Geta's Quilting Studio

Fresh Ideas for Quilts and Bags

  • Shop
  • Cart
  • Blog
  • Freebies
  • Tutorials
  • Shop
  • Quilt Inspiration
  • Bag Inspiration
  • Born to Quilt

A quilting tip

October 31, 2021 3 Comments

One of my latest quilts was a long table runner; it was so fun to sew it (pattern here)…

A quilting tipA quilting tipI did a quick and easy quilting, and then it was the time to photograph it. I tried to align one of its long edges with a long line of my floor, and to my surprise, I could not do it, because the edge of my quilt wasn’t straight! Obviously, I did not square it up perfectly, but there was one more reason for this situation.
I remembered that when I laid the quilt top over batting, because it was so long, I thought that I should use something with a long edge to help me keep the outside edge of quilt top straight- but I was in a hurry and I skipped this step.

Now that I know, I will not check the edge of the quilt with a ruler when it will decorate my table but …

A quilting tip…
here I am, basting a new quilt, not so long as the one above, but this time I thought to do it right!

Zig zag quilt patternIf you want to follow this process, here is what you have to do:

  • if you use (safety) pins to baste the quilt, lay the backing and batting on the floor and keep them in place with some masking tape.
  • if you spray baste, do this now, so you keep the batting and backing together; tape the double layer on the floor.

Then you have to draw two lines on the batting, as shown in the picture below.  I used a permanent thick marker; use also a square ruler to make sure you have a 90 degree angle at the corner.

A quilting tipYou see below the tool that I used to draw the long line;  it’s an aluminium strip I bought from the hardware store; it’s very long – 2 meters, about 6.5 feet. It doesn’t have any mark on it, but I love its perfect straight long edge.

NOTE

I use it in conjunction with a square ruler when I square up big quilts (of course, I did not use it on the above table runner!)

A quilting tip

Then all you have to do is to align the edges of the quilt top with the drawn lines. Use pins near the outside edges to keep it in place.  Smooth the top over the batting and add pins as needed.

A quilting tip

Use the long metallic strip and check the bottom edge too, to make sure the other long edge of the quilt will be straight.

A quilting tip I have to finish quilting!

A quilting tip

And here are a few of my other zigzag quilts, made with my new pattern.

Zig zag quilt patternZig zag quilt patternZig zag quilt patternZig zag quilt patternZig zag quilt pattern

Happy sewing!

«
»

Filed Under: finished quilts, quilting tutorials

Comments

  1. Karen Poole says

    October 31, 2021 at 8:54 pm

    Ok, so what was the mistake? Not using the square ruler? You said something about not using a straight ruler to square it up, but do you use the straight ruler once you have the corners marked from the square ruler? In a class I took in the supplies list they told us to buy a hardware type square (one side has a long ruler and the other side has a shorter side). Is that the idea here? Thank you.

    Reply
  2. Sheila says

    November 1, 2021 at 9:37 am

    I love it! It is so much easier to square up a quilt and for me faster than anything I have tried before. Thank you so much for sharing.

    Reply
  3. Terry K Duntley says

    October 7, 2024 at 12:31 pm

    I love the feather quilting you did on the quilt! Beautiful!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Looking for something?

Hello and Welcome!
I am Geta Grama, a Romanian quilter.

I design quilt and bag patterns.
Here you will find inspiration, enthusiasm and encouragement for all your quilting dreams.

Meet Geta

Contact Geta

Sweet Words

Main topics

Quilting Free Motion Quilting Shadow Trapunto Bag Making Sewing

Popular Blog Posts

Archive by category

Copyright © 2018 · Geta Grama | Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 · Delightful theme by Restored 316

Copyright © 2025 · Geta Grama