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There are three layers to a quilt: the top, the batting, and the backside. I sometimes call this the “Quilt Sandwich.” It’s now time to assemble that sandwich and pin everything together.
It’s very important that the batting and backside are larger than your top. You want about 2 inches of overhang around each side. In the next step we’ll begin putting in stitches and you’ll feel how things shrink and pull together. If you don’t have the extra margin you might lose some of the back edges and batting under your top. You don’t want that. I’ve been there.
Begin by carefully layering your fabric and batting. Take your time to smooth out any wrinkles before adding the next layer. Next, we’ll pin these together, starting in the middle. Smoothing from the center, even out any bunching or folding. This always reminds me of rolling out a pie crust. Place the pins about a hand-length apart from each other as you spiral out from the center. You want to equally disperse the pins across the whole top.
This is a great step to ask a friend for help. They can assist in placing the layers together, adding pins, and keeping an eye out for wrinkles and folds.
Both wool and cotton batting work great for this project. I find wool to be a little more expensive but I like its lighter weight. One downside is that wool can “pill” through your fabric and you’ll see it on the outside of the quilt on darker fabric. But this typically calms down after a few washes, and you can also find black wool batting to help with this too.
After pinning the layers together we move onto hand quilting the layers together →