Hi friends!
Today in the A Quilter’s Alphabet Series, Tammy and I are up to the letter T!
I am chatting about the quilting terms topstitch, templates, triangles and tied quilts.
Let’s start with topstitching!
Topstitching
This is actually more of a sewing term I guess rather than a quilting term. It refers to stitching done on the top, or the right side, of a project near a seam. It’s not for quilting; it’s often to hold seams down or provide a decorative edge. Sometimes it can be called edge stitching.
I use this technique on my bags, like the Carry This! bag.
Templates
Templates are patterns that are used to trace shapes- they might be appliqué shapes, they might be shapes for piecing. Templates might be made from cardboard, or acrylic or template plastic. Or even heavy paper!
I use templates a lot for some specialty shapes such as triangles. And braids!
My Braid and Mini Braid templates are made from acrylic so you can cut around them with a rotary cutter.
Triangles
So… triangle shapes come in lots of different angles. A triangle is a 3 sided shape but the sides are not always the same!
In quilting, you might see a quilt using a 60 degree angle, like my quilt PeakView (the pattern is almost done! Still available for preorder until next week!)
Or maybe the angle is only 45 degrees or somewhere in between. My quilt Tribeca uses a ???? degree angle.
Tammy and I recently did an Exploring the Basics blog post about triangles- click here to read more!
Tied Quilts
A tied quilt is one where, instead of quilting it, the quilt layers are held together with stitches that go all the way through the layers and then is tied with a knot on top of the quilt. Quilters often use perle cotton to tie a quilt.
My very first quilt was finished by tying it. I used cross-stitch thread as that is what I had on hand. It was leftover from a Girl Scout cross-stitch project! That quit was made when I was a teenager!
Click here to head on over to Tammy’s blog post where she shares about tension, trimming, thread and thread count of fabric!
Next week I will be sharing more picks on some new quilts and on June 30th, Tammy and I will be back with more in the Exploring the Basics series.
happy quilting!
Kate