Traveling with Quilts

One third personal, one third class stuff, and one third quilts: that’s about the ratio of my luggage contents when I travel to teach. Since I want the quilts to arrive with a minimum of wrinkles, so I’ve developed a way to let each one pad the crease of another.

I start with the one medium-large quilt I’m taking. I put it in the cavity of my  partially packed suitcase, but leave it fully open.

Next, I add the quilts that are a little smaller. These are too big to lie flat in the suitcase, but narrow enough to fit within the width of my luggage. I lay these in the cavity with one end flat, but the remainder of the quilt opened up and hanging over the edges. See the numbered sequence below.

Next, come the very small quilts that are small enough to fit flat into the suitcase. I put in a few of these, but hold two out.

Now it’s time to start folding up the quilts which have already been laid in place, working in approximately reverse order. In the photo below, the purple quilt has been folded up, with the smallest quilts acting as padding for that crease.

Eventually, all of these quilts are folded up.  See the folded red quilt, below.  Remember that it was the second one to go in. So, it’s time to address the largest quilt which was placed in first. Of course, it needs to have its folds padded too, and this is where the remaining two small quilts come in. In the photo below, the quilt with the oranges was placed with this in mind.

Now the largest quilt can be folded right to left.

And top to center, with the oranges quilt sandwiched in between the folds.

Finally, the last small quilt is added to cushion the final fold and I’m ready to go.

My students and the audience members at my lectures really love to see quilts up close and personal, so these are always a big hit.

I’d love to come show them off at your guild!

Ellen Lindner