I Ran Out of Batting!

You will run out of batting before you run out of quilt at least three times every year.

Okay, this was just made up. And if it has never happened to you, let's hope we didn't mess with your "mojo" by mentioning it. But many longarm quilters have suffered the dreaded "two-inches-too-short" dilemma, discovering that they have more quilt than batting at the bottom edge.

The best way to handle this is to avoid the situation in the first place by opening up your batting piece, folding it in half and then in half once again. Do the same with your quilt top, matching the folds with those of your batting. Check all the raw edges to be sure you have plenty of batting extending past the quilt's outer perimeter.

If Murphy has struck and you've discovered that you're short of batting once you've begun, you can still salvage the project with a little extra work. When you reach the edge of the batting where you need to add an extra piece, overlap a new piece of batting on top of the current batting. Be sure the overlap is at least six inches. You won't need to remove the quilt from your frame.

Use a scissors to cut a serpentine path through both layers of batting at once (be careful not to cut the quilt layers or your canvas leaders!) Remove the scrap pieces and then whipstitch the pieces together. This curved "seam" in your batting is easier to disguise as the piece rolls into the quilt, and is more likely to be caught with your quilting stitches to prevent it from separating when the quilt is used.