Machine-quilting.
It can feel a little intimidating.
But what you need to do is to jump in and try it. It's really not that hard. I promise!
Your first step is to place your walking foot to your sewing machine. Your sewing machine manual will most likely have instructions on how to do this.
The walking foot is needed to guide all of the layers (backing, batting and quilt top) at the same rate under the needle. This prevents the "pulling" that can happen with a regular sewing foot. A walking foot will cost about $15 and is usually available at a sewing machine store, or online.
When I quilt straight lines, I generally use my walking foot as a guide by butting it up against the seams on my quilt. This is a very convenient method. Also, if you are starting in the middle of your quilt (we will start on the middle of our quilts since we will be quilting the squares) you will sew a backstitch at your starting point and at your stopping point.
Starting with the middle square, you can quilt along the seam of each one like this:
Go slow until you feel the rhythm of quilting. This may take a while.
Be sure to remove your pins before you sew over them!
Notice that I don't cut my strings while I am quilting. Those can be taken care of when I am done:
Here is the quilt top all quilted:
Remove all of your safety pins from the quilt top.
Here is a closer view:
Now this is the fun part!
Trim your edges even with your quilt top, being careful not to cut into the quilt top:
Now it's all quilted and ready for binding:
Be sure to leave your questions here in the comments, or over in the Flickr group discussion area. I will leave answers in the same place that you post the question. Post your progress pictures on Flickr too!
See you tomorrow for the binding tutorial!
