To Mark or Not To Mark

If you have been following me on Twitter or Facebook, you will know that I spent close to 15 hours marking quilting designs on my quilt “Flourish on the Vine”.  (And, by the way, you don’t need an account to follow these quick posts.  Just click the Twitter tab on my blog page or go directly to my Facebook page.)  You might be wondering what on earth would take 15 hours to mark.  Well, wonder away because I’m not going to tell you yet!

You might also be wondering why I spent so much time marking my quilt.  That is a good question – especially if you have taken my machine quilting class!  Anyone who has taken that class can tell you that I will go to great lengths to avoid marking my quilts.  So why now?  Why mark or why not mark?

Part of the answer revolves around removing the marks.  You see, design marking lines should not be visible on completed quilts.  (See the Canadian Quilters’ Association Quilting Standards.)  So the decision to mark quilting designs directly onto a quilt means that quilt will need to be washed to remove the marks.  The question “to mark or not to mark” includes “to wash or not to wash”.

The rest of the answer lies in the quilting designs themselves.  Quilting designs can be random or planned.  Random designs – such as stippling or echo quilting – do not need to be marked.  The quilting lines are formed as they are stitched.

In the quilt Butterfly Kisses, the loop-de-loop quilting in the blocks was random and didn’t need to be marked whereas the border quilting was planned and did need to be marked.

Except, I didn’t mark it.  Remember:  I will go to great lengths not to mark a quilt!  So how do I “mark” quilts without leaving any markings?  Here are some of my favorite ways.

~ Marking the designs on tracing paper
Golden Threads tracing paper is wonderful for this.  It comes in rolls of various widths and it tears away cleanly and easily.  I trace my design onto the paper, then staple several layers underneath.  By stitching through all the layers using my sewing machine without thread, I can create many hole-punched versions of my design at once.  I pin the tracing paper onto my quilt, stitch the design, then remove the paper.

~ Using masking tape
One-quarter inch quilter’s masking tape works particularly well for quilting straight lines without marking them.  Simply lay the tape alongside a ruler or other straight edge, pressing down lightly to adhere it temporarily to the surface.  A strip can be reused several times before it loses its stickiness. 

~ Using clear contact paper
Traditionally sold as a shelf or drawer liner, the adhesive backing on this inexpensive material makes it very useful as a temporary template.  I trace or draw my shape onto the contact paper, cut it out, stick it onto my quilt, then quilt around the shape.  Again, the template can be used many times – providing you don’t accidently stitch too many holes into it!

In fact, most of the quilts in the Gallery on my website were machine quilted without marking by using one or more of these products.  The most notable exception would be Instruments of Praise and now, my quilt Flourish on the Vine.  Why?  Because of the trapunto.  And I’ll tell you more about that next week!