Making a quilt top is a fun thing: Finishing it is WONDERFUL! Once you have completed your top, you are ready for the next step: Assemble everything for your best friend, your friendly neighborhood quilter. She loves you just as much as you love and need her. There are a few things that you can do to make her job easier as well as save yourself some money.

They can be done for you, but know that there will be a charge to all extra time involved.

Quilt top should be pressed and threads should be trimmed. Dark threads show through light fabrics. Once they are quilted in, they are difficult to remove. If you don't want little shadow-worms showing through your quilt, take the time and trim the loose threads from the back side of your quilt top.

Remove and trim threads from the front of your quilt top as well. These can really mess up the quilting if the machine gets caught in them.

Batting should be larger than your quilt top by five inches all the way around. It should be clean, free from pet hair, dirt, and thread.

If you choose to piece together pieces of batting, do it securely. This is not recommended, but your quilter will work with you. Please inform her about this when you bring the quilt.

Do not expect your quilter to piece batting together. A correct sized piece will be substituted for a fee or you will be called and will need to wait for a week to get placed in the lineup again.

The back of your quilt is important, too. It should be of good quality fabric.

It should be larger than your quilt top by five inches all the way around.

If there are seams, press them open.

Press your backing fabric, the way you bring it will be the way that it is sewn onto your quilt. If it needs to be pressed, there will be a pressing fee.

Pieced backs are interesting and fun. If you back needs special placement, point this out to your quilter.

There are differences in the stretch of the lengthwise and crosswise grains of fabric. If you are planning on piecing a quilt back, this should be kept in mind. For large quilts, this really makes a difference in the finished quilt.

There is a fee for piecing together yardage for the back of a quilt.