Unevern seams

[krystalann]

I am doing a X's abd O's quilt and I am noticing that some seams are not matching perfectly. I know I need to prbably square the blocks up, but If I do it cuts off some of the triangles in the corner making the next block a little off. Is this normal or do I suck at cutting that bad. Maybe anyone else here guilty here of not having the perfect quilt?

Thanks for looking and maybe responding.

Have a great Easter Monday

[SummerK]

No one here has a perfect quilt...it's impossible! But there are a few tricks that can help you when you find corners that are noticeably off.

Try taking out the stitching from one inch on one side of the seam to one inch on the other side. Lock the seam and pin it. When pinning it, I will put the pin through the stitches on the top and making sure they are going through the stitches on the bottom, just to be sure that they are really truly lined up. Once that's done you can see which side (or sides) are looser than the other. Put the looser side on the bottom where the feed dogs will gather it up. I really hope that makes sense...it's so hard to explain things without pictures. Please let me know if you need help!

[krystalann]

I think I might have asked the wrong thinkg. I will post a pic so you can see.

Thanks

No one here has a perfect quilt...it's impossible! But there are a few tricks that can help you when you find corners that are noticeably off.

Try taking out the stitching from one inch on one side of the seam to one inch on the other side. Lock the seam and pin it. When pinning it, I will put the pin through the stitches on the top and making sure they are going through the stitches on the bottom, just to be sure that they are really truly lined up. