Are you the persnickety personality whose points project perfectly, and seams snuggle succinctly?
Me too...to the best of my piecing ability. I also insist on changing my thread when seaming high contrast areas. There's really nothing worse than seeing dark thread shadow through a seam on light fabrics...or vice versa. In this picture (trimmed to an odd shape so you can focus on the seam), I started with a golden thread on the yellow fabric. I stitched to the seam, dropped my feed dogs and took 3 stitches to lock the threads. Then I changed to black thread, took 3 stitches with the feed dogs down then popped them up to continue sewing the seam.
I am using black as even though there is a small area of red to cross, it quickly changes back to black. It would be nuts to change to red to sew only a dozen or or so stitches, but if that red section had been white, I would have done so. Small things like this contribute greatly to the overall look of the quilt and yet only add a few more minutes to the construction. When I joined the yellow centre to the red/black section below, I had golden thread in my bobbin and black in the top. The red thread you see along that seam line is my stay-stitching. Every time I have a curved seam, I do a row of stay-stitching about 1/8" from the edge on each layer of fabric. You cannot see it on the yellow below as the seam is pressed over but trust me, it's there. Our Home Economics teachers were right when they recommended stay-stitching for curves - it makes the edge of the fabric more stable and less likely to stretch into a wonky shape as you stitch. These blocks come out square and true, not needing trimming.
How picky are you with your patchwork?
Are you the persnickety personality whose points project perfectly, and seams snuggle succinctly?
Me too...to the best of my piecing ability. I also insist on changing my thread when seaming high contrast areas. There's really nothing worse than seeing dark thread shadow through a seam on light fabrics...or vice versa. In this picture (trimmed to an odd shape so you can focus on the seam), I started with a golden thread on the yellow fabric. I stitched to the seam, dropped my feed dogs and took 3 stitches to lock the threads. Then I changed to black thread, took 3 stitches with the feed dogs down then popped them up to continue sewing the seam.
I am using black as even though there is a small area of red to cross, it quickly changes back to black. It would be nuts to change to red to sew only a dozen or or so stitches, but if that red section had been white, I would have done so. Small things like this contribute greatly to the overall look of the quilt and yet only add a few more minutes to the construction. When I joined the yellow centre to the red/black section below, I had golden thread in my bobbin and black in the top. The red thread you see along that seam line is my stay-stitching. Every time I have a curved seam, I do a row of stay-stitching about 1/8" from the edge on each layer of fabric. You cannot see it on the yellow below as the seam is pressed over but trust me, it's there. Our Home Economics teachers were right when they recommended stay-stitching for curves - it makes the edge of the fabric more stable and less likely to stretch into a wonky shape as you stitch. These blocks come out square and true, not needing trimming.
Picky Polly, that is a good lesson! Had to laugh when I read about your adventures in the snow too.
ReplyDeleteI thought I was a picky piecer, but you take the cake. I've never changed threads mid seam. If you look closely at my work, my threads peek through...it bugs me a bit... but only for about 5 minutes, until something else bugs me.... tee hee....
ReplyDeleteWell, I TRY to be picky. But sometimes I'm not firm enough with myself and I let Me get away with all sorts of slap-dashness. I can see that Polly keeps you on your toes.
ReplyDeleteI'm not that picky. Life is too short. I try to stick with the lightest so that it doesn't show through. I stay stitch when making clothing. I try to stay away from curves in piecing but will stay stitch from now on if I do sew curves - regardless of what I am sewing.
ReplyDelete: ) I'm picky. When I see popular quilters making magazine pages with crappy piecing... well... for those purposes, you should be an example to others I think.
ReplyDeletethough - I WAS NOT picky until I joined a quilt guild. : ) Changed forever.... hehe
~Monika