5 Quilting Tips

I was thinking recently about all the different things I've learned in the many years that I've been sewing and quilting. And I was asking myself, what are the things that I wish someone had told me right up front? And so, as I thought through that list, I came up with five top tips that I really think everyone should know. They're fairly common things but surprisingly many people aren't aware of them. So I wanna share with you today my top five tips that I've gleaned over about four decades of sewing. The first thing I wanna talk to you about is stitch length on your sewing machine. Stitch length is gauged in two different ways. On older machines generally, you'll see that it's gauged as stitches per inch. So if you set your machine to 12, that means you get 12 stitches to every inch. It's pretty self-explanatory. The other measurement that you'll see especially on newer machines is a metric measurement. You'll see measurements like 1.8 or 2.0, 2.2. And I have to say even though I've been sewing for a long time, I never understood what those meant until fairly recently. If you look here on my ruler, I have a ruler that shows both millimeters and on this side it shows an inch, between 11 and 12 here is one inch. So you can see that in one inch there are about 25 millimeters. So if you set your metric stitch length on a newer machine to 1.0 that means you would be getting about 25 stitches per inch. If you doubled it and set it to 2.0 that means you've doubled the size of the stitch but you've cut in half the number of stitches per inch. At 2.0, you would get about 12 stitches per inch. So that's a little bit about how stitch lengths relate to each other. You might understand your own machine a little better. And the other thing that I would say is that most of my students have their stitch length set too long for piecing. Generally for piecing, I set my metric to 1.8 or 2. And so that would equal about 12 to 15 stitches per inch. You're piecing will not be as secure as you really want it to be if you set your stitch length for longer than that. Most machines by default are set longer than that. So when you go to your machine for piecing it's a good idea to crank it down a little bit to make those stitches a little bit tinier. The next thing I wanna talk to you about is thread. Thread is something that you can't sew without and it's really important that you educate yourself a little bit about how it's made and how it works works. And the thing I wanna point out to you today is that thread is added onto spools in two different ways. There's thread that's what we call cross wound. And you can see on these spools that the thread is arranged in Xs or it's wound diagonally onto the spools. Here's another example. So these are called cross wound threads and any size of spool can be wound either way. So just because it's a certain size doesn't mean it will necessarily be cross wound or the other way, which is stacked. And I'll show you a few of those. Here are some spools that are stacked. In other words, the threads run straight across the spool. Maybe you can see the difference here. Cross wound versus stacked. And the reason this matters to you is because cross wound threads and stacked threads are meant to come off the machine in different ways. Stacked thread is meant to come off the machine from the back of the spool while the spool rotates. And I wanna move to my machine here and show you this. So I think I'll tilt this machine just a tad so that you can see a little better. A stacked thread which is the one that goes straight around is meant to come off the back of the spool on a vertical spool pin just like so, so you'd bring it over here to the first thread guide and go ahead and thread it. So you want the spool to be turning for stacked threads. Cross wound threads are meant to come off the spool from the top. And so they're meant to be loaded onto a horizontal spool pin like this. So this wave of thread feeds right off the end there just like so, without any tension being put on it, and you go ahead and thread it through your machine like that. You do of course want to hold the thread on with a spool pin. And the one thing I would point out is that, most machines have an extra little thread guide somewhere in this area that you, if you're having problems with your tension you can thread it through this extra little thread guide and that will help sometimes fix those problems. Another thing that you might run into, is you may at some point have to use a stacked thread on a horizontal spool pin. You may not have a vertical spool pin. So the way to cope with that or to compensate for the problem that you'll run into is to use a spool cup that's a little bit larger than the spool itself. What that does is you know, that little nick in the top of the spool where the thread can be caught so that it doesn't make a mess in your sewing drawer. That can cause problems because that thread will catch on that little nick. So by putting the spool cup on the spool and the thread, even though it's stacked it'll wind off the end of the spool like so, and it won't get caught on that little nick. So that's a way to compensate in case you need to use a stacked thread on a horizontal spool pin. Something went flying. The other thing that you can do to help with some thread issues is to use a thread stand. And you can actually use something as simple as a coffee cup, where you would just drop a cross wound thread into a coffee cup and you'd set it behind your machine and then it'll feed right up to your first guide and on through your machine, it'll feed right off the top there without any problems. The thing to remember is that you want it to feed as much as possible without putting any tension on the thread. So your thread