Silhoucat Quilt-Along with LUKE Haynes, Part 3

We’re down to the last step of my three-part Silhoucat Quilt-Along, quilting and finishing! This is a really nice way to combine some piecing with an easy appliqué. Make a Silhoucat of your very own! Get started with Part 1 of the quilt-along here, and Part 2 here. With the quilt top pieced and our appliqué in place, we are ready to quilt!

A little aside here is that I often have batting scraps lying around from bigger projects, and this is a good time to use them. Make sure to sew them together or they will bunch or pull and leave a gap or a bump in the finished quilt.

I use the decorative zigzag stitch, and it holds it well while letting it breath a bit.

NOW, let’s make us a fabric sandwich and get to quilting! I use spray glue to adhere everything together while I quilt. You can use safety pins or staples or hand-baste it as per your preference, but for me, I stick to spray glue.

Spray the back of the quilt top and lay it out on the batting making sure to get some batting behind all the parts of the top.

Once you have the top and batting together, press the top down and smooth it towards the outside to get out any big bumps. Now trim the batting down about a half inch from the sides of the top so we can glue it onto the back.

Next, spray glue the back of the batting (with the top attached to the other side) and place it onto the back.

PHEW, now it’s secure. We can start to quilt it and secure all the pieces together with stitching. I stitch around the entire outside of the top to make sure it stays where I put it while I am working on it.

We can now go and finish all the decorative quilting parts and some of the things needed to keep it together. I stitch around any of the appliqué parts now to make sure I don’t knock them off while twisting the top around to get to the rest. A good way to do this is with a free-motion foot such as the BERNINA Stitch Regulator, so you can move the quilt under the needle rather than trying to guide curves and small pieces under the needle.

Once you have the appliqué all secured, you can quilt the rest as you want. I really like straight-line quilting. It makes the background “pop” and gives it a nice texture.
I use the edge of my presser foot to make sure my lines are straight. I can start from a line in the piecing or from one edge and work to the other. I like to start from somewhere in the middle so it gets secured and then work back towards it from the other side.

Feel most free to play with decorative stitches or free-motion on these areas. Work with matching thread or contrast thread to give yourself some freedom of expression. All I will suggest is that you don’t stitch-in-the-ditch this time so your stitching shows up; let it add a drawing element to the finished product.

After quilting, trim down the sides and square it up.

Once it’s all clean, quilted and happy, go ahead and bind it! I chose colors to match the base color in the background. You can use anything that looks good. The binding acts as a nice frame when the piece is hung so think of how you want a line around the piece to look when it’s done.

Here is a binding tutorial I have done you can follow along with, click here.

And BOOM! A Cat Quilt (or squid quilt or whatever you chose to make)!