Questions from Readers

There's no real easy way to reply back to the comments left on the blog, so I took the liberty of taking one I received, and  re-posting it here.

Original post:

Hi Kiera-Oona,

Please may I ask if you ever got around to making the second video tutorial for the crazy quilt? I've been trying to find something similar to help me, even a decent book reference for crazy quilting would be great, but I cannot find out how to finish it anywhere. Do you back them onto anything after you've sewn your pieces together, sew the squared up pieces together without any backing or machine embroidery and what is used for batting and borders please? I'm sure I'm not the only curious novice person to know how the end result should be and look. I found your fist crazy quilt tutorial brilliant, but as a complete newbie I have no idea how to progress past your first tutorial. Thanks in advance. Kind regards, Michelle (Johnson) from the UK xx


 My reply:

Hello Michelle,

I never did get around to making a second video on how to 'sandwich' a quilt.  However, I did a picture based post quite some time ago which is still on this blog:

You can find it by following this link: http://knittyknittykitty.blogspot.ca/2014/03/crazy-quilt-progress-sandwiching-by.html 

To back my quilt, all I used was a big bed sheet.  I know pro quilters out there will say that's not the way to do it cause the thread count is too high.  I wanted something that was in the size of the quilt I wanted to make.  Why not re-use?  For my crazy quilt, I didn't use any batting between my layers.  I just stuck my back sheet onto it, and did a bit by machine, and a bit by hand.  I've also been using it as a teaching method to people on how to do embroidery and hand stitching.  I find it will add character if I allow people to use it as a piece to work on, and it adds to the final piece.

 By quilting standards, I'm still a novice myself.  The only difference is I have used a sewing machine for a lot longer for clothing than for quilting.

As for video references, there are a LOT of tutorials out there for both beginners and advanced quilters out there.  I'm sure if you look by the correct terms, or go through quilting association websites, they have a plethora of resources for you to look through.  I even found ones on how to do the binding on quilts (the edge of fabric all the way around the border made with fabric cut on the bias).   In the link I included, there's also a tutorial on how to sandwich your layers and how to sew it using a home machine.  I hope it helps.

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So, if you have a question out there that you want to ask about a project that I posted on earlier, please Email me rather than using the comments section below.  I will try to reply directly, or possibly post it up depending on the question to help others.

My email address is keira (dot) oona (at) Gmail (dot) com. Just replace the words in the brackets with the appropriate punctuation.  This keeps spam bots away.