Long Arm Quilting: #18 Jen

I started itching to do some long arm work, and immediately a quilt popped into my head as the one I was going to work on.  So I started prepping the quilt, getting it nicely pressed, squared up (some of the quilts I got didn't come in that way) and got all the zippers on, only to realize:

The quilt backing is the same size as the quilt top.

Well, it wasn't exactly the same size, but with only about an inch on each side to spare (and a bit less because the zippers take some space) it might as well have been.  It happens, people.  In fact, I even designed a quilt that has a back that's exactly the same size, through a goof of my own.  I won't say which because I'm hoping I can fix it without anyone being the wiser!

So I had to get in touch with the owner of the quilt, to get her permission to add fabric to her backing to bring it up to size.  She said go ahead, and this is where having a nice stash comes in handy - I found a perfect blue called Kona Azure to match the quilt backing:


Don't worry - the blue got washed out in this picture but it's a tad darker than this.  I added only to the top and one side to keep the asymmetrical look to the backing.  I also chose to do this because it needed a full 8" to get added, and I didn't want it to look like a weird afterthought with a very narrow frame around it.  I also can't guarantee exactly where the bottom of the quilt will land, so I had to account for that too.

Onto the frame it goes!  The back goes on first:


You can see the blue a little better now, eh?  The backing gets loaded onto the frame with the wrong side facing up.  It needs to be smoothed out a little more, but I do that once the batting gets loaded.  This is a quilt which did not come with batting, so I chose an 80/20 cotton/poly with scrim, which is a little thicker than the batting without scrim.  I wanted to choose a thicker batting because the quilt top does have some puckers in it, and I need the batting to help with the puckers.

Next, the quilt top goes on.  The top gets loaded face up, and I throw it over the back of the machine to help me roll it on straight:


The pantograph pattern that you see at the bottom of the picture is from a different project; I won't be using that on this quilt! I still haven't chosen exactly what I'm going to do - it needs to be a fairly loose pattern so I don't make the puckers worse, but I want it to be really nice & playful since it's a quilt for a boy.

The last thing I wanted to check was the thread color that I picked out.  I ordered the thread weeks ago so I just wanted to confirm that I like the color.  I chose a royal blue to complement the blues & browns throughout the quilt. I think it will look very nice!

To endless possibilities,

Ebony