Preparing your materials is an important first step whenever you are beginning a new quilt. You wouldn't start a brand new job in mucky clothes, so why should your quilt be any different?
To get your quilt off to the best start, I have listed my pre-flight quilting checklist.
Read Any Instrutions
This is the most vital step before anything else, I learned this the hard way - which I'm going to tell you about later on.
The directions will give you warnings about anything that will damage or affect the materials during the preparation process, so take care you read all the instructions so that you don't get caught out.
Washing
Once you've read the directions, your next stop is to wash the quilt. The directions will tell you whether its safe to put in the machine or whether you should hand wash it, as well as the temperature of water to use.
I was recently working on a green quilt design and did not go over the directions. As it seems, the actual dye they used for this material doesn't handle warm water very well and the colours ran and faded in areas, so be alert and check!
Drying
Drying is one of the things that surprises numerous quilters. Some material does not react well to being put in bright sunlight shortly after washing.
More usually, there are more materials which will get damaged if you put them into a dryer, so take care that you know what you are dealing with.
Ironing
Like drying, ironing is another step in which you can spoil a perfectly good fabric. Materials like silk and polyester will burn or melt if you use an iron that's too hot.
There are too many materials to cover here, so in short if you're in doubt, put your iron on the lowest setting just to be safe.
When you're ironing, start from the center and push your iron out to the sides. Once the material is flat, run your iron over the sides to get rid of any small wrinkles and make it prepared for stitching seams.
If you follow these steps, your material will be prepped and ready to be included in any quilt, eliminating any likely problems with the fabric itself.
To get your quilt off to the best start, I have listed my pre-flight quilting checklist.
Read Any Instrutions
This is the most vital step before anything else, I learned this the hard way - which I'm going to tell you about later on.
The directions will give you warnings about anything that will damage or affect the materials during the preparation process, so take care you read all the instructions so that you don't get caught out.
Washing
Once you've read the directions, your next stop is to wash the quilt. The directions will tell you whether its safe to put in the machine or whether you should hand wash it, as well as the temperature of water to use.
I was recently working on a green quilt design and did not go over the directions. As it seems, the actual dye they used for this material doesn't handle warm water very well and the colours ran and faded in areas, so be alert and check!
Drying
Drying is one of the things that surprises numerous quilters. Some material does not react well to being put in bright sunlight shortly after washing.
More usually, there are more materials which will get damaged if you put them into a dryer, so take care that you know what you are dealing with.
Ironing
Like drying, ironing is another step in which you can spoil a perfectly good fabric. Materials like silk and polyester will burn or melt if you use an iron that's too hot.
There are too many materials to cover here, so in short if you're in doubt, put your iron on the lowest setting just to be safe.
When you're ironing, start from the center and push your iron out to the sides. Once the material is flat, run your iron over the sides to get rid of any small wrinkles and make it prepared for stitching seams.
If you follow these steps, your material will be prepped and ready to be included in any quilt, eliminating any likely problems with the fabric itself.
About the Author:
Interested in more green quilt design ideas? Then head on over to Jane Green's how to make a patchwork quilt site now!
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