How to Assemble a Quilt Sandwich

Today, I'm going show you how to prepare a quilt sandwich. No, it's not something to eat, it's how you prepare your quilt for the actual quilting process. It's where you layer your backing fabric, you're batting, and then the quilt top, and pin it so that you can take it over to the machine and start quilting. You are going to need quilting pins for this. There are other options for it, you can use a basting gun that puts plastic tacks in, you can hand base, but most people prefer the pinning methods, so that's what I'm gonna show you today. These are standard, everyday, ordinary safety pins, and you can use them, but it's a lot more difficult. It's worth spending the few extra dollars and buying yourself some quilting pins. The quilting pin, as you can see, is curved on the bottom, and it actually has a slight tilt to it. It's not perfectly flat like the safety pin. So it's easier to open it and get into your quilting sandwich and then close it. They come in different sizes, but honestly, I find that the bigger ones are probably your best bet for any of the quilts that you're gonna layer. So let me show you what you need to do. The first thing is your backing fabric. And you're going to want to make sure that your fabric is approximately eight inches wider and eight inches longer than your quilt top. And that's because your fabric will shrink as you quilt it, and I'd rather have you have a little extra than not enough. It's the same thing when you go to a long arm quilter, they always want extra fabric for putting it onto their machine. If you are taking your quilt to a long arm quilter, do not make a sandwich. Do not pin it, do not baste it, do not put the layers together because we put each layer on separately onto the machine and you are just creating more work for us because we'll have to take your sandwich apart. So don't bother with it. That's the joy of going to a long arm quilter, you don't have to do all of the sandwich work. But if you're going to do it under your machine, the first thing you're gonna want is blue painter's tape, or you can use masking tape. You're going to need a large table, depending on the size of your quilt. If you have access to a ping pong table, that is an ideal table to work on, or you may wanna go to a sewing center for a larger table. If worst comes to worse, you're gonna be down on your hands and knees on the floor. So that's one reason I liked my long arm is because I no longer had to get on the floor. So you're gonna take your painter's tape and you're going to tape the edges of your quilt backing to your table or to your floor, and you want to make sure that this fabric is as flat as you can get it. And ideally, you would press it first, because you can see where the creases are, it tends to bubble it up and I left this unpressed so you could see that issue there. So make sure you press first. You're going to tape, and you'll probably wanna use more tape than what I am, you're gonna wanna tape it quite securely. More is better in this case. You're going to tape it to the table on all four edges, or to the floor as the case may be. I like the painter's tape because it doesn't leave a sticky residue if you need to leave it there for a little while. Then you're going to, so your backing is wrong side up, that's very important. The wrong side is up, then you get your batting. Again, this should be approximately six to eight inches larger all the way around than your quilt top. And this just gets layered in here. And you can take it all the way out. This particular piece is a little shorter, but for purpose of demonstration, it will work. Make sure, you can see me pulling under here, what I'm pulling is any last wrinkles. And again, this one, I wasn't able to tape it down on the sides. And sometimes when you start pulling, your backing comes loose, so you need to go back and double check that. So now you have your batting here. If there are threads on your batting, take them off, because it will show through on your quilt, especially if you have a white background on your quilt. After your batting is down and everything's smoothed out, you put your quilt top down. Today, I'm just using a little panel for demonstration purposes, and it may be that you're just quilting a panel and that's okay. So this is how you would do it. And again, you wanna make sure that everything is nice and flat and has been pressed before you start this. You're going to start in the center and mark out. And since this is technically my center, I'm going to use that as my starting point. Open your pins up and you just go underneath and come back up. And because of that bend in the pin, when you go down and in, you'll feel it on the table, it comes up very easily. You can either tighten it now, or you can tighten it later. Your option, some people prefer to do it once it's off the table. You are going to have to be careful because when you are quilting, when this is on your machine, you obviously don't wanna run over any of the pins, so you're going to be taking them out as you go. From the center, you're going to work out in all directions. The rule of thumb is no further than a fist. So, I just put my fist down there and work my way out. Put my fist down. And you can either, I usually just come straight out so I have rows. And after a while, you'll be able to judge, it doesn't have to be exactly a fist, but once you get started, you can just do your grid of these. I'm gonna do another row here, and then I will show you how you roll your quilt for quilting. Another option, if you're a hand quilter, you would use this method, if you are using your domestic machine to quilt, you would use this method. I also tell people once they get it to the machine, if you don't want to pin right along your edges, you can just do a basting stitch that'll at least hold it in place while you quilt, which is a good idea. But the other thing you can do, particularly if you have a large quilt, is take it to your long armor and she can machine baste your quilt sandwich for you and then you can take it home and do the quilting, either on your domestic machine or by hand. I've had quite a few hand quilters bring me their quilts to make the sandwich on the long arm. And they absolutely love it because it saves them the wear and tear on their knees and all of this headache of pinning. So, there you have it, you take your tape off, you're ready to go. And what you wants to do then is you're going to start at the outside and you're going to roll it, like this. Roll your edges, and of course, if you're talking a king-sized quilt, you're getting a lot of roll next to it. And this is how you would carry it to your machine, put it underneath, start quilting in the center and work your way out. And then of course, once your quilt is quilted, you're going to come back and remove your pins. Before you do roll your edges, though, I do recommend that you go ahead and close the pins because you don't wanna get the pin stuck in your hand. Little bit of safety first there. So there you go, that's how you make a quilt sandwich and go to the next step of your quilt.