High-loft Poly batting! Argh!

Oh wow, it's getting late.... I'm gonna be fun getting up with the kids
for their first day back at school from Winter break. ;-)

My mom gave me a package of this batting (Polyfil brand, 81"x96") for
Christmas. Great, sez I, because DH wanted me to make him a quilt
because his blanket is on its last legs, and he said he wanted
puffy...I'll use it for him. This stuff is awful! It's all wrinkly and
sorta lumpy in spots next to thin spots, and I can't seem to smooth it
out. Eventually, I did a half-assed job of pinning it in the center,
and then wrestled with it for a half hour to work it under the foot of
my machine for some freehand quilting.

The quilting was awful. Skipped stitches and huge difficulty
maneuvering the fabric around because so much of it was jammed under
the arm... it's all getting ripped out in the morning.

So I know that I should pin it or baste it better. How do I do that if
I don't have the floorspace to lay it out (and outside isn't an
option)? I do have a folding table that I use for my SM and iron...
it's about 2 1/2' x 6' but can't figure a way to use that for pinning.
And once I get the quilt pinned (or basted if I must, but I really
prefer pinning) better, how do I machine quilt it? How do I get it to
*move* with the stitches once I've got so much squeezed under the arm
of the machine? I rolled it into a tube-shape, but that still didn't
work well. And should I just give up on freeform quilting (which I've
become addicted to) and stick with a basic grid? I really want to get
this done by the 14th, which is DH's birthday!


Cina, staggering bleary-eyed off to bed
(who reallyreallyreally likes W&N cotton batting and has to figure some
subtle way to point it out to my mom)

I feel your pain. I really do...btdt! I finally got all the poly batting out of my
house, or at least shredded up so i can use it to make my own pillow forms. It is
nearly impossible to freemotion quilt on higher loft batting...at least for me. How
disappointed you must be. I would probably go ahead and quilt it in a grid as you
suggest, or in the ditch.

As for mom, invite her over and have her watch you struggle with the batting...LOL.
Then when she asks about it, tell her that Warm N Natural is great for machine
quilting, and you can do so much more with it. She'll get the hint, i'm sure...my
mom did. They're well intentioned, but sometimes people just don't get it. Hugs to
you, and good luck
--
Jalynne - Keeper of the Quilt for ME club list
Queen Gypsy (snail mail available upon request)
see what i've been up to at www.100megsfree4.com/jalynne

"Cina" wrote in message
...
Oh wow, it's getting late.... I'm gonna be fun getting up with the kids
for their first day back at school from Winter break. ;-)

My mom gave me a package of this batting (Polyfil brand, 81"x96") for
Christmas. Great, sez I, because DH wanted me to make him a quilt
because his blanket is on its last legs, and he said he wanted
puffy...I'll use it for him. This stuff is awful! It's all wrinkly and
sorta lumpy in spots next to thin spots, and I can't seem to smooth it
out. Eventually, I did a half-assed job of pinning it in the center,
and then wrestled with it for a half hour to work it under the foot of
my machine for some freehand quilting.

The quilting was awful. Skipped stitches and huge difficulty
maneuvering the fabric around because so much of it was jammed under
the arm... it's all getting ripped out in the morning.

So I know that I should pin it or baste it better. How do I do that if
I don't have the floorspace to lay it out (and outside isn't an
option)? I do have a folding table that I use for my SM and iron...
it's about 2 1/2' x 6' but can't figure a way to use that for pinning.
And once I get the quilt pinned (or basted if I must, but I really
prefer pinning) better, how do I machine quilt it? How do I get it to
*move* with the stitches once I've got so much squeezed under the arm
of the machine? I rolled it into a tube-shape, but that still didn't
work well. And should I just give up on freeform quilting (which I've
become addicted to) and stick with a basic grid? I really want to get
this done by the 14th, which is DH's birthday!


Cina, staggering bleary-eyed off to bed
(who reallyreallyreally likes W&N cotton batting and has to figure some
subtle way to point it out to my mom)

Cina wrote:

Oh wow, it's getting late.... I'm gonna be fun getting up with the kids
for their first day back at school from Winter break. ;-)

My mom gave me a package of this batting (Polyfil brand, 81"x96") for
Christmas. Great, sez I, because DH wanted me to make him a quilt
because his blanket is on its last legs, and he said he wanted
puffy...I'll use it for him.

