I am about to make an Apex quilt. I have read some articles and seen some things on how the quilting of the insulation will work but I can't get a clear idea of exactly how I am supposed to quilt it. Does anyone have pictures of an example?

Thanks

I wrote a guide about making a quilt out of Apex during the fall and put it on my blog. The quilting is very simple. It is really just a stitch around the edges, and the insulation is stable enough to be fine with just that. Here is a link to the guide. If you need more pictures I can try to get something together for you focusing on the stitching and what it will be like. What size Apex are you using?

http://kringlelight.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/sin50/

yup, absolutely no mid panel quilting needed.

-Tim

Chris - I am using 5 oz Apex. I have read your guide but I am confused by the quilting process and the strips you put on the back of the insulation. In your instructions that part just gets confusing to me for some reason and I can't follow it. Is there any way you can clarify what you did? I don't understand how adding strips on there helped with the sewing with the Apex being thick.

By no mid panel quilting, do you just mean you just sew around the edges around the whole thing? I understand nothing is needed in the middle.

Yeah, that part is a bit poorly worded. I should probably try to fix it in the guide.

The strips are there so that the foot of the sewing machine can slide along without catching on the insulation. When I tried sewing without the strips, the points on the foot would catch the insulation or the insulation would just be too thick and squishy to fit under the foot, and so it would stretch. What I ended up with was my insulation stretching a good three inches or so because of it. By putting the strips on there, the foot has a smooth surface to press down on, and the insulation isn't stretched. Besides the strips, sewing it is just like sewing anything else. And once you flip the whole thing so the right side faces in, the strips cannot be seen anymore anyways.

Hopefully this helps a bit more with clarifying the purpose of that step.

Some pins or some hand stitches helps keep the insulation lined up. If it starts to slip a bit you can adjust it when you get to the next pin.

I had the same problem as Chris, insulation gets caught on the sewing machine foot. I just carefully squished it and fed it through. But Chris' strip on the top is a good idea, I might try that the next time.

Someone said they had the insulation on bottom and fabric on top and that worked.

Or, just sew through top fabric/insulation/bottom fabric. Then you have a thin spot, but maybe that doesn't matter, especially if it's just around tyhe perimeter.

That is a great write-up, Chris.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Okay, let me re-read it and see. Thank you!

Strips definitely make the sewing easier.

But instead of using fabric I've used paper (newsprint) that is easily removed after the seam is sewed (the needle holes make a line of perforations that aids in tearing). Tissue paper might also work ... but I haven't tried that

I like the idea to use newspaper. I think I will do that next time I go about it.

Thanks, Jerry. I really enjoyed doing it. I am currently working on one for a backpack, and it is proving to be a good bit more complicated to document all the steps. But hopefully I will have it done very soon.

Is there a reason why you cant just take your two panels, sew three edges together, cut insulation, put insulation in the 'envelope' and then sew through everything around the edge to quilt/secure the insulation?

I don't think you should have any problem with using an envelope method. The strips really reflects my style of sewing.

It allows me to only have to sew those very long stitches once. Plus it gives me the ability to hide a good deal of stitching. I've had too many different pieces of clothing where the stitching gets cut in one spot and then all hell breaks loose on that stitch. So, whenever I can, I try to hide stitching somewhere it won't be interacting with the outside world.

This is why I decided to tackle the insulation problem the way I did. I think using an envelope method would also be successful. I could possibly see sliding the insulation into place to sew it taking some patience though.

Chris' method avoids the thin spots where the sewn through seam is.

But, since it's on the edge, you probably don't care so much, it's where you tuck it onder yourself.

I have used the "envelope" method which I thought worked well and would do that again.

Thank you Chris, Jerry and Tim for the help. I'll post up the result.