Countdown to Christmas Quilt-Along: Quilting

How is everyone doing with their Advent Calendars?  By now, you should have it pieced and ready to quilt.  Don’t worry if you haven’t started yet.  I bet you could still catch up in time to link-up for prizes at the end of November!  If you’d like more information on the quilt along and our sponsors, you can read all the details here.

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Now that your top is completed, it’s time to make a “quilt sandwich” and quilt it!  A quilt sandwich is a VERY technical term for layering the quilt top, batting and backing and basting them together (either with pins, spray or thread).

Here is my Advent calendar being basted into a quilt sandwich.  I tape the backing to the floor and then place the batting and top on it.  Elizabeth Hartman has a great tutorial right here.  For batting, I like to use “Warm and Natural” or “Warm and White”(if the quilt has a lot of white fabric).  I would normally cut my batting to be several inches larger than the top on the sides, but I REALLY wanted to use a scrap of batting I already had.

I like to start by pinning at spots where 4 blocks meet and then I add pins as needed.

For my quilting, I decided to do “pebbling”, which is tiny little quilted circles all over the background of the quilt.  I love the results, but it takes FOREVER, so I will be quilting little bits at a time over the next two weeks, while all of you quilt your calendars.  Melissa at Melia Mae Quilting did very pretty loops and she also shows a few other quilting options, so be sure to check out her blog.  If you are new to quilting, you can also just sew straight lines around each pocket and call it done!  It really doesn’t need much quilting at all.

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Now it’s time to show what you’ve been working on!  Link up your progress below and be sure to check out the flickr group.

See you in two weeks for binding!