a Machine Quilting Hint

This is Kathy this time. Did you ever realize how the actual quilting on a quilt can make a quilt shrink up? Here's a very sad (read - learning experience ;-) example. My brother and his wife did a nice addition on their older home, and they were getting a brand new master suite. My SIL wanted a special Tahitian Quilt for their bed, to replace a cover that my brother had made years ago when he was in Tahiti. This was supposed to be a big surprise for him. And it was supposed to be a full bedspread - to touch the ground, and also have a fold over for the pillows at the top of the bed. The problem was that they had all their furniture in storage, and I couldn't measure their bed to get exact measurements. My SIL said, "Any queen size bed will do." So, I used our own queen size bed for measurements, and spent hours and hours appliquing a two color quilt in the Hawaiian style. I kept trying the top out on our bed to make sure it was long enough. Then I machine quilted it, echoing the breadfruit designs half inch apart. It took a long time - so long. But it was beautiful. And expensive! She wanted certain colors, and it was so much fabric of one kind. I'm so used to piecing a quilt, and having LOTS of LOTS of different fabrics, so it was quite a challenge to use just two colors. So, I finish up the quilt about the same time that they are moving back into their newly remodeled home. And do you know what? That quilt was SO SMALL on their bed! I was so disgusted! It barely covered the mattress, not even the box springs, and you couldn't fold it over the pillows at the top. There were two mistakes made by both myself and my sister-in-law. First - their queen size bed was an overstuffed type of mattress, and their bed risers were a little higher than my own. She didn't tell me that, and it didn't even cross her mind that her bed might measure larger than other queen size beds. Second - I didn't take into account that quilting the batting into a quilt actually shrinks the quilt. I've always told people that washing definitely shrinks a quilt, but really didn't think about the fact that quilting does the same. I should have added ten inches more on all the sides of the quilt! Well, they both loved the quilt, but I was so upset to have a 'failure' on my side. It was so embarrassing because I've been doing this work professionally for over 13 years. I guess that I'm good at quilting other people's quilts, but not that great of a designer of my own. I'm sure happy to leave that to other brave souls. And I learned another good lesson to pass on to other quilters - quilts SHRINK when they are quilted! Duh! It was a lesson I didn't want to learn, but one that I'll never forget (nor repeat!)

Happy Quilting
- Kathy

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