to be snuggled under and loved for a bit!
Feel better! I don't like it when you're sick!
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