sew la vie: a bit of quilting

Inspired by Gertie's quilting stitch-along, I've been trying out some quilting. The first sewing project I had ever made when I just got back to sewing was this baby quilt for my friend's first born son:

Since then, I've always wanted to go back to quilting, though I've been sewing garments mostly. So yesterday I finally got around to it.

My first attempt was this bit of hand-quilting. I used one layer of felt as the batting, because I intended it to be rather thin and stiff (it was supposed to be the cover for a needle case):

I tried making the stitches even on both sides, which I found really hard to do. Instead of doing a running stitch, where you push the needle in-out-in-out and only then pull the needle and thread through, I used a stab stitch - push needle down and pull all the way through, push needle back up and pull through all the way through. This is obviously a lot more time consuming but did a better job, because it distorts the fabric less, though it wasn't perfect. The professional method for quilting evenly requires a lot of practice, a thimble and an embroidery hoop. I might try that one day. If you're interested, here's an excellent Threads article of how to do it and here's a very short video that demonstrates the technique:

Next I tried some machine quilting. Again, using felt as the batting, I used my free motion foot and regular sewing thread to make this little needle case:

It came out OK (though I'm definitely going to make an improved version of this needle case later), and then I remembered I had some top stitching thread, which is thicker than regular sewing thread and thus makes a more pronounced stitch. So I tried that out, again using felt as batting, and this medium weight fabric. My intention was to make a pillowcase out of this by later attaching a back with zipper to it.

I learned a few things from my mistakes:

The color of this fabric doesn't work well with the only top stitching thread color I have - it's kind of dead-looking.
The fabric is too thick and heavy for quilting with felt as batting. You can hardly see the "puffs" created by the stitching. Better to use a thinner light-weight fabric and a thicker batting.
Better to choose a design that can be sewn in one continuous seam. It's quite annoying to end the seam and start another one again each time.
Use this technique for pulling the top stitching thread to the back of your work rather than back stitching, which may cause the machine to get stuck and isn't as pretty.

So I gave it another try, this time with a more lightweight fabric (it's not the most lightweight I have but it worked), and with a thicker akrilan batting. I marked it with a trick marker (the kind that vanishes when washed in water) and tried my best to follow the lines. Then I washed it, hung it to dry, and pressed it. Be very careful when pressing your work when it has the batting inside! Follow the ironing instructions for your batting, otherwise it might melt into a thin "pancake" and leave you with virtually no batting. My synthetic batting did that to me once.

I'm quite happy with it! Here's a closeup:

Next I want to try a bit of applique quilting, with maybe just a teeny-tiny bit of patchwork. I will iron-on fusible interfacing to the fabric that will be appliqued, so that it won't fray at the edges. Look at all of these inspiring and beautiful projects:

Quilted fabric stripes are easy and fun to do: