We’re going to quilt our class samples for “A Garden of Design, so we need to stabilize the knitting with fusible interfacing. It can be woven or non-woven, as long as it is firm. Here’s my sample, showing the knitted layer with interfacing, the layer of quilt batting, and the fabric which is the back of the quilt.
You can quilt knitting without stabilizing it. I’ve done it, but wouldn’t recommend it without the aid of a walking foot for your sewing machine. A walking foot is great because it doesn’t drag at the fabric. For workshops, I try to minimize any special equipment needs. So we just stabilize, then sew at a very low foot pressure.
Now we quilt with a few rows of stitching. I sew wavy lines on purpose, because if they are wavy on purpose, they can’t be crooked. Wavy-on-purpose quilting relieves the quilter of anxiety about having to sew straight lines.
I trimmed the sample using a rotary cutter and cutting mat. Rotary cutters are not necessary, but they make crafting a lot easier.
Notice that the ends are gone? Trimmed away by the rotary cutter, without a care in the world. Why so nonchalant? Because the knitting is stuck to iron-on interfacing and quilted. It isn’t going to unravel. Not only that, but the edges are about to be bound. And here they are.
When I’m making wall hanging, I wait much longer to bind the edges. Sometimes I want to catch an appliquéd element of the picture into the binding, to make it look like it is going out of the frame. This takes forethought and planning (or a lot of time undoing). We don’t have the luxury of time in the workshop, so some of the finer details go by the wayside.
By Thursday evening, I should have some knitted flowers and greenery to arrange on the picture. Hope you’ll check back then.