Using a Quilt Sewing Machine

Video Transcript

" Hi! I am Shelly Cordsen from Expert Village.com. We are continuing to do our baby quilt and here it is all completed and if you will notice how it is all pinned. I do not have a ton of pins in here but just enough to stabilize and stay within the borders. Okay, when you machine quilt which is fun to do on your own machine and can do for yourself, save you a lot of money, not to have to take it to a machine quilter. You want your bobbin thread to be consistent with your fabric. So I am using cream on the top and cream on the bottom. However for this one that we are just working with, you might want to do a red or green or yellow something really fun. So you can really play with your threads. When you machine quilt you want to start in the center, work yourself out so that you do not get a bunch of wrinkles forming on the underneath side. Another thing is you have to have a rocking foot for it. Most rocking foots will look similar to this; pretty bulky and you have to get it on your machine right. Most machines come with this, if not you can purchase a universal walking foot for your machine. I happen to have a machine that has one built in back here. I can engage or disengage it. So we are going to begin. I have got it all quilted up to the very last border that I am going to do, line my needle up into the ditch, we call this a ditch, stitch in the ditch, this is where your ironing comes very important. I have ironed all the seams to the inside that way when I stitch in the ditch my needle will tend to go to the thinner side and then you cannot really see any of your stitching because you have got it right in the ditch. If you did not iron and you did have some going this way you would have really bulky and will be able to see your stitching. Another fun tool is gloves that are kind of sticky, rubbery. You can wear those gloves and they will help you hang on to the fabric and help you move the fabric through your machine. This is a lot of bulk. This is why we use a rocking foot. So here we go, I have changed my stitch to about a three because I want it to look a little bit wider and look more like a hand quilt work. So here we go. You just kind of keep pushing, you really do not push, you let your rocking foot pull but you guide it with your hands, stop at your corner, needle down, foot up, turn your quilts and begin going the other direction and believe it or not, you are done and you have done your own machine quilting."