In preparation for quilting my first large-ish quilt top, I wanted to get practice quilting a smaller piece. I followed the "test drive" steps that Jacquie Gering outlines in Walk to start getting my sea legs and test out the techniques I've read about in various quilting books (more on those below).
Pattern/Techniques: I followed the steps for straight line and angled quilting in the "test drive" section of Walk (p. 11). I then began improvising lines of different widths and creating simple crosshatch patterns. Lastly I practiced starting lines midway through the fabric (i.e. white thread) using the short stitches technique from Heirloom Machine Quilting by Harriet Hargrave.
I followed the instructions for binding a quilt from Quilters Academy Vol. 1 to create a 1/4" binding.
Made with 2 pieces of Kaufman 200 ct white muslin and Quilters Dream Select cotton batting. Binding made from the same fabric as the quilt top/backing.
New skills: Quilting with a walking foot, layering a quilt, pin basting, binding a quilt
Lessons: Pressure foot pressure can be lowered to reduce/prevent the fabric from puckering when quilting intersecting lines. The default pressure foot pressure on my machine is 6.5, and I had to lower the pressure to 4.5-5 to stop puckering.
Add small sharpie marks to your presser foot at key dimensions (e.g. the width from the edge of the presser foot to the needle) to act as guides for pivoting, which will result in even line spacing after the pivot.
Quilting angled seams can result in the fabric warping—it's possible this was exacerbated by being too stingy with the number of pins I used to baste.
I don't love Bohin curved size 2 pins for basting. A lot of them were hard to insert, and they left large visible holes in the quilt. I've ordered smaller size 1 curved pins to try them instead. (A pro tip from Gloria is to avoid pins with plastic grips because they take up more space and are harder to quilt around.)
Be thoughtful about pin placement—don't put pins right where the first seams will be quilted.
Don't close pins after they're removed—you're going to have to open them to baste the next quilt. Store them open to save the extra effort.
Bring the bobbin thread up at the start of a seam (press needle down then needle up) to prevent a thread nest forming. An angled tweezer can be used the pull the bobbin thread if it's quite short, saving your fingers from being accidentally stabbed by the needle.
If there's a low bobbin thread warning while sewing, change the bobbin before starting the next seam. I didn't do this and ran out of bobbin thread mid-seam.
When hand sewing the back of the binding, double check to make sure you haven't sewn through to the front of the quilt. I did this a few times by accident. Check in particular if the needle requires more force to insert than usual. Quilting betweens needles are super handy for sewing a binding.
Harriet Hargrave's instructions for getting mitered corners on a quilt binding are excellent (Ref: Quilters Academy Vol. 1).
What I'd do differently: My goal was purely to practice and I had no expectations for the final product—the fact that it turned into something I genuinely liked was pure serendipity.
