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Stay warm with a quilt made with Fairfield batting

by Paul Leger

In yesterday’s post, I wrote about how useful the Hemline Gold Thread Snips, Hemline Gold Plastic Headed Pins, in black or white, and the Hemline Gold Magnetic Pin Dish are for pinning and sewing your blocks together. We often overlook the importance of these smaller tools that are so important when quilt making.

An open bottle of black Hemline Gold Plastic Head pins and a bottle of white Hemline Gold Plastic Headed pins with a black magnetic pin dish; Hemline Gold Magnetic Pin Dish

Hemline Gold white and black-headed Pins with magnetic pin dish

My plan for today is to quilt. The backing is ready, and now I just need to baste the quilt. The batting I’m using is the Fairfield Quilter’s 80/20 Quilt Batting – 229 x 274cm (90″ x 108″). I like the warmth of this batting in a quilt.

A bag of Fairfield Quilter's 80/20 quilt batting lying on top of the T-shirt quilt.

Fairfield Quilter’s 80/20 Quilt Batting

To quilt, you need needles and thread. Since this is a T-shirt quilt, I’m using SCHMETZ #4026 Chrome Jersey Needles – 90/14.  The tip of a jersey needle is more rounded than a universal needle and is designed to push the fabric fibres apart without cutting them, preventing the knit fabric from laddering or running after stitching. Before I decide what color thread to use for quilting, I look at the over all quilt top. Even though this quilt has a few white blocks, I’m using an ivory-colored thread because I think it will blend better. I’m using GÜTERMANN Cotton 50wt Thread 250m in Ivory.

A GÜTERMANN Cotton 50wt thread and SCHMETZ Chrome Jersey needles on a T-shirt block that has the words Super Quilter.

GÜTERMANN Cotton 50wt thread and SCHMETZ Chrome Jersey needles

Because I’ll be using this quilt a lot, I’ll do very easy quilting on it. Easy quilting is what I opt for on most of my quilts; ones I know will be well-used.

I use the Sew Easy Quilting Ruler – 24″ x 612″ (61 x 16.5cm) to mark where my quilting lines will be. This step only takes a few minutes. In my case, if I don’t mark, my lines would look more like waves.

Using a Sew easy Quilting Ruler - 24″ x 61⁄2″ to mark lines on a T-shirt block with a bicycle and sewing machine motif.

Preparing quilting lines

After I’ve made the initial quilting lines, I’ll add other quilting lines that will go through the sides of the blocks. Once the quilt is quilted, you’ll get a grid effect of approximately 4” x 4” squares.

Grid-style quilting on the T-shirt quilt.

Quilting completed

Now that the quilting’s done, it’s time to add the binding. I used the Hemline Gold Quilters Clips. I enjoy using them as they are easy to open and they apply a nice pressure to hold down the binding.

Hemline Gold Quilters Clips are used to hold down a black binding on one of the corners of the T-shirt quilt.

Hemline Gold Quilters Clips

With the binding on, the quilt is completed and ready to be used.

The completed T-shirt quilt is made of 16 squares placed on a couch.

Completed T-shirt quilt

Proper needles and threads are always underestimated. Get quality needles and thread such as the SCHMETZ #4026 Chrome Jersey Needles – 90/14 – 5 count and GÜTERMANN Cotton 50wt Thread 250m – Ivory to complete your quilt.

SCHMETZ Chrome Jersey five pack of needles and a spool of ivory colored GÜTERMANN Cotton 50wt thread on a red T-shirt with a motif of a sewing machine with a heartbeat.

SCHMETZ Chrome Jersey needles and GÜTERMANN Cotton 50wt thread

Come back tomorrow to check out a few different options for your next T-shirt quilts.

This is part 4 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 3: Pinning a quilt – It’s the little things that count

Go to part 5: T-shirt quilts – 4 ideas for layouts that work!

 

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