Quilt Marking & Stencils

 - While transferring a design to a quilt basically involves placing a stencil on the quilt and tracing the pattern onto the fabric, there several things to keep in mind For darker fabrics, choose a light-colored chalk pencil. Remember to test your marker to make sure it leaves a clean and visible line, but washes out as well (figure A).

- Most quilts are rectangular, so you will need to consider both width and length when finding the best way to trace a design. A little planning ahead of time can help you find the right stencil solution to give a quilt balance and polish. For instance, before choosing a stencil for a border, carefully decide just how much of the border space you wish to fill.

 - Prepare the stencil by measuring and drawing lines to indicate the midpoints in the height and width of the stencil. These lines are called registration lines (figure B).

Marking
Materials:

selected quilts or fabrics
stencil paper
template plastic
chalk pencil
ruler
permanent marker
measuring square

 - Place the stencil on the quilt and mark the registration lines with chalk. This allows you to align and place the stencil properly as you progress with the marking (figure C).

 - With wide or complex designs, angling and adjusting the stencil may be required to create the desired look and fit. In these instances, a paper model is a great way to practice and find the layout and patterning that best suits your needs. Keep the paper model close by when you begin the actual stenciling (figure D ).

 - Use masking tape to help with straight-line quilting. There are lots of different widths available and the tape can make a crosshatch or grid to help you quilt with more confidence and precision.

Stencil making
If you can't find the perfect stencil for your special quilt project, try making your own. To make a stencil from an existing image, you need utility plastic, template plastic, piece of glass, tracing paper, a permanent maker and a craft knife. It's best to practice this technique with simple designs before undertaking more complex ones. Here's how:

1. Position the utility plastic over the quilt or drawing and trace the design with a marker.

2. Use tracing paper over the plastic to transfer the design again. You can also fine tune or tweak the image in this step.

3. Position the template plastic over the tracing paper. Replace the sharp blade on the craft knife with a u-shaped woodcarving gouge. With a piece of glass underneath the template plastic, push and slice away the plastic at intervals along the lines of the tracing. Keep the bridges large enough to avoid making the stencil fragile (figure G).

You sometimes find a history lesson in a quilt because the markings and colors can reveal who made it or where it was sewn. Different countries and religious and ethnic groups have developed their own unique and identifiable patterns and designs .

For example, the County Durham design is named after a region in England near the Scottish border. The area is known for its excellent and creative quilters (figure H).

The swirls and leaves of this Welsh design reflect the Celtic influence in the western parts of England (figure I).

This design, with its feather circle and elaborate feather border, is frequently seen on whole cloth Amish quilts (figure J). The colors in an Amish quilt can also indicate its source.

Quilting circles in Protestant churches at the beginning of the 20th century favored the fans (also called waves or shells) found in the border of this quilt named North Carolina lily (figure L).

Figure L