When I set up my current sewing room, which is much larger than my previous one, I took batting scraps into consideration. I have a pop-up mesh hamper I bought specifically to hold batting scraps. I stuck the hamper into the walk in closet, and added a large laundry basket next to it, with my thought being I would put basted quilts waiting to be quilted in the laundry basket. It worked nicely.... for a little while.
The last couple of years I've been overtaken with deadline quilts. I made five wedding quilts last year, three this year, and numerous baby quilts in between. I've also been trying to get a handle on UFO's. When I'm doing a bunch of stuff with deadlines, I don't want to stop and take the time to piece Frankenbatts. So my pop up hamper, which was basically empty when I stuck it in the closet two years ago, was overflowing with batting scraps. The laundry basket I had planned to store basted quilts in, yeah, that was overflowing with batting scraps too.
This week I dumped all the batting scraps out, and started divided them into piles by fiber content. In this photo the cotton batting is on the right, poly on the left. The cotton batting pile only looks small because I didn't think to take a photo until after I had made two cotton Frankenbatts and basted them into quilts. The cotton pile was originally close to the same size.
At this point I've already pieced four Frankenbatts, all of which are already basted into quilts. The largest of the quilts I used a Frankenbatt for this go around is 90x90. Most of the UFO quilt tops I have ready to baste are twin sized or smaller though, so I don't need to piece a bunch of huge Frankenbatts.
There are a bunch of different methods to piece batting scraps together. Some people overlap the batting scraps and just use the quilting to hold it all together, others overlap the batting and sew a basting stitch. Some people buy fusible tape made just for that purpose. I prefer to use a ruler and straighten up the edges of the batting scraps, to make even strips. Using my blind hem presser foot, I use the widest zig zag my machine will do, and I butt the straight edges together and sew. I love the blind hem presser foot for this purpose, its got a flange down the middle of the foot, so I can butt each strip of batting against the flange, then it sews over a finger like extension on the back of the foot, which keeps the batting from bunching up or puckering.
I'm not done piecing batting, but I did put the empty laundry basket back into the closet and I'm piling up the basted quilts in it.
Isn't that a great pile of basted quilts, all UFO's to boot!
My goal is to baste quilts until I'm out of pins. This is how many pins I have left. I am reclaiming pins during my hour of FMQ every day though. I don't baste as closely as I used to, except on the edges of the quilt. With an 18" throat on my Tin Lizzie, I can keep a lot more area flat while quilting, so I have no issues with pinning 6-8 inches apart, where before I used to pin no more than 3-4 inches apart. Since none of the quilts I have ready to baste are that big, I'm thinking I may have enough pins to baste 3 more quilts. I'm hoping to be finished with the Frankenbatts and basting by Sunday at the latest, I have out of town company coming next Thursday for a week.
This may leave you with a smile. I've been quilting my grandson's dinosaur quilt this week, and with all the lights I use to light up my longarm, it really charges the glow in the dark fabric in the border. Every time my timer goes off and I stop quilting, I hit the switch on the power strip and all the lights go off at once.
I get to see the green glow of dinosaur skeletons before I go take a break. It makes me smile every time!
1 comment:
I also cut my batting straight and zig zag it together. I'll have to try the blind hem foot next time! I love the way you keep everything organized! Your grandson is going to love his dinosaur quilt!
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