First, I made a quilt sandwich, using spray adhesive to baste the layers together.
Place a piece of painters tape (or masking tape) on your quilt top on the diagonal. Just eyeball it...no measuring required. The tape shown here is 1" wide. You can use any tape width you would like. On a larger piece, like a baby quilt, 2" wide tape is ideal.
Sew on either side of the tape using a walking foot....
Remove the tape....
Move the tape to the outside of the quilting line. I added another line of tape to help speed up the process. Quilt on the outside of each line of tape. Repeat as many times as necessary. You can re-use the tape between 5-10 times.
Once you are done quilting in one direction, start the process for the other direction. Again, no measuring is required...just eyeball it. Repeat the process as many times as necessary.
And that's it. Easy, right?
I made this little piece for the placemat swap on flickr. (you can see all the wonderful goodies i received in the swap here. jennie is an awesome swap partner!)
I think I might have found a new obsession in maverick stars. They are so much fun!!!
85 comments:
What a great placemat.
Thanks! I always walk away from your blog thinking, "Why didn't I think of that?" :)
Thanks for the tutorial. It would have made my life so much easier (and straighter)quilts and quilts ago but I am so thankful to have that technique in my bag now. I'm finishing a baby quilt with line after quarter inch line right now and I am so ready to be done. You were right about that one taking tons of thread!
Jenn
P.S.
I love your blog!
I had never thought to use tape as a guide. DUH! Looks fantastic!
What a great method, and no stupid lines to erase... you're a genius!
Cheers,
Christine
http://cuttingedgequilt.blogspot.com/
That is a great idea!
I never thought about moving the tape. DUH!! I use the tape for the first line and then use the bar on my walking foot for placement....
Thank you so much. I am eager to try this out now.
Wow! I have some placemats that I need to finish, and now with your great tutorial I will start my project! Thanks.
I definitely appreciate this idea. I have used the 1/4 masking tape before and it gets caught in my walking foot. Plus it is hard to lay it down in a straight line and hard to reuse. The blue tape would eliminate all these problems. Thanks for the tute.
I love your blog!
I'm definitely going to try this next time I do a grid... the last time I did, it could've been better hehe Btw I've been thinking about using spray adhesive but I'm not 100% sure. Perhaps I just ought to give it a try!
Love the tape!
That is such a great idea! Much easier than marking lines. Your placemat is too cute!
Great placemat and thanks for the tutorial!
Thank you so much! This is a really great post, as always :)
Thanks for the fabulous tip! Much better than my mark two and eyeball the rest method!
great tip
What a great tip!!! I never thought of using painters tape. I love grids so guess what I am going to have to do soon!
You are SO smart.
I so love the tape idea. simple and easy! the place mat is very pretty too.
That is genius! I'm going to try grid quilting soon.
I use painters tape a LOT. When I first began quilting I was a hand quilter. Most of my early quilts were outline stitched -- 1/4 inch from the seam. I used masking tape that is designed for this purpose, so using wider painters tape was just a progression of my first lessons.
As for spray basting...I LOVE THIS STUFF! I used it once, holding my breath and hoping it was the right thing to do, that it didn't ruin my quilt, etc. Now I can't live without it! It's maybe better than sliced bread!
Thanks for your tutorial. I love your placemat. I really need to do some before Christmas for gifts. (I should probably be getting my ideas together and get moving.)
Hugs
OMG!!! SOOOO glad to have that explained. Never would have thought of tape and have been wondering how people do it. I thought it took YEARS of practice that I haven't gotten to yet.
Melissa
Thanks for the tutorial. You nake it seem easy :)
Want to make bigger wonky stars? try this tuotial:
http://thesillyboodilly.blogspot.com/2009/02/wonky-star-tutorial.html
It finishes at 12 inches :)
Oh my!! Like most everyone else, I never thought of using Painter's tape - fabulous hint! Thank you.
Thank you SO much for this! I am going to try this on my next quilt!
