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Parallel line stitching: A fun way to add interest to your quilt

Parallel line stitching: A fun way to add interest to your quilt

by Paul Leger

Yesterday was a day of sewing and cutting with SoftKUT Dressmakers’ Scissors, OLFA 60mm rotary cutter with a tungsten rotary blade and the labels from the Gütermann Denim Love Nostalgia Box.

Three labels from the Gütermann Denim Love Nostalgia Box placed between an OLFA 60mm rotary cutter and a pair the SoftKut scissors

Labels from the Gütermann Denim Love Nostalgia Box, OLFA 60mm rotary cutter and the SoftKut scissors

Before I start today, I just want to remind everyone that there’s still time to add pockets or labels to your quilt top. Easier to do it now than once the quilting is completed.

A label with three hearts is sewn to a grey section of the quilt top.

Sew cute labels to a quilt top.

As I was putting this quilt together, I debated whether or not to put batting in this quilt as it will be fairly warm with the weight of the denim. Then I remembered the definition of a quilt:

·    A top,

·    a batting, and

·    a backing

What batting to use was another debate I had. The determining factor was the weight of the quilt. Therefore, I chose the Fairfield Low-Loft Quilt Batting, a low-loft polyester which is lightweight. The lightweight was very important to me.

A package of Fairfield Low-Loft Quilt Batting placed on top of the quilt top which features a plaid shirt.

Fairfield Low-Loft Quilt Batting

With the backing and batting in place, I used large safety pins to baste all layers together.

A section of the quilt top is basted using safety pins to baste the quilt together.

Using large safety pins to bast quilt

I placed the Gütermann Denim Love Nostalgia Box next to my sewing machine ready to select and change thread colors as I progressed with the quilting.

The Gütermann Denim Love Nostalgia Box with 12 colorful spools of thread is open on a green cutting mat.

Gütermann Denim Love Nostalgia Box

I decided to have fun with the quilting. In addition to changing thread color as I went from section to section, I used parallel line stitching going in different directions to add interest.

A section of the quilt top is quilted with parallel lines going in different directions.

Quilting using parallel line

Another way I added interest to the quilt was to play with the spacing between the sets of parallel lines. On my machine, I was able to use a seam guide to help me stay parallel to each line.

Another section of the quilt is quilted using parallel line stitching with different spacing between each line.

Add interest by changing the distance between lines.

It was fun playing with quilting lines, changing the thread and colors found in the Gütermann Denim Love Nostalgia Box.

A part of the quilted quilt top shows a pocket with a Denim Love label sewn to it, and a spool of gold thread lays on top of the pocket.

Contrasting thread colors on denim quilt top

With the quilting completed, there’s one step left to be accomplished, and that’s to add the binding, which we’ll do tomorrow.

This is part 4 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 3: Gütermann Denim Love Nostalgia Box INSPIRES a creative denim quilt

Go to part 5: Binding a denim quilt with strips from old jeans: It takes pant legs!

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