Quilting on a Domestic Sewing Machine: Our Top Tools & Tips

Quilting on a domestic sewing machine can seem daunting. But it’s such a good way to build your skill set and finish quilting projects quickly and economically! As long as you keep a few tools on hand, and keep a few best practices in mind, you’ll improve your machine quilting skills with every project and bolster your sense of accomplishment with each successfully quilted item. So with that in mind, we’ve pulled together our favorite tools and tips for quilting on a domestic sewing machine!

Start Small And Work Up to Bigger Quilts

If you haven’t done much quilting on a domestic sewing machine, it’s a good idea to start with a small project. This will help you get used to the feeling of moving it around in the throat space. Once you’re comfortable with a small quilt, try larger and larger pieces until you get to a throw or twin-size quilt (or larger)! The main challenge with larger quilts on a home sewing machine is moving the bulk of the quilt around as you quilt in one section or another. If you’re lucky enough to have a sewing machine that’s set flush into your table, this becomes quite a bit easier.

But if not, you can still do it! A large table is helpful to spread out the quilt that’s not under the needle. It must be managed before you start quilting so that the heavy quilt does not pull while you’re working and mess up the stitch pattern. Sometimes you might need to roll up part of the quilt and put it under the throat space. If that’s what you’re dealing with, then try to push it through to the back of the machine as soon as possible to keep the workspace as open as possible.

Machine Quilting Toolkit

Quilting on a domestic sewing machine will require a special presser foot (or two, depending on what kind of quilting you’d like to make). For straight line or angled line quilting, you will definitely need a walking foot. A walking foot has a contraption on top of the foot that moves the fabric forward, similar to what the feed dogs do on the bottom. You will hook part of it to the needle bar when you install, to keep everything moving at the same pace.

So, it moves all the layers under the needle consistently without the top layer shifting forward and distorting your quilt layers. If you’ve ever tried to quilt with a regular ¼” foot then you know what I mean! You can do a lot with just a walking foot. I’ve quilted entire queen-size quilts on my home sewing machine with one! I love straight line designs that complement the piecing.

Speaking of complementing the quilting, you can use seam guides with your walking foot when your desired quilt path is farther away from the presser foot. You can get seam guides for both the left and right sides. And you can position the guide up to 3½” from the needle to get wide echo quilting lines.

More Helpful Tools & Tips

If you are quilting a design where you start and stop, make sure to pull through a long length of both the top and bobbin threads when you start a new line. And keep them clear of the needle as you continue quilting. You can tie off and bury the threads at each start and stop; more on that later. But if you’re not so interested in straight line quilting and want to quilt more ornate, elaborate motifs on your projects, you will have to use a free motion presser foot.

These do very little ‘pressing’ on the fabric. Instead, they sort of hover above the quilt a bit so you can move the project around under the foot to create your desired design. This take a lot of practice. You will not be good at it right away, so if you’re interested in doing this on your home sewing machine you will have to put in time and work to get good. Practice on small projects to get the feel of it before you work on big quilts.

My main tip for free motion quilting beginners on getting started is to always pull the bobbin thread up to the top to avoid tangling threads underneath. Then stitch your motif while keeping the thread ends out of the way. There are thousands of designs to practice and stitch, but getting a clean, knot-free start will always help no matter what motif you’re stitching. You can knot and bury the thread ends when your motif is complete.

Make Your Mark

For free motion quilting, or certain straight line quilting motifs, you may want to mark your quilt before you start stitching. There are a lot of marking tools on the market but I have a few favorites. For most projects, I love the air-erasable marker from Clover. It’s a medium purple ink that disappears on its own after a while (it has an eraser side as well if you want to get rid of the marks immediately).

Once you mark, you want to stitch the motif right away, or at least before it disappears. I like it because you don’t have to worry about removing your marks, but the marks are there when you need them. It makes me more productive because I can’t just mark it and stitch it later — I’ve got to get it quilted before the markings disappear!

But what if you’re working on a dark quilt that won’t show the purple marks? I’ve got a favorite marker for that situation, too: the white marking pen from Clover. It marks white lines on darker fabrics but it’s a little funny because the marks don’t show up immediately. Once you mark, you might think there’s something wrong with the pen until about 5 seconds later, when the mark shows up (unless your pen is out of ink, LOL).

Additional Tools You’ll Love

I’ve used it often, both for marking quilting motifs and for marking diagonal lines on dark fabrics for Triangle-Squares and Stitch-and-flip piecing. The white marks disappear when pressed or washed. If for some reason the air-erasable marker or white marker won’t do, I also like the Sewline mechanical pencil. You can get refill ‘lead’ in almost any color, light and dark, and it has an eraser at the opposite end to remove the marks when you’re done.

A while ago, a friend told me about using Glad Press’n Seal (not clingwrap) plastic film for marking quilting motifs. I tried it — and it worked pretty well! You draw your motif on the plastic, then position it on your quilt. It does stick to the quilt pretty well and you can stitch directly on the plastic, tracing the marked motif. But the drawback was that I was picking out little pieces of plastic from my stitches here and there when I was done, so I have since stuck to the markers.

Another hand-y tool that really helps when quilting on a home sewing machine is quilting gloves. These help you get a good grip on your quilt sandwich and make it easier to move it around, especially when free-motion quilting. But I use them for straight line quilting, too; I find i don’t have to tense up or grip as hard to move my quilt around with the gloves. There are lots of great quilting glove options available; I like the purple Grabaroos.

Getting to the Point

Once your project is all quilted, you may have some loose threads to tidy up. One of my most used quilting tools is also the smallest — my self-threading needle! I keep several in different spots so I always have one on hand. Do not quilt without at least one available! If you used a walking foot, you can pull the top thread to the back, or the bobbin thread to the front by pulling up on the thread, then pulling the exposed loop of thread through.

Tie the ends together, then insert both thread ends into the self-threading needle. You’ll feel a satisfying little pop when the threads are secure in the needle. Then use the needle to pull the thread ends into the quilt sandwich to hide them. The small knot can usually be pulled under the fabric too, keeping everything tight and secure.

If one of your threads has broken somehow and you need to bury a very short thread, poke most of the needle under the fabric first. Leave just the threading end of the needle exposed, right next to your broken thread. Pop the short thread through the self-threading tunnel and pull the needle through the fabric to bury the short thread.

Take Charge of Your Quilting

I love quilting on my home sewing machine, but sometimes you just need to get something finished fast and only hiring a longarmer will do. I’ve been there. But if you have the time, it is so worthwhile to get more out of your machine and your hobby by quilting on the same machine that sewed your quilt top. Now that you have our top tips, tricks, and tools for quilting on a domestic sewing machine, we hope you’ll get out there and try it for yourself!

The sense of accomplishment of making a quilt in which you have personally sewed every stitch is unparalleled. If you have the right tools, a few tricks, and don’t skimp on the practice projects, you can make the quilts of your dreams, all by yourself. Be sure to share your creations with us on Instagram, Facebook, or the comments below. Happy quilting!