How to Fold a Quilt

How to Fold a Quilt, without creating permanent creases and so that every quilt you have can be folded to a uniform size while stored in your closets.

As the main reason for this blog is to provide quilting tips and techniques to help quilters, here is a very good way for you to fold your quilts. This method of folding, which is done on the bias, actually avoids causing creases in your quilt that becomes "burned in" simply because it does not follow the natural grain lines of the fabric.

If you follow the pictures here you can easily see the order needed to make the folds for your quilt. This method of folding also makes it easy to fold different sizes of quilts so that when all your quilts are folded and stacked, they can be the same size. To accomplish this simply mark a square or rectangle (don't use felt marker on your floor!) (perhaps a piece of fabric laid on a carpet to mark the size that you want your folded quilt to be) Then when you fold each edge of the quilt, bring the fold to the edge or line you have marked so that the end result is always the same size as your marked square.

Your third fold may actually require a small in turned fold so that it does not flop outside your marked area. Keep your folds as straight as possible. You may have to practice this technique to actually get a nice neat square/rectangle, because, remember you are making the folds on the bias grain and it will tend to want to go at a angle.

Voila! once you have all the edges folded in, fold once or twice as needed to complete the rectangle. Each time you refold a quilt it will always fold on slightly different 'lines' so over a period of time you will not be folding the same quilt in the same spot and because of this you will avoid the crease lines that tend to become permanent folds when you use the square, or on the grain system of storing your quilts.
Other tips about folding quilts are...

When you fold an unfinished quilt top it should be folded so that the seams are on the inside, this helps to prevent the seams from unravelling, even if the quilt to is stored for a short time, when other things come in contact with the exposed seams it can cause the raggedy, unravelled look.

When you fold a finished quilt, the top or main design should be folded so it is on the inside so as to protect from dirt and fading the 'featured' part of the quilt.

I learned this technique from my friend and fellow quilt maker and quilt instructor, Lois.