Perfectly Flat Quilts

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?

Straighten out those wavy quilts and make them perfectly flat. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

But, a combination of stretching, pinning, and steaming turned it into this perfectly flat quilt.

Straighten out those wavy quilts and make them perfectly flat. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

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.)

Straighten out those wavy quilts and make them perfectly flat. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

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, an art quilt by Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

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

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