Featured Tutorials Archives - Hunter's Design Studio

How To Spray Baste A Quilt On a Table

Sam Hunter — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 17:39:53 +0000

In this blog post, I’ll cover some important points to add to my two popular videos on how to spray baste a quilt on a table and how to spray baste a quilt that’s larger than your table.

Quilters use spray basting as a popular and efficient technique to secure their quilt layers before the actual quilting process begins.

Spray basting offers several advantages over traditional methods like pinning, including reduced distortion and improved flatness. Also, because there are no pins in your quilt top, you don’t have to navigate around them for your quilting design.

Use spray basting when you plan to quilt it yourself on a domestic machine – you won’t need to spray baste if you plan to send your quilt to a long-arm artist!

I like to spray baste over a table, rather than the floor, as my knees are much happier! But few quilts are as small as a table so I developed this method for spray basting when a quilt is larger than your table:

Here are some extra tips to go with the videos!

Spray basting is best done outside for ventilation purposes. If you must do it inside, turn off any forced air heating/cooling systems or fans. This will spread the airborne adhesive everywhere. Cover everything important within a 6’ radius with old sheets or drop cloths. Wear a mask!

Make sure your table is clean!

Press your quilt top and backing, and fluff out your batting. This is so it can expand from being tightly packed or rolled.

I like to make sure my backing is at least 8’’ larger than my quilt in both dimensions (essentially 4’’ of extra backing on all 4 sides). It’s hard to center a top perfectly so this allowance makes basting a lot easier.

I like Odif 505 Spray Baste best as I find it the least smelly of the adhesives available. It’s specifically designed for quilting and provides a temporary bond that holds the layers together until quilting is complete. I’ve had basted quilts in the closet for several years and the adhesive held just fine.

I use extra large binder clips to clip onto my table, and I use the thinnest table I can find. It’s also good to have masking or painter’s tape handy.

Even though I start basting at one edge of the quilt, I always work out from the middle of that edge. When smoothing out the quilt, batting, and backing, you want to always be smoothing away from the center and glued parts toward the edges as this introduces fewer wrinkles and puckers.

DO NOT STRETCH the backing, batting, or quilt top. You want it slightly taut, but not tight. If you over-stretch any of the components they will contract and wrinkle once you take it off the table. This leads to puckers and creases in the back while you’re quilting.

Spray the adhesive in sweeps, about 12-18’’ above the surface, as this gets wider coverage.

Check for bubbles and wrinkles before you move the quilt to the next position for basting – especially at the place where the adhesive ends and the not-yet-glued fabric begins. It’s easy to miss a small stripe of glue at that junction!

Smooth down the fabric and batting firmly to activate the adhesive and get the layers to stick. Some people recommend using a warm dry iron at this point to activate the glue. Personally, I don’t do this as I‘ve never had trouble with the glue coming unstuck!

Once you’re happy with the basting, you can trim back excess backing or batting. You can also roll up the raw edges and pin them down to make putting the quilt through your machine easier.

Now, go quilt that quilt!

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Holiday Snow Globes – Snowman Tutorial

Sam Hunter — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 13:00:49 +0000

Today I’m sharing some construction tips for my new pattern, Holiday Snow Globes.

Holiday Snow Globes is a paper-pieced pattern, and you can construct it vertically for a wall hanging, or horizontally for a table runner. You can buy it here.

Below is a digital mockup using some Windham Fabrics… isn’t it sweet?! I love how the snowflake fabric works in the snowman! And the gray is actually beautiful and shimmery.

The Tree and Santa blocks are really easy – the entire globe section constructs in just one piece, and then the base of the snow globe is added as a second section. The Snowman is different: he has a few more pieces, but none of them are hard, so below is a quick tutorial on how he goes together.

First, print or copy all the paper-piecing patterns. I like to copy them onto newsprint as it’s lightweight and semi-transparent. It also tears off like a dream.

Separate the Snowman sections:

And tape the globes and bases together:

Here are the fabrics I’ll be using:

I like to precut my fabrics when I paper-piece. I cut them and stack them with each paper section, often in order. That way, when I take them to the machine I’m ready to sew.

Paper-piece the four sections of the Snowman (for paper-piecing tips, check YouTube or refer to the How to Paper Piece section in my book Quilt Talk):

Sew the sections together, and then pin the entire snowman to the globe section – this becomes piece number 1 of the next block!

Continue paper-picing the rest of the globe around the snowman:

Attach the globe base to finish the block!

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Chunky Wee Bag – Bonus pocket modification

Sam Hunter — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 13:00:52 +0000

A while back, I decided to adapt a large version of my Chunky Wee Bag pattern to be my travel handbag and a camera bag all in one. In the course of making the bag, I added a bonus pocket modification to the outer back of the bag, to carry things like maps a bit more accessibly. That pocket worked so well I’ve added it to all the Chunky Wee Bags I’ve made since!

It’s such a cool modification, so I thought I would detail it here for you, with pictures. You will still need the Chunky Wee Bag pattern if you make it You can get it here. Oh, and here’s a humorous romp through how I designed the bag!

Cut the Outer Pocket fabric and fusible fleece:

For the LARGE bag, you’ll need a piece of fabric 15 1/2” wide x 17” tall, and a piece of fusible fleece 15 1/2” x 8 1/4”
For the MEDIUM bag, you’ll need a piece of fabric 13 1/2” wide x 12 1/2” tall, and a piece of fusible fleece 13 1/2” x 6”
For the SMALL bag, you’ll need a piece of fabric 11” wide x 10 1/2” tall, and a piece of fusible fleece 11” x 5”

My pix are of the MEDUIM bag – this is my daily handbag… I seem to need a new one every year, partly because I wear them out, and partly because new fabric always temps me – case in point, look at the robots on the flap!

Here we go! Follow the Chunky Wee Bag pattern until you reach step 10B.

Take the Outer Pocket fabric, fold WRONG sides together parallel to the width of the fabric and press in the crease at the fold. Refer to step 7 in the pattern – you’ll be following the Inner Pocket steps to make this Outer Pocket: nest the fusible fleece up in the fold, and iron it in.

Finish the folded top edge with a top stitch:

Take the Outer Bag section that does NOT have velcro on it – this is the back of the bag. Cut the corner squares from it per the instructions at 10B, first bullet.

Chalk a line 3/4” up from the square cut-outs (just like you did on the Pockets/Inner Bag instructions at step 8).

Align the Outer Pocket to the chalked line (just like in step 8), orienting the top-stitching down, and the raw edge up, with the raw edge at the line (and the rest of the back exposed).

Sew along this line a generous 1/4” from the raw edge, trying not to catch the fleece. This makes the pocket fold up more crisply, but it’s also not a huge deal if you do catch the fleece in the seam.

Flip the pocket up.

Following the drawing on the lower left of page 6 (step 8), chalk and sew the lines a half-inch in at the corners ONLY. Start from the bottom, and sew towards the top, back-tacking/lock-stitching well.

If the side pockets will be used for pens or reading glasses, sew a horizontal seam across the side pockets to make them a bit shallower. Test for the depth you need – I find that 5” works well for my cheater specs and pens.

Lock the stitches on that seam well, too.

Further segment the Outer Pocket (just like you did the inner pockets) if you need to. I leave mine the full size so that my sketchbook and e-reader fit in there.

Continue making the bag from step 10b. When you sew the sides of the outer bag together, be sure to catch the sides of the pockets in the seam too, and sew slowly through all those layers so as not to snap your needle!

Enjoy!

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