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I learned the hard way to quilt with a woven fabric. (I’m referring to the looser weaves…not the typical tight cotton weave in standard quilting fabric.) I don’t necessarily have answers, but I can give a fair warning that I did something very wrong (maybe ignorant) when it came to quilting this one.
I’ve said it before. This is one of those times that my seam ripper became my best friend. I had finished almost all the quilting on this quilt before I FINALLY made the decision to stop and rip it all out.
Something had gone awry with the looser wovens. The majority of the fabric in this quilt is a from the Warp & Weft collection. I love the fabric. My problems with the quilting were not a reflection of quality in the fabric.
I sew almost everything with a tight weave cotton fabric, but I branched out a bit and purchased the entire stack of these wovens designed by Alexia Marcelle Abegg from Ruby Star Society.
The quilt top, in general, came together nicely. The basting process, as usual, involved a cement floor, basting spray, and my husband ensuring there are no wrinkles to be found.
Then I started quilting. I have a Juki TL-2010Q. It’s a nice machine, and a beast when it comes to straight line quilting. I knew it couldn’t be the machine.
The fabric was pulling so bad with my quilting. I always quilt one whole way before turning the quilt 90 degrees and going the other way. I can’t remember which way I started, but I think I started quilting parallel to the weft.
My warning: if you’re quilting with the looser weave woven fabrics, be sure to know whether to quilt the way of the warp or the weft first. Whichever way I did it was wrong.
Like I said, it was quilting terribly. The fabric was pulling so much. My stubbornness kicked in, and I kept going. It wasn’t until I started quilting the opposite direction that I started getting REALLY discouraged.
Take a look at the picture I snapped with my phone before I started ripping all the quilting out. The quilting lines are actually straight lines. You can see how much the fabric was shifting.
Defeat hit. I let it sit for three days. My husband reminded me of my own words that washing and drying a quilt covers a multitude of errors and said to just finish it.
I started ripping it out.
So I then started complaining of how much time it takes to rip out quilting AND how much thread I wasted in the process.
BUT
I couldn’t believe it.
I started quilting vertically this time. I started quilting parallel to the warp, and it was so much better. The fabric was not pulling this time.
This time around, it was entirely worth it to pull the quilting out. I’m so thankful I spent the time picking out the thread. I’m honestly exceedingly happy with how this quilt turned out. The backing, for anyone curious, is called Floral Lace Roses in the parchment color.
