Have you finished your quilt top and you’re trying to figure out how to quilt it? This article is focused on quilting your quilt on your home sewing machine. Let’s look at the ways you can easily quilt your top at home.
5 Ways to Quilt your Quilt Top
Stitch in the Ditch
The easiest way to quilt is to stitch in the ditch. When you stitch in the ditch, you stitch in the block seam. Try your best to remain consistent and let’s get your quilt quilted.
Walking Foot Quilting
Using a walking foot or Integrated Dual Feed (built in walking foot) creates straight lines which can cover the entire quilt, not just the ditches like in the stitch in the ditch method.
Jacquie Gering is the Queen of walking foot quilting. Check out her book Walk here to learn more about walking foot quilting. You may think that you would be confined to straight lines with walking foot quilting, but that’s not the case. You can also quilt curves when using a walking foot to quilt.
Matchstick Quilting
Matchstick quilting is a technique frequently seen in modern quilting. Matchstick quilting is a straight line quilting method with quilting lines placed every ⅛” to ¼”.
This quote is from an article by Epida Studio, “Begin like regular straight vertical lines. Stitch 6″ or 8″ apart, then fill in to have lines 1″ apart. Then add lines in between, so the spaces get smaller and smaller – 1/2″ then 1/4″ then 1/8″. Check out this helpful article here.
Free Motion Quilting
Utilizing free motion quilting is a wonderful way to quilt your quilt. However, that being said, it can also be frustrating as you learn this quilting method. You can experience thread breakage, needle breakage and eyelashes on the bottom of your quilt. With time and practice, you will experience these things less and less.
In free motion quilting your hands that are moving the quilt must be in time with your sewing machine. You achieve this by lowering the feed dogs on your sewing machine, thus disengaging the engine that pushes the quilt forward. Your quilt is now 100% in your hands.
Before attempting free motion quilting on your quilt, practice on a sample first. When your hands get in time with your machine, you will achieve free motion quilting without the above-noted headaches. Please give yourself grace as this takes time, like most anything in life.
Ruler Quilting
So there won’t be any confusion, this photo was taken of my long arm, and that is why there is so much room above the ruler. That space will be much smaller on a home sewing machine.
You use a specialized presser foot with a ruler on your machine to quilt. Let me clarify that there are different rulers for home sewing machines and for long arm machines. They may look similar, but long arm rulers are thicker and many sewing machines cannot accommodate these rulers. For home machines, you will likely need a low shank ruler. My favourite rulers are Angela Walters rulers which are made by Creative Grids. Archie by Creative Grids is a wonderful straight ruler to get you started.
To go along with your ruler, you will need a ruler foot. Please purchase the ruler foot made for your machine by your machine manufacturer. This is not a place to spend little money on a generic foot on Amazon.
Lots can go wrong with ruler quilting including the ruler sliding under the ruler foot. If this happens, you can hit the ruler and shatter the needle. You could also throw the timing off on your machine requiring a repair. Ruler quilting is very rewarding and is a great way to create complex quilting shapes without using a long arm.
My Final Thoughts
I hope you enjoyed 5 Ways to Quilt your Quilt Top. As you can see, these are five very different ways to get your quilt quilted. Whichever method you choose, a well basted quilt (either thread basted or pin basted) is a must to avoid getting tucks in the quilt.
No matter which method you choose to quilt, try to relax as you maneuver your quilt sandwich through your machine. Scrunching up your shoulders and holding tension through your arms will make the physical act of quilting harder.
For more helpful quilting tips and tricks, make sure you follow me on YouTube,and Pinterest.