Sunday, May 31, 2009

Picture of the Pink Possum




Look what someone sent me! My very own Pink Possum, ain't she cute?

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Preparing your quilt for professional quilting

So, you've finally finished that beautiful quilt top you've been working on for months and now you've broken out in a cold sweat thinking about the horrendous task of quilting it on your shortarm sewing machine, let alone what quilting design you're going to use!

Maybe you've considered having it professionally quilted to save you time and your back, but you're unsure what you need to do to prepare it, how much it will cost and even whether your piecing is good enough to send to a professional quilter.....

It IS easier than you thought, and probably cheaper than you imagined.

PREPARING YOUR QUILT:
All you need to do is iron the seams flat and trim off all the loose threads from the front of the quilt.
Don't worry if your patchwork is not as good as you'd hoped, I understand every one is at a different stage in their patchwork and you will be the worst critic of your work. It is amazing how the quilting will camaflauge many imperfections. Any open seams or other mistakes I will tack down and note for you to handstitch when the quilt returns. Sometimes I can do small repairs myself, it's no big deal.
I have 4 types of batting available and access to others if required, a small stock of wide batting fabrics and a catalogue of a large selection of others. I can supply thread and specialty threads also such as metallic or variegated or even glow in the dark. I do prefer to use my own threads as I've tried many and know which ones will produce the best result. Cheaper threads will sit on the quilt surface and look terrible, rather than 'sinking' into the quilt.
If you're supplying the batting and backing, please make sure its a couple of inches bigger than the quilt top on all sides.

Welcome to Sue Roper's Quilting Blog!


Thanks for visiting! I hope you find the information you need here and enjoy the photos. If you need any help, or even quilting advice, please contact me and I'd love to be able to help.
Here's one of my latest projects using all hand dyes and no pattern. Oh boy, the quilting was fun on this one!