Wholecloth Quilting Preparation

I thought I do a post on preparing for Wholecloth quilting to give a bit of an idea of the work that is involved in actually producing a Whole cloth. I take an extraordinary long time with this but I think it does pay off in the end with having no issues while quilting and finishing off the quilt.

For my latest Whole cloth I chose blue fabric and yes, I was able to mark the entire design with my trusted blue water erasable markers. I highlighted the next picture a bit so that you can see the marking better.

I am happy to say that I am learning from past mistakes...as you can see I have put a wavy line in one of the borders...just very loosely and not entirely exact. This is not the design that goes in there, rather it is a bit of a helping line to keep me on track with a dense type 'onion' design. While I could 'wing' it, I thought it made a bit of sense to follow the lines loosely so that it looks somewhat even. Also, I drew in the swirls...again, unlikely that I follow that exactly, however those swirls gave me a lot of trouble last time. Somehow my brain tends to get confused with direction, so these swirls should keep me me the straight and narrow. I did also draw in the grid. While you could do this after you basted and just put it on with a chalk pounce, I prefer to have straight lines drawn in for accuracy. Once basted and half quilted it is extraordinarily difficult to draw on a straight line.

Here are some of the things that I am using to make life a bit easier:

Lightbox

Very lucky...my husband got me this for Christams the year before last...

While I use other shapes as well, the leaf shapes from June Taylor are probably the ones that I use most for all sorts of things.

Curvable Ruler: if you see it, buy it! I am a somewhat lazy quilter and when it comes to putting a spineline in a border for feathers, this is the tool! I spent a lot of time getting my wavy lines 100% correct and once satisfied with the look and aligned with my space in each border side, just whack it on and draw around it. Love this...makes the job so much easier.

Several days later...and after all of that...I am re-doing my drawing!!! 😅 Looking closer I was not happy with the arches (and some of my lines)  in my drawing and I did give it a bit of a trial stitch-out and decided that they were too sloppy which would have been too noticeable. This has brought me to a complete standstill for the time being, however I am used to this...just not worth it to hurry the process along as this will be months of stitching and the worst thing would be if you are not entirely happy with your design. So back to the drawing board again for me.

Karin