Quilting Tip

13 01 2011

My goal was to have the Christmas Cactus top completely quilted in time for Stitch N’ Bitch, which took place this last Saturday, the 8th.

Yeah, that just didn’t happen. I got slammed with the killer cold from hell that had my tonsils so swollen that I actually dreamed that someone was shoving orange and purple fabric down my throat and woke up choking! Yeah, I was in Urgent Care that very morning, praying I didn’t have strep throat. Then I called in and slept as much as I could.

Anyway, I’d gotten about 50% (and 500 yards of thread) into quilting the top before I got taken down for a week with said killer cold from hell.

Now, I’ve not done a lot of quilting big tops on my piecing machine. Why should I, when I have this:

‘Nuff said, right?

Well, not so much for the Christmas Cactus top. The big frame is awesome for anything that isn’t a straight line. Since that’s all I’m doing to this particular top, I’m shoving the giant thing through Bessie’s woefully inadequate throat space.

It’s not a big deal, really, except that the quilt sandwich kept unrolling itself as I quilted. I bought bicycle clips at Joann’s – those are the metal semi-circles coated in (supposedly) non-slip plastic. Well, those stupid things just kept falling off. I pondered taking a big needle and basting the rolled quilt together, but I could damage it.

The solution?

Available at your local office supply store.

BINDER CLIPS!

Seriously! I went to OfficeMax and bought a package of 12 – 1″ binder clips for $5.97. At home, I rolled the quilt up and went to town:

Yes, Demon just had to settle herself and begin cleaning herself in the five minutes it took me to roll the quilt and apply the binder clips.

They work great! Quilt layers compress down to nearly nothing, so the 1″ clips are perfect! It seems like they’ll be a little tough to get onto a quilt that has more bulk to it, but careful folding should circumvent that problem.