The Quilting Begins

 People often ask me what thread I use to quilt my quilts, how I baste them, what batting I use, what needles I use and several other questions.  So, today I'll answer a few of them.

I've been working on this quilt for months and months and, finally, I have gotten to the quilting stage.  I never spray baste a quilt--I pin it using the oak flooring surface of my living room to spread it out on.  Why do I not spray baste?  Two reasons:  First of all, I don't like all of those fumes going into my lungs and, secondly, I'm not good at it.  When I've tried it, I always seemed to get wrinkles and I couldn't even imagine getting a smooth result in a large quilt.  So . . .I just tape the layers to the floor--pulling the edges taut but not tight--turn on my Books on Tape and just go for it.  I'm fortunate that my dog knows better than to walk on it so I can leave it overnight if I need to (of course, she may not like walking on all those pins either!).  The batting I'm using on this quilt is Warm and Natural.  I usually choose this or Hobbs 80/20.
The quilting here is on the center section of the quilt and you can see if a little better if  you click on the pictures to enlarge them.  For me, the most difficult part of any quilt project is choosing the threads and the quilting stitches.  With this quilt background, I decided to use a thread that was darker than the fabric so that the stitching would stand out.  I'm using Superior's Nature Colors by 

Hollis Chatelain  ( 40 wt. Trilobal Polyester) with Superior's 50 wt. cotton in the bobbin.  And I'm using an 80 sharp needle.  I tried using an 80 topstitch needle but the thread didn't like it and kept fraying. One thing I've learned is that just because one machine likes a certain kind of thread or needle doesn't mean that your other machines will feel the same.
This is the first large quilt that I've quilted on my Bernina 830 and, so far, I've been very pleased--mostly because I've had zero problems with the tension.  I REALLY hate it when I turn the quilt to the back after stitching a while and realize that I'm going to have to spend a lot of time taking those stitches out due to bad tension.
So, now I've finished with this thread and I need to figure out what I'm going to do next!