Word of the Day: Minky

A week ago, I knew I had 2 quilts coming to me in the mail. It was a bit of a shock when they arrived without normal cotton backings. "Ew!" I told myself, "slinky material". I had visions of when I did my last T-shirt quilt, which was kind of like quilting a spring. This fabric sent was minky. Now minky is very soft, and snuggly. I do understand why people like it. It also has a ton of static. It would be finthy in my house with the cat and my long hair. After a little research, I learned that minky really is not that hard to work with, but the quilting scheme had to be simplified somewhat so as not to overquilt or matt down the minky.

This is really the 2nd quilt I did, but booger blogger put them out of order. These are supposed to be little candies. Yes, those wrapper flaps were a pain in the you know where to be constantly pinning out of the way, etc. Plus, the gathered area which did need to be stitched down was like sewing through rawhide. I mean, what are there?? - 8 layers of fabric, batting, minky and then the additional layers due to the gathers.
I hope all quilters out there know to run fast when they see polka dotted white fabric like this one. Albeit, it is sweet and feminine, but OMG, how much paint (yes, I said paint) does a rightful fabric need ot have on it?? Surely the fabric manufacturers know what PAINT does to sewing machines??!! Anyway, drama aside, I hate this stuff, and you should too. It was almost like stitching through tee-shirt decals.

It is most definitely destined for a little girl. It's a cute idea for a quilt.

My outer border is more or less lost on the top of the quilt due to the busyness of the fabric, but it does show on the back. Ah, nice minky texture.

My client's other minky-backed quilt is fun. It too has rather busy fabrics -- a custom quilting in the center would have been totally lost. The feathering around the black border is nice though.

Another peek...

And 2 hearts on the long sides-

So now you too can go forth knowing that longarm quilting minky is possible without disaster. Juat a couple rules of thumb. Pin the minky onto the leaders using the selvage edges. Don't over tension. Don't over quilt it. And use a nice thin thread on the back like So Fine or Bottomline (I used this).

Then snuggle warmly!