We built a quilt frame!

I use the cluttered basement as my sewing room. I used to sew in the spare bedroom, but was always worried about the mess. Our basement is for storage I don't have to worry about clutter or messes because company never sees it in the basement. The basemeent is also the only part of the house big enough to hold the quilt frame that my husband helped me build. Instead of a smaller frame, I wanted one big enough to fit a king size quilt. So the frame is 10 feet long.

Money was also a consideration. I am unsure if I will be able to hand quilt as very much. I couldn't justify spending a lot of money on something that I would rarely use. This project cost under $50.

We used the instructions given by Alex Anderson’s father at the following site.

http://www.hgtv.com/video/build-your-own-quilt-frame-video/index.html

Here are the materials we used for the project: Two saw horses; two strips of 1X2 pieces of lumber ten feet long; four hanger bolts; four wing nuts; wood glue; muslin; and safety pins.

We drilled holes for the hanger bolts into the saw horses at about an inch from the end and ¾ of an inch from each side. (Our pets like to participate whenever they can. This is one of our dogs making sure we don't forget he is willing to help.)

Then we drilled the holes into the 1X2 centered and about an inch from the end. (In the upper right corner, you can see the blurred image of one of our black cats curiously watching us.)

We did something a little different than shown on the video. We added muslin to the 1X2s. I cut 3 yards of muslin length wise so that I then had two strips of muslin 3 yards long. Those were then folded in half.

The ends were stapled to the wood so the folded side could be used to pin the quilt to the rods (1X2s).

We were not sure how close the staples should be so we tried to keep them around 4 inches apart.

Then glue was added to the wood and the muslin wrapped around the wood. Safety pins were used to pull the muslin tight until the glue dried.

The 1X2s were then placed over the hanger bolts to form the quilting frame. The safety pins are still in place because the glue isn't dried. (The dogs are inspecting our finished product.)