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Week 8 – Frame It QAL – Finishing our Quilts!

frame it quilt pattern

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Welcome to Week 8, the LAST week of our Frame It Quilt Along! I have enjoying making this quilt with you all!

You can find the Digital and Paper Pattern (USA and Canada) in my shop 15% OFF thru April 9th!!  If you are located outside the USA or Canada you can find the pattern in my Etsy Shop!!

Now that you have all your blocks done, we need to turn those blocks into a quilt!

Things you will need:
Backing Fabric (at least 6 inches wider and longer than your quilt top)
Quilt Batting (at least 6 inches wider and longer than your quilt top)
Basting Spray or Basting Pins
Binding Fabric
These are helpful but not necessary:
Hera Marker to mark out your quilting lines
Walking Foot (Helps pull your quilt from both the top and the bottom)

Finishing our Quilts!

Quilt Sandwich:
First you will need to make your Quilt Sandwich. You will need to cut and sew your backing fabric to make it fit under your quilt correctly. Make sure it is at least 3 inches wider than your quilt top on all sides (quilt top size + 6 inches). Trim your selvage edge off after joining your pieces.

Make your quilt sandwich by first laying down your quilt backing, wrong side facing up. Tape down to a hard surface, making fabric taut. Next lay your batting on top. Smooth out with your hands, do not stretch. Then lay your quilt top right side up, smooth out with your hands.  

Basting Your Quilt: 

basting frame it

Spray baste: My favorite way to baste my quilt is by using Spray Baste! It makes basting so much easier. If you have allergies, this is probably not a good option for you.
Find a place where you can lay out your quilt. Make sure to tape the backing fabric taut to the floor (or large table).
Here’s  great spray baste tutorial by Cluck Cluck Sew: Spray Baste Tutorial

Pin basting: You can use safety pin about 3 to 4 inches apart (about the width of your hand). I like to use the large curved basting pins. This takes a little longer than the spray basting, but is a great option.

Quilting your Quilt:
This step is totally up to you!

With my quilt I chose to quilt from top to bottom ‘organic’ straight lights approximately 1 inch apart. I used my walking foot with the guide set to 1 inch. I like to use my seams as a guide to help keep my lines straight.

IMG_6912 (2)

Hand Tie your Quilt: Some prefer to tie there quilt.
Here’s a tutorial on how to do this on BluePrint.

Hand Quilt: Here’s a wonderful video tutorial by Suzy Quilts all about How to Hand Quilt.

Machine Quilt using your Walking Foot: 
Emily Dennis from Quilty Love has a great tutorial on how to Zig zag quilt your quilt with a Walking foot. Click here I love this method of quilting, it give your quilt great texture.

Free Motion Quilting:
Free motion quilting can give you great texture and if you aren’t great at quilting straight lines, this would be great for you. Suzy Williams from Suzy Quilts has a great Free Motion Quilting Tutorial. Click here.

Binding Your Quilt:

Binding is the fabric strip that goes on the edge of your quilt. It covers all of the unfinished edges and rounds out your quilt.

binding on frame it

You will want to make sure to square up your quilt before you attach the binding. Cut off the extra batting around the edges and make sure your sides are straight and corners are squared.

Most quilters will cut 2 /12 inch by width of fabric strips and then sew them together at the ends at a diagonal. Then press the strip in half, so that you are wrapping 2 layers of fabric around all of your edges.

You can machine sew the binding to the front of your quilt and wrap it around to the back and hand stitch it down. Or some prefer sewing the binding to the back of the quilt, wrapping it around to the front and machine stitching it down.

One of my favorite binding tutorials is by Suzy Williams of Suzy Quilts. Go check it out!

I’m so excited to see everyone finished quilts!

JOIN ME for a LIVE Video tomorrow (April 3, 2019) at 10:15 am PDT (West Coast USA). I will be going over these finishing steps and seeing if anyone has questions! If you can’t join me LIVE, the video will be saved to the Facebook Group, it will be available on Instagram for 24 hours and I will upload it to my YouTube channel.

Quilt Along Schedule:
Feb. 12 – Week 1-2: Get Pattern and Pick out Fabrics
Feb. 26 – Week 3: Cut out our pieces
Mar. 5 – Week 4: Make Center Units (Square in Square Blocks) (Steps 1-4)
Mar. 12 – Week 5: Finish 4 Blocks
Mar. 19 – Week 6: Finish 4 Blocks
Mar. 26 – Week 7: Finish 4 Blocks
Apr. 2 – Week 8: Add Sashing and Finish Quilt

Join the Quilt Along by posting your progress photo’s on Instagram with the hashtag #FrameItQAL
OR Join the Facebook Quilt Along Group and post your progress photo there!!

Happy Quilting!
Andrea