A Quilt for Baby Rachel June 2008

by Donna Rickman
(Kamloops, BC, Canada)

"Rachel Loves to Dance"

I received 3d ultrasound pics of our great niece, Rachel, to arrive in Sept 2008. Because Rachel moves her feet a lot, I thought I would make her a dancing quilt.

Found the appropriate dancing panel, and used five layers to make a chenille quilt. Drew all the diagonal lines on the fabric. When I attempted to sew up the lines, the seams started to bunch and pucker, I set aside the quilt and searched on sewaquilt.com, and sent an email for assistance.

In the meantime, I discovered if I sew in one direction on the first line, then the other direction on the next line, the puckers and bunching would correct itself. Re-emailed sewaquilt.com to let them know the outcome.

The response from sewaquilt.com was as follows:

"That's pretty much what I would have advised you to do. Always start quilting from the center, and vary the direction of your seams. For future reference, you might want to loosen your tension a bit.

Also, use a "walking foot." It feeds the layers of your quilt through your machine at an even rate. That helps to eliminate bunching on the front side and puckers on the backside of your quilt."

I have attached a picture of the quilt, and you can see it all worked out very well. I hope this information will assist another distressed quilter.

Thanks, cheers, Donna Rickman