Painter's tape is the only way to go - no messing with marking!
PS Is that turquoise one of my scraps or do you have that fabric? I loved that fabric.
Well you make it look easy...I will have to give it a try sometime and see if that is the case. CUTE placemat!
What a great idea, i;m going to have to check out what widths i can get tape in.
I hope it will still work with a mormal foot as I don't have a walking foot
Amandajean....so very pretty and I love the way you did your quilting! Thank you so much for sharing! Have a great weekend!
Another great tutorial from the crazy mom!!!
Thanks.
Andi :-)
Thank You SOOOOOO Much for the great tutorial.....I will have to give that a try.
Prayers, Bo
Great tutorial = just what I needed. Thank you.
Thanks for the tip, I'll file that one away, it beats marking it and it came out great.
You are an inspiration! I hope you do another quilt-a-long soon as I really want to join. I had too much going on last month (daughter's wedding) to join. But I'm really looking forward to the next one.
I love your placemat!! Those stars are really fun :) I've been using tape today for a project -- lots of tape! It's not straight lines though :)
I love the idea of using the painters tape. It turned out so well. I think I am going to give that a try on my next small quilt. Thank you for the tutorial.
if i hadn't spent 6 hours painting a friend's house today... i'd do this.. but right now... i can't look at blue tape!! maybe tomorrow!!
thats precisely how I quilt straight lines too... unless I happen to be going by the width of my foot. Then I just tape one line and go off that the rest of the way. Great photos!
Thanks so much for the tutorial. I've got 4 quilt tops finished, but I didn't know how to go any further. I've been saving my pennies to take them to a professional -until now! I think I've got enough confidence now to try an quilt one of them myself. Thanks!!!!
That is great! I am always so jealous when I see stippling as I am brand new to it and I suck! But straight stitching I can do, and I am so tired of stitching in the ditch!
*pounding head on computer desk* DUH! why didnt i think of that? I love your blog like always but good grief it is so nice of you to stop and explain the little things to people like me. I have so many little projects that would love to be re-done now. ha ha ha
Thanks again and your work is AMAZING!
This is one of those lightbulb moments - what an amazing idea, so obvious, but something that I never would have though of myself. I can't believe quite how much time and ink this method will save - thank you so much for posting about it. x
Those stars look like fun!
What a great idea! I never would have thought of using tape in a million years. Thanks!
Good idea, never thought of using tape!
I have been using tape for a guideline for both hand and machine quilting for a long time now. But please tell me how do you start and stop machine quilting. Mine always looks so bad.
Very cute little quilt. I luv the stars.
You must have received my mental question!!! I just tried to do a grid quilting and was not pleased at all! This is exactly what I needed. Thanks Amanda, the placemat looks awesome too :-).
Thankfully, my machine has one of those quilting guides so I don't have to remove and reapply tape--just set the little bar thingy and stitch away.
But if I didn't have that, painter's tape would be a great substitute!
I am so glad that I found your blog...I probably would've never tried to grid quilt something because I didn't want to go and mark it all. This is a GREAT tip.
I just had a huge 'I'm an idiot moment' I have wanted to do a grid on the diagonal in the past but couldn't think for the life of me how to mark the lines. I can't believe I was such an airhead. Thanks for the tutorial.
Oh my goodness....so glad I came by today.....I have so many blogs i like to look at and yours is one but it takes me a while to make the rounds....you just made me a happy camper....come by cand check out my giveaway.
Brilliant! What a great idea. I am going to have to remember this one!
Thanks so much. This will really help me keep the quilting even.
I love those maverick stars! And the grid quilting is great -- very nice look. Thanks so much for sharing the tutorial.
This is genius. Thanks
So great! Thanks! I've been thinking about quilting something other than the status quo.
What a great idea! how'da thought..painters tape.
