How to Prepare your Quilt for Stitching
As with domestic quilting, good preparation leads to the best results. That said, we know quilts are often made within tight timeframes or material constraints. We want quilting to feel enjoyable rather than overly rule-bound (and there's normally a workaround to everything).
This guide is here to highlight what matters most to help your quilting go smoothly.
1. Please Provide Excess Backing and Wadding
Ideally, we ask for 4" extra on every side (so the backing and wadding are 8" larger than the quilt top in both directions).
This is the most important guideline, as quilts can shrink in unexpected ways during quilting. If there isn’t enough backing fabric and wadding beyond the quilt top, it may not be possible to stitch right to the edge, which often only becomes apparent once the quilt is almost fully stitched.
If you only have 1–2" extra on the sides, that’s manageable, but it’s especially important to have as much excess as possible at the top and bottom.
We’d always prefer to have too much and trim it down rather than not enough.
2. Don't Baste
This one's easy. The three layers of your quilt are loaded separately then basted once on the machine.
3. Square off your Backing
We need straight edges to load evenly. We tend to rip the fabric as it'll rip along the grain line. If you're unsure, we'll square it off on the day.
4. And Finally, Tell Us if Your Quilt is Directional
As we really don't want to stitch it the wrong way!
....Obviously, this is only really important if you're dropping off your quilt.