...because my knees hurt. Ok, I'm a crybaby; I know I am. I don't know how you guys sandwich your quilts, but I shove all the furniture into the piano, carefully sweep the living room floor (the only time it's ever clean!), spread my quilt back out wrong side up on the hardwood, and tape it to the floor with masking tape.
Then I roll out my batting, cut whatever I need, smooth it down nice,
put the roll out of the way and spread the top out on the batting. When I'm confident that everything is straight and smooth I start throwing down clumps of safety pins.
I pin the bejesus out of my quilt sandwiches. I've only ever had to pull quilting stitches once because of a wadded up backing, but it is about the only problem that I'm certain I can always avoid simply by taking my time with the pinning, so since then I have always taken my time with the pinning. When it's all over the sandwich usually has a safety pin every four to six inches. All of this is good. It creates very stable, quiltable sandwiches: just what I aim for. Except...the knees. Somehow, between say, I dunno 1975 and last week, somewhere in there my knees got way too old for quilt sandwiching. I don't know how or when exactly it happened, but believe me, it did. Today I sandwiched five quilts ranging from a full size to a king size, using up about 11 yards of batting in the process. I find that this evening calls for a two cuppa hot bath in celebration. That's ok, I'll use the time in the tub to try out quilting patterns in the bubbles.
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I feeeeel your pain!
ReplyDeleteTry putting on those foam knee pads. They will work wonders on the knees and you won't feel it so badly. Usually, I baste with needle and thread, but am wondering about trying the pins for one quilt and see the difference.
ReplyDeleteYikes, I don't know how your knees take the hardwood floors! I've always worked on a carpeted floor but with this move the largest space for pinning borders is hardwood. After trying it a time or two I went back to the longarm room where I have less space but there's a carpet and my knees thank me.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the hints on sewing the postcard edges. I went ahead and put a binding on the fall card last night and will stitch it down today but I'll definitely try out your method.
Buy some volleyball knee pads!
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