Lumpy Quilting
- Krista Moser
- 3 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Recently, I've had quite a few questions about machine quilting quilts. Mostly questions about quilting density and the method I use to do my straight lines.
I started longarm quilting in high school, back when it was still taboo to machine quilt your quilt - real quilts were only quilted by hand. Over the years, my understanding of what works best has definitely evolved!
So let’s talk about lumpy quilting. People have shown me pictures of quilts where they were disappointed with the quilting, often mentioning that they felt there was too much quilting on them. Like the longarm quilter just scribbled all over their beautiful quilt. In almost every case, the quilting on it was just uneven, and that became distracting. If you quilt a design or pattern densely in one area and leave the surrounding area wide open or lightly quilted, the change in texture becomes distracting because the fabric buckles around the “drawn up” area of the quilting.
To fix this, semi-dense quilting could be added around a design to help soften the density difference between the two areas. That is what was done here. The more open feather pattern was stitched in first, and then the tighter swirl pattern was stitched closely around it to make it pop.
This is a quilt I finished last week. I chose several texture designs that were all about the same density to fill in each area. Only the lines of “pearls” or circles were slightly more open. This is the best way to ensure a quilt comes out flat, while still being rich with interest.
Another great way to ensure a quilt comes out flat and lies really well over a bed or on a wall is to quilt a basic all-over design from edge to edge. Look for a design that has about the consistent spacing between stitch lines in all directions. In this case, I used a simple swirl on this large bed quilt, and that will keep it soft and durable over time.
Many of you know I quilt all my own quilts with my back-and-forth straight line quilting. This is a good basic all-over design that also comes out flat and somewhat dense. This makes the texture even over the whole quilt and perfect for photography (which is why I do it). It isn’t so tight that it is too stiff to use. It will also hang really flat if displayed in a quilt shop or on a wall.
I hope this was helpful!
Happy Sunday, everyone,
Krista