If you’ve done much machine quilting you’ve probably had some “friendly” quilts. You know, the wavy ones? This is pretty standard for me so I correct the problem by blocking my quilts.
Take this quilt for instance. Pretty bad, right?
But, a combination of stretching, pinning, and steaming turned it into this perfectly flat quilt.
I recently gave the same treatment to my latest quilt, Coastal Overlook. Here it is with the top and left edges pinned straight and square. I stretched them quite a bit in that process, so the other two sides are still relaxed (and smaller.)
Next, I stretched the bottom right corner to its square position and then pulled the remaining two edges into alignment. This took A LOT of pins and about an hour of my time. Finally, I sprayed the whole thing with water, steam ironed it, and left it overnight to dry.
Here are the final results, nice and square.
Coastal Overlook
I highly recommend blocking and I’ve written a tutorial about it. Read and learn!
Ellen Lindner
Related Post, old blog:
I Don’t Like Friendly Quilts
