As quick as the Quilt as you go is when you piece the back, I didn't want to do any hand sewing on this one which would slow me down as I had a strict deadline, so I decided to do this one with the batting sectioned but not the top or backing. So I made the back and got ready to quilt. Here is the quilt back laid out and lightly stretched ( I do this by pinning the back to the carpet: first top, then bottom, then left side, then right side). Then I laid the first piece of batting over the center diagonal section.
Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the next step, but I laid the central panel of the quilt on top and pinned it in place, and roll up the sides, then quilted it staying 1/2" away from the seam line. This way there was very little in the throat of the machine. Oh, yes - I made the batting sections a little bigger to facilitate the piecing of the batting later. I really puzzled over how to quilt this, and then a light bulb went off. Since this was a quilt for an Old Testament Studies professor, I quilted flames in the center reminiscent of the burning bush in Exodus and did a meandering pattern in the siggie blocks as did the Chosen People those 40 years in the desert. For the next section, I placed the next part of the top right sides together on the middle section and pinned them and sewed this seam with the unsandwiched backing rolled to my right. If you have this well pinned, use the walking foot, there won't be any puckering.
Then I overlapped the next batting at the seam and pin. Once this is done, I take it to my cutting table and pull the backing under the triangled top so that all I see is the batting on the left. You don't want it in the way or get cut by accident in the next step.
Take your rotary cutter and over the two overlapped batting near seam cut the batting with a wavy cut line. When you pull them apart the wavy cut will look like this:
Take these two pieces to your ironing boards, bring the back out again and match up the two battings and the separation will mostly disappear. Here I have them slightly separated.
Once you have it matched, cut long strips of 1-1 1/2" fusible interfacing and place it over the two edges. Iron the interfacing in place.
Your batting is now continuous on this side. Bring the top part over the batting and pin baste. Roll up the quilt and start quilting with the small roll right of the needle. I quilted the whole side but not the border. Those I did at the end with a loop pattern. Once that was done, repeated the process for the other side. I then quilted the borders, and bound it. Here's the finished 52" square quilt in case you missed it on the previous post.
This is my favorite QAYG method so far. I will definitely do one like this again since it's completely by machine.
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