stand can be as simple as a coffee cup or it can be something that's actually made to hold thread like this. So you can see that this has both the vertical and a horizontal spool pin, and you can set it behind your machine and you would thread it right up here through these little guides and then on into your machine. So sometimes if you're having problems with thread or problems with tension, a thread stand is the way to go. One thing I've always remembered is I talked to a sewing machine tech once and I had some time to ask him some questions that I really wanted to know the answers to. And he said, you know, ladies always think that the tension is their problem but you should always remember TNT, thread needle tension. He said, usually if you re-thread your machine or try a different thread usually your problem is with the thread. Secondly, he said, try the needle. Use a different type of needle, use a different size of needle, or just put in a new needle. And lastly, your problem could be tension if it's not thread or needle. So always remember TNT for thread needle tension. Onto the third thing that I wish someone had told me sooner. We hear a lot about the grain of fabric, the crosswise grain and the lengthwise grain. You can see on this fabric, lengthwise grain runs along the salvage. So we're talking about these threads. And crosswise grain runs this way, perpendicular to the salvage. And the threads that are put on a loom that run lengthwise are the warp threads. And they're much stronger than the weft threads, which run this way. So these are the warp threads on a loom and these are the weft threads. And the reason that matters to you is because there's a lot of difference in the amount of give or stretch that this type of fabric has between the crosswise and the lengthwise grain. If you unfold the length of fabric and you give a little tug on the lengthwise grain, you can see there's not much give, a little but not a whole lot. If you go to the crosswise grain and give it a little tug you can see we get a lot more give. So what does that mean for quilting? It means that anytime you're cutting strips if you can cut them along the lengthwise grain, there'll be much more stable. They won't give you as much trouble with stretching. Your piecing will improve immediately if you're just aware that the lengthwise grain or the warp threads have much less stretch than the crosswise grain. Moving on to the fourth tip is something that will save you a lot of time. A really popular technique is something called stitch and flip. When you're required to sew from the corner of a square, one corner diagonally to the other corner. And in the old days it said, mark the square from corner to corner and then sew on the mark. Well if you're making a king size quilt, and you have to make 1,687 of these that's daunting, who wants to do that? So what you can do instead of marking on the patch, is you can actually mark on the sewing machine. And this is one of the handiest things you'll ever learn. You can use masking tape or blue painter's tape is great because it shows up really well. This is an artist's tape and because it's white, I might actually take a marker and just color the very edge of that tape. Cause that's all I'm gonna need to see is the very edge. So I've just added a little color there. And then what you wanna do is place this on your machine straight out from the needle. You want this black line or this black edge to be straight out from the needle towards your belly. So ordinarily you would sit in front of your machine to do this and you could see clearly that you were coming straight. And I'm just, for today, I'm just gonna stand to the side here so that you can see. But I'm gonna place that tape just there at the needle and then I'm going to come straight out like so. So that gives me a reference point. And then of course I'd wanna wait and make sure that ink was dry before I ran my patches across it. But let's say I needed to sew from corner to corner here. I'm gonna start my patch up underneath here, put it right under the needle, and I'm gonna have this little corner here right on the edge of the tape on the black mark. And then I'm gonna proceed to sew straight across there by running this corner right up that black mark. So I can sew a perfectly straight line across that patch and I haven't had to mark the patch. This will save you time immensely. You will be really glad you know this tip. Then the very last tip I'd like to talk to you about is joining strips with diagonal seams which is something that you're instructed to do fairly often. And if you've ever done this the wrong way you'll remember it. But there's an easy way to remember how to do it correctly and that's what I'd like to show you. So you want to sew so that you're joining these end to end. So what you want to happen is that it becomes one long strip. So if you've ever been unsure of which way to sew, sometimes you sew this way. Pretend that this pin represents the seam and then you open it up and suddenly that's not quite what you were after. So the way to remember that you need to sew from this corner to this corner is if you kind of think of these as streets, each strip is a street, and here you have a dead end street, and here you have a through street, and here you have a dead end street and a through street. Or you can think of it as a short piece and a long piece, a short piece and a long piece. So you wanna sew from long and short, diagonally across to long and short, if you sew right along here from the dead end and the through street to the dead end and the through street, your strip will be just right every time. So I hope that next time you tackle some projects, these tips will come in handy for you and will make your life a little bit easier.