Looks fab!
thank you for this! I tried to sew straight lines on my 9-patch scrap quilt and ripped it all out (it was that bad). This would have been so helpful! Thank you. Now I'm excited to try it again on another quilt.
I am so excited - my stippling is very iffy - even though I bought my new machine especially to stipple it really does not come out OK ( maybe its me) after a week of undoing a fully stippled single bed quilt I decided never again - I think you have solved my anti stipling dilema- Ta
what a cute placemat. I really like the look of grid quilting, but most of the time, I just give up on quilting the other direction and make "diagonal" quilting instead.
I have a nice quilting bar on my walking foot that allows me to create parallel lines. It's harder to keep straight lines with it than with painting tape, but it's worked okay for me so far
such a great idea! I love the look of grid quilting (esp on the diagonal) but I never get excited about the idea of marking the grid (because I'm hopeless at sewing a straight line.) But THIS just might do the trick. Thanks!
Looks GREAT!!!!!
This looks awesome. I love it. And I have discovered I need to spend more time on Flikr! :)
Could this be any more helpful and timely? I made a quilt and all my lines were wavy and I was so frustrated. Then I started drawing all of them on. I got so tired of it, I only did it in one direction... I'll try this next time!!
what a great idea to use 1" painter's tape for marking the cross hatching quilting. I've seen 1/4" tape for sale at the LQS for marking 1/4" form the ditch... but never thought of this.
Thanks!
Love from Texas! ~bonnie
do you use spray adhesive on big quilts too? I love your blog.
I love this, I HATE marking up quilts first, so this method is so freeing...thanks for sharing how to do it. Fabulous xo
beth,
I used to use spray adhesive on big quilts, but no longer. I always got too many puckers. Now I only do it on small small quilts. And it works great for that.
aj
Thank you, what a great idea. I am always afraid I have not marked the lines right. Will be using this in the future.
My goodness, that's such a simple method! I wish I'd known about it already. I recently tried to use something along the lines of that quilting pattern for my first machine quilt and it was a bit messy.
Quilting on the diagonal grid like this is how I finished my Star Quilt-a-long quilt. I just used a fabric pen and my yard stick to mark my lines. The tape is a good idea.
Thank you so much for this tutorial, which came just in the nick of time for me. I'll be blogging about my first quilt--quilted using painter's tape--tomorrow, with credit to you, of course. :-) Lise
You know I'm a huge fan of your curly quilting, but I love the way these measure lines look with the pattern of your blocks. And the maverick starts are so cool. Love seeing new-to-me things from you!
Aaaaaahhhh!!! Now I know! Thank you so much, it makes life a lot easier!
HELP! If only I know about your method before I worked on this quilt. I used the quilters grid on a baby quilt and now I'm trying to remove the grid and I'm having a hard time with it. Does anyone have any suggestions or tips on how to remove the grid easily? The fibers along the seams are not coming off like the directions said it would.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE Your blog! I'm new to quilting, but I chose to do a diagonal grid on my first quilt I gave as a gift. I used a water soluble pencil and that took FOREVER. On top of it all, I'm a perfectionist...is quilting really for me? I love it so far and I will keep your blog close at hand! Thanks for all the pictures of your FUN, AMAZING quilts!
@The Chapman's - I am sooo like you on being the perfectionist. I find this the absolute easiest method I have ever used. Also, there is a "therapy group" for us. I will find the blog and post - they make crazy, wonky blocks - ON PURPOSE! lol I keep this blog close at hand too. Can't wait to hear more from you.
This tutorial was absolutely what I needed to get started. I absolutely love the placemat you did - the colors are incredible and the stars are magnificent. Thanks again for the thorough tut!
elegant, simple....ingenious.
And this page answers my question #2 form your wonky log cabin page. Marvelous tutorial!! Thank you so much!
I tried something like this using blue painters tape. It works.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience with this inexperienced (except with the seam ripper) "newbie"!
Thanks for sharing your experience with an inexperienced (barring the darn seam ripper) " newbie "!
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