Quilting the Huppah

This huppah has to be quilted so that the three layers of the quilt sandwich will stay together.  I'll do most of it in simple straight lines, which are easy.  The hard part is that I have to roll the whole thing up in order to fit it through my sewing machine for the machine quilting process.

The opening of the machine is called the throat, I'm told, and it's like a constricted tunnel for the rolled quilt to pass through while part of it goes under the needle.  When I get paid for my commission, which should be around Easter time of 2011, I'm going to put that money toward a sewing machine with a bigger throat.  Maybe I'll call it Deep Throat.

I'm stitching in the ditch, which means I'm sewing the three layers together by laying down a line of stitching in the "ditch" or the tiny declivity of the seam where two pieces of fabric come together. Here, I'm stitching in the ditch to make a little frame around Marc's name and date of birth.

I couldn't do any of this quilting if I didn't have a walking foot.  That feeds all three layers of the quilt sandwich evenly.  Without it, the backing and the top move at different rates.  I learned that one the hard way.  "Walking foot?  Who needs a walking foot?"  Right.  Next thing I knew I had the seam ripper in my hand and I was ripping out lines of quilting four feet long.  The things I learned the hard way are the lessons that make the most painful and lasting impressions.

Walking foot

Next I'm just putting some straight lines of stitching into some of the spaces to hold the whole thing together.  Adhering to the KISS rule here.