What high loft poly batting is best for is tied quilts. This also leaves
them nice and puffy. I have used it for the t-shirt quilt that I made
for my friend. It simply is a nightmare to quilt by hand or by machine,
unless you like doing the one stitch at a time method. I can quilt
anything if I pull through every time I insert the needle into the
fabric, but it's SLOW.

As for a good place to lay out the quilt and baste, have you tried
asking your LQS when is a good time for you to borrow the classroom and
its tables? Sometimes the local school will let you use the cafeteria.
Who else do you know with large tables- perhaps your church.

I'm lucky- my kitchen floor is big enough to baste on, and my mother has
offered to let me use her quilting frame to baste on. Her quilting frame
is simply to large to actually use every day.

-georg

From: Cina

.... My mom gave me a package of this batting (Polyfil brand, 81"x96") for
Christmas. Great, sez I, because DH wanted me to make him a quilt
because his blanket is on its last legs, and he said he wanted
puffy...I'll use it for him. .......
This is HORRID, nasty stuff that I have had to use too often for
people who want "puffy" quilts 8-P******!

......So I know that I should pin it or baste it better. How do I do that if
I don't have the floorspace to lay it out (and outside isn't an
option)? ..........
Will the folding table fit next to your kitchen table to give you
a larer area to work on? I am lucky -- I have 2 folding banquet tables that I
set up on the screen porch or in the kitchen when I have to baste a big quilt!

..... And once I get the quilt pinned (or basted if I must, but I really
prefer pinning) better, how do I machine quilt it? .........
You don't!! I have done one -- thats O-N-E -- puffy quilt on
the machine and never again! I tie my puffy quilts as it's the only way to
stay sane! CiaoMeow ^;;^
..


PAX, Tia Mary ^;;^ Queen of Kitties
Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their
WHISKERS!!
Nothing is complete without a few cat hairs!

Cina, if you are going to remove the batting from your quilt, let's just put
it away. Smash it in a plastic bag and squash it way up high in a closet.If
you don't have a closet, put it in the trunk of the car. No car? Put it in
somebody else's trunk. One day when you have the wild urge to make decorator
pillows for the bed or sofa (or dog), you can use the batting for stuffing.
They say you pick your battles. This is not a worthwhile battle to pick.
I did make a biscuit quilt with a high-loft batt. You just tear off
small handfuls and puff up the biscuits. Maybe the kids will want to help.
Polly

"georg" wrote in message
...
Cina wrote:

Oh wow, it's getting late.... I'm gonna be fun getting up with the kids
for their first day back at school from Winter break. ;-)

My mom gave me a package of this batting (Polyfil brand, 81"x96") for
Christmas. Great, sez I, because DH wanted me to make him a quilt
because his blanket is on its last legs, and he said he wanted
puffy...I'll use it for him.

What high loft poly batting is best for is tied quilts. This also leaves
them nice and puffy. I have used it for the t-shirt quilt that I made
for my friend. It simply is a nightmare to quilt by hand or by machine,
unless you like doing the one stitch at a time method. I can quilt
anything if I pull through every time I insert the needle into the
fabric, but it's SLOW.

As for a good place to lay out the quilt and baste, have you tried
asking your LQS when is a good time for you to borrow the classroom and
its tables? Sometimes the local school will let you use the cafeteria.
Who else do you know with large tables- perhaps your church.

I'm lucky- my kitchen floor is big enough to baste on, and my mother has
offered to let me use her quilting frame to baste on. Her quilting frame
is simply to large to actually use every day.

-georg

Cina,
My daughter also wanted a puffy quilt instead of a flat one so I used
extra high loft poly batt for hers. I feel your pain because I swore
I would NEVER use that again! I had all the problems that you are
having. I ended up just putting hand tack marks every 6 inches or so.
I couldn't even do that by machine... I will never use high loft
poly batt again...

Cina wrote in message ...
Oh wow, it's getting late.... I'm gonna be fun getting up with the kids
for their first day back at school from Winter break. ;-)

My mom gave me a package of this batting (Polyfil brand, 81"x96") for
Christmas. Great, sez I, because DH wanted me to make him a quilt
because his blanket is on its last legs, and he said he wanted
puffy...I'll use it for him. This stuff is awful! It's all wrinkly and
sorta lumpy in spots next to thin spots, and I can't seem to smooth it
out. Eventually, I did a half-assed job of pinning it in the center,
and then wrestled with it for a half hour to work it under the foot of
my machine for some freehand quilting.

