Blog readers often send me quilt tops.  I machine quilt the tops and bind them.  Then the finished quilts are sent off to a worthy charity.  This is one of those….
It’s not a typo. Â Yes, there are charity QUILTS (with an “s”) on the frame.
I blog reader sent two quilt to me. Â They are both VERY similar and both were lap sized.
Here’s the first one….
and here’s a peak at the second one.Look in the picture. Â Notice the little small space between the two quilts?
One of things that takes up lots of time when quilting these is to load the quilts into the frame. Â It’s especially time consuming with smaller quilts as the same amount of work and time takes place to load the small quilt as it does for the big ones. Â In an effort to cut some of the time I made a HUGE backing, big enough for both quilts, and just loaded one backing with the intention of quilting two quilts.
Once the first one was done, I put the second top right next to is and started quilting it. Â What a time saver!! Â I need to do this more often but it’s hard unless the two quilt tops can used the same or similar backings. Â I am almost tempted to seam together two backings for separate lap sized quilts to do this too. Â It really is such a time saver…and with all the charity tops that have come in, I need a time saver.
Over the last week, SIX tops have come in. Â Several already have backings ready to go so they will be my first ones to do. Â I’m grabbing anything easy and doing that first.
All of these tops are awesome. Â I can’t wait to get them quilted, bound and shown off to you!!
Thanks for the quilts tops…It’s always fun working on them.
Yesss, I do that whenever I can. Have considered basting 2 backings together, but haven’t tried it yet. My problem is, that my longarm machine is only 18″ so the take up roller gets fat and fills up a chunk of the arm, requiring more frequent rolling forward. So, I’m not sure how much time I’m really saving, but I surely don’t mind eliminating some of the pinning on.
Happy quilting!
You’re in my prayers.
First I want to wish you well with your health and I know you have a great family to help you. 2nd I love reading your blog and I am amazed with all you get done. I also do charity quilts for Project Linus. I have done over 700 quilts. I have stopped counting. Anyway most of these quilts are baby quilt sized and not always the same size. What I have done is loaded a very busy fabrics with loads of colour as the backing. Really wide and and really long fabric. Sometimes king size sheets I get on clearance or the thrift store. Then I put the tops on side by side on the width and the again on the length. So I can do 4 quilts at a time. Sometimes 6 quilts. Sometimes when I have odd sized ones I can put them on like puzzle pieces and just cut them apart afterwards. I feels good to make a dent in the box some days. I also use up all my left over batting in these quilts by just sliding a piece of batting in as needed.
Jo – Glad to see my ‘Craftsy’ box made it – and I can’t wait to see how things will turn out after you add your magic to them! Sending good thoughts and prayers your way for your current health situation.
Those two scrappy quilts are just adorable! Glad you found a way to avoid some of the pinning!