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By 1860 sewing machines appeared in many homes in the U.S. to assist women in the home production of clothing, bed clothes, etc. From the beginning some adventurous sewers used their human powered treadle machines to quilt their unfinished quilt tops. However, in general, hand quilting was the favored means of quilting the quilts to be especially valued. It took more than 150 years for machine quilting to be readily accepted by many quilters for their heirloom quilts.

When hand quilting, most of the quilting thread ends up in the batting between all three layers. With the continuous flat line created by the sewing machine's locking stitch most of the thread remains on the surfaces. The graceful curves and feathers of hand quilting were hard to duplicate on the sewing machine. Until, that is, the later part of the 20th century when more elaborate sewing machines with more functions became available.

In 1989 Caryl Bryer Fallert won the Best of Show at the American Quilter's Society quilt show in Paducah, Kentucky with her quilt, Corona II, the Solar Eclipse. This was the first major award for a machine quilted quilt! 

Most quilters agree the it was Harriet Hargrave's 1985 book Heirloom Machine Quilting (Burden Design Studios, 1987) that began the revolution. The Hargrave book was subtitled A Comprehensive Guide to Hand-Quilted Effects Using Your Sewing Machine. In recent years Diane Gaudinsky has won awards at both the Houston Festival and the AQS show for her exquisite machine quilting. 

Gaudynski in her 2002 book, Guide to Machine Quilting, includes these words in the introduction, "The arrival of Harriet Hargrave's machine quilting book sent me into a world of discovery, of joy, of completion. Finally, I could make quilts with the simplicity of my grandmother's everyday one's but with extensive machine quilting." 

As announced in the fall issue of American Quilter magazine, Harriet and Diane have joined together to organize a machine quilting celebration in Estes Park Colorado in June of 2004.

The two indicate that they plan to have "well known machine quilting teachers lined up, many classes, and, of course, special classes on stipling and design". They conclude by saying, "Our hope is to encourage those just beginning this journey into this wonderful skill, and to inspire today's machine quilters to expand their design ideas and to improve their skills, to keep the art of machine quilting growing and improving, but never forgetting its roots in tradition."

Some of the tools helpful for doing quality machine quilting on your home sewing machine are included here. The walking foot, also called an even feed foot, will quilt straight lines and gentle curves. This is a good place for those new to machine quilting to start developing their skills. A basic, inexpensive book with a series of exercises designed to help you build your machine quilting skills is Maurine Noble's book, Machine Quilting Made Easy (1994). Some home sewing machines have a built in walking foot or have one available as an optional attachment. To purchase a walking foot for your machine you need to know whether you have a low shank or a high shank or an exception (like a Bernina).

To create stippling curves and feathers you need a foot that has various names: free motion foot, darning foot, open-toed embroidery foot. This foot allows you to move not just forward and backward, but in all directions which is the point of free motion quilting. Selecting a foot that allows you maximum visibility in all directions is important. 

Another must for creating well done machine quilting is a smooth, flat surface surrounding the needle. Your goal is to create a flat surface so that the weight of the quilt does not pull on the needle in any direction. 

Some people find quilting gloves with many small grips useful in moving all three layers under the needle. Using quality needles and thread of appropriate weight for your project is vitally important.

Another excellent book is Traditional Quilts, Today's Techniques by Debra Wagner.

Article by Paula Mariedaughter