The quilting was awful. Skipped stitches and huge difficulty
maneuvering the fabric around because so much of it was jammed under
the arm... it's all getting ripped out in the morning.

So I know that I should pin it or baste it better. How do I do that if
I don't have the floorspace to lay it out (and outside isn't an
option)? I do have a folding table that I use for my SM and iron...
it's about 2 1/2' x 6' but can't figure a way to use that for pinning.
And once I get the quilt pinned (or basted if I must, but I really
prefer pinning) better, how do I machine quilt it? How do I get it to
*move* with the stitches once I've got so much squeezed under the arm
of the machine? I rolled it into a tube-shape, but that still didn't
work well. And should I just give up on freeform quilting (which I've
become addicted to) and stick with a basic grid? I really want to get
this done by the 14th, which is DH's birthday!


Cina, staggering bleary-eyed off to bed
(who reallyreallyreally likes W&N cotton batting and has to figure some
subtle way to point it out to my mom)

Poor you! Tie it. Or if this top has to be quilted, go buy your good old
W&N. Poly batting, even the thin stuff, is not easy to machine quilt.
Personally, I'd use it for stuffed animals and save myself the aggravation.
Roberta in D

"Cina" wrote in message
...
Oh wow, it's getting late.... I'm gonna be fun getting up with the kids
for their first day back at school from Winter break. ;-)

My mom gave me a package of this batting (Polyfil brand, 81"x96") for
Christmas. Great, sez I, because DH wanted me to make him a quilt
because his blanket is on its last legs, and he said he wanted
puffy...I'll use it for him. This stuff is awful! It's all wrinkly and
sorta lumpy in spots next to thin spots, and I can't seem to smooth it
out. Eventually, I did a half-assed job of pinning it in the center,
and then wrestled with it for a half hour to work it under the foot of
my machine for some freehand quilting.

The quilting was awful. Skipped stitches and huge difficulty
maneuvering the fabric around because so much of it was jammed under
the arm... it's all getting ripped out in the morning.

So I know that I should pin it or baste it better. How do I do that if
I don't have the floorspace to lay it out (and outside isn't an
option)? I do have a folding table that I use for my SM and iron...
it's about 2 1/2' x 6' but can't figure a way to use that for pinning.
And once I get the quilt pinned (or basted if I must, but I really
prefer pinning) better, how do I machine quilt it? How do I get it to
*move* with the stitches once I've got so much squeezed under the arm
of the machine? I rolled it into a tube-shape, but that still didn't
work well. And should I just give up on freeform quilting (which I've
become addicted to) and stick with a basic grid? I really want to get
this done by the 14th, which is DH's birthday!


Cina, staggering bleary-eyed off to bed
(who reallyreallyreally likes W&N cotton batting and has to figure some
subtle way to point it out to my mom)

Hi there,
I've had your same experiences with high loft batting which is why, if you
want to make a nice and fluffy quilt with it, the preferred method is to tie it
vs. quilting. Trying to quilt high loft is very frustrating, you have to have
it basted very well and even then puckers are a big risk. I have used it for
my lap quilts which are primarily tied, but then I try and add a bit of
quilting, just something simple to give it the depth that only quilting can do.
Only tying the quilt, in my book, is kinda boring.
If you want to use that table you mentioned, tape a toothpick at the
half-way points on it and align the quilt up with them. Then move on to a
different area.
Good luck!
quiltkitty

In article ,
Cina wrote:

Oh wow, it's getting late.... I'm gonna be fun getting up with the kids
for their first day back at school from Winter break. ;-)

My mom gave me a package of this batting (Polyfil brand, 81"x96") for
Christmas. Great, sez I, because DH wanted me to make him a quilt
because his blanket is on its last legs, and he said he wanted
puffy...I'll use it for him. This stuff is awful! It's all wrinkly and
sorta lumpy in spots next to thin spots, and I can't seem to smooth it
out. Eventually, I did a half-assed job of pinning it in the center,
and then wrestled with it for a half hour to work it under the foot of
my machine for some freehand quilting.

The quilting was awful. Skipped stitches and huge difficulty
maneuvering the fabric around because so much of it was jammed under
the arm... it's all getting ripped out in the morning.

Lots of people have given you great advice on tying or tacking instead
of quilting puffy quilts.


