Well, I am not the 100 year old sailor but it is a good tip. I wish I could tell you where I heard about this but I can't. I just look at too many things having to do with sewing, fibers, buttons...you get the idea. All this stuff floating around in my head, waiting for a time and place to come out. Thanks for the lesson Rosemary.

One of the old tailors I worked with on Savile Row told me never to use coloured chalks on the face (right side) of the cloth as the colours can stain and stay in, but this is not a problem with the white, as there aren't the pigments for the colour.

Ritzy's tip about soap I first came across in a tailors book I have a copy of that is 100 years old and it is mentioned in a write up about how a sailor would draw up a pair of trousers, the pattern being about 100 years old then!

What a cool tip! Well yesterday to my immense surprise I went to a haberdasher in a shopping center and they had just received Tailors' Chalk in a box, 4 colours and absolutely no sign on the well made box of where it was made or by whom. I expect that would be illegal in the USA. or England. So I shall test it first. Thank you for the help.

Welcome to the forum Vicki. Margarita, you know when you use bar hand soap, and it starts to get thin? This is a perfect thing for marking fabric, especially for what this discussion is about, and----it washes out!

VWelsh wrote:
Hi Vicki!! Glad to have you drop by the forum!! Thanks for the link to your great tute!

It has to be floated for this technique but I tend to float all of my tops....primarily because I'm lazy!

Hi Vicki,
In the photos, it looks like you're floating your top. Do you do this with all of them or just when you are centering the backing? There's been a discussion of this on another list, so I'm curious.
Thanks for sharing your tutorial; your hand dyes are so very beautiful.

PS-welcome to the forums; I think you'll enjoy the chit chat.

Hi Everyone,
I've been a TQS member since the beginning but I am new to the forum. I thought I'd jump in and offer this for the longarmers. A while back I wrote a tutorial for centering a quilt back on the longarm. Here's the link for anyone who wants it.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B1Kl0ZR2l2lDNDUwNTZlYjgtMmFhNi00MTgwLTk4MjctOWRlYTlmZTI5OWZj&hl=en

Vicki Welsh
http://vickiwelsh.com

I wondered about tailors' chalk and I am fairly sure that I will find some in the old fashioned haberdashers we have here. I've got Hobbs Heirloom batting for this 80% cotton and 20% polyester so it should withstand the steam. I just looked at the package and it say "exceptionally resilient" so that ought to hold up to a bit of steam. Bit nervous though as I once put some batting on the roof to de-crease itself, then it rained and I bunged it in the dryer and after just 10 minutes there were a few melty disaster areas. I don't mind ironing the whole thing too much, I put a podcast on and set the ironing board up parallel to the long side of the single bed in the room where I quilt. I start ironing with the long bit down to the floor in front of me and then lift it on to the bed as I go. Now I must thank Margo and SpiritsFold once again and go to bed.

Margarita, I usually use a triangle of tailors chalk because it is soft enough that if I press a ruler down firmly along the line I want to mark then the chalk leaves a mark without pulling too much. I have also used a colorful strong thread to baste the lines leaving a good length at each end and snipping it at the center so that I could pull each half out after the quilt is sandwiched but it was trickier to remove so i usually just use the chalk. Pressing firmly along the line with the ruler as I mark and using a soft chalk really help.

Margarita wrote:
Margarita, I carefully folded my batting into fourths and steamed creases along both the vertical and horizontal midpoints. In order to get this batting flat enough to be sure that it was smooth, I steamed the entire batt before I started folding into quarters. Extra work, but necessary for me to get it centered.

Wow I am impressed, thank you so much. I think I have a bare wall for this and a helper but I am wondering what you use to mark the batting? I can sort of see it dragging and pulling as I try to mark it. I am down in Venezuela with grey chalk pencils, ordinary pencils and a blue washout pen. Thank you so much for the help, I was on to pins but had not gotten close to actually marking it, what a lot of geniuses on the Quilt Show Forum!! Muchas Gracias.

I now quilt on a long arm, so I need to do it a little differently, but I also mark the centers of the top and backing and batting. I pin the three layers together at the center and baste from the horizontal center down to the bottom of the quilt (on the frame!) then roll back to the horizontal center and baste from the center up to the top. I use Superior's VANISH thread for basting with about 4 SPI, and those stitches just wash out when the quilt is laundered.
It's a little tricky to do, but I've been pretty successful with several quilts by doing it this way.

Here is the BACK of my "From the Heart" quilt:





And the front:

{!-- ia0 -->1 From The Heart.jpg{!-- ia0 -->

thank you Margo! I'm still curious to see how other people handle this.