So I know that I should pin it or baste it better. How do I do that if
I don't have the floorspace to lay it out (and outside isn't an
option)? I do have a folding table that I use for my SM and iron...
it's about 2 1/2' x 6' but can't figure a way to use that for pinning.

OK. Fold the backing in half, place a big visible pin on each side to
mark the fold, and place the fold along the center of the table. Open
out the backing so that the wrong side is facing you and the backing
should be centered on the table with the rest hanging off the sides.
Some people like to use the biggest binder clips they can find to clamp
the backing to the table. Now, fold your batting in half, mark the fold
with big pins, and place it on the table matching the pins in the
batting with the pins in the backing. Finally, fold the top in half and
mark the fold. Match the pins and smooth the part of the quilt that is
on top of the table. Re-clamp all three layers to the table. Now, get
out those safety pins and pin away. (or just tie the quilt). You
should have LOTS of pins. I use my four fingers to measure distance so
a pin every 4-5 inches in each direction. When all that is basted,
unclamp the quilt and slide to a new section. Keep pinning then sliding
until you have done the whole quilt.


And once I get the quilt pinned (or basted if I must, but I really
prefer pinning) better, how do I machine quilt it? How do I get it to
*move* with the stitches once I've got so much squeezed under the arm
of the machine? I rolled it into a tube-shape, but that still didn't
work well. And should I just give up on freeform quilting (which I've
become addicted to) and stick with a basic grid? I really want to get
this done by the 14th, which is DH's birthday!

Some people have better success with fan folding the quilt to get it to
fit. Others simply wad things up and go with the flow. Some do roll
their quilts but then use bicycle clips (like to keep your pant leg from
getting caught in the chain) to hold and help compress the quilt a bit
to get it to fit. I think if I were going to quilt a puffy quilt (god
forbid I ever set myself up for that one, but I digress) I would at
least grid quilt in the ditch between the blocks before doing anything
else to help stabilize things and keep the layers from shifting. But
you don't want too dense of quilting or you will lose the "puffy" factor
that your husband wants.

Personally. I love machine tacking. You either set your machine to
zig-zag in place (like a bar tack at the end of a buttonhole) or if you
have a fancy machine that will do single motifs like a star or somesuch
and sew one every say, 5 inches or so in a grid pattern across the
quilt. Just sew a tack, move the quilt, sew the next tack and so on.
Trim up the threads at the end. Puffy quilt, won't shift and your
sanity is intact.

Hang in there!

marcella

marcella wrote:

Lots of people have given you great advice on tying or tacking instead
of quilting puffy quilts.

Indeed, they have! This newsgroup rocks!


OK. Fold the backing in half, place a big visible pin on each side to
mark the fold, and place the fold along the center of the table. Open
out the backing so that the wrong side is facing you and the backing
should be centered on the table with the rest hanging off the sides.
Some people like to use the biggest binder clips they can find to clamp
the backing to the table. Now, fold your batting in half, mark the fold
with big pins, and place it on the table matching the pins in the
batting with the pins in the backing. Finally, fold the top in half and
mark the fold. Match the pins and smooth the part of the quilt that is
on top of the table. Re-clamp all three layers to the table. Now, get
out those safety pins and pin away. (or just tie the quilt). You
should have LOTS of pins. I use my four fingers to measure distance so
a pin every 4-5 inches in each direction. When all that is basted,
unclamp the quilt and slide to a new section. Keep pinning then sliding
until you have done the whole quilt.

Wow, that sounds like something I could do! I've never done one this
large, and so far I've gotten away with taping the layers to the floor
(blue painters tape is *fantastic* for this!) and crawling around as I
pin... trying to do that with such a large quilt and not enough floor
space was driving me bananas.

But I'm wondering... I've never done a tied quilt before. How far apart
should they be? Will embroidery floss work? How tightly do I tie it?


snip more good stuff
Personally. I love machine tacking. You either set your machine to
zig-zag in place (like a bar tack at the end of a buttonhole) or if you
have a fancy machine that will do single motifs like a star or somesuch
and sew one every say, 5 inches or so in a grid pattern across the
quilt. Just sew a tack, move the quilt, sew the next tack and so on.
Trim up the threads at the end. Puffy quilt, won't shift and your
sanity is intact.

Ooooooh! I want a new machine now! I like the idea of a puffy quilt
with little embroidered stars, but sadly my machine is a
straight-stitch only. Soon, though...


Hang in there!

Thanks for the help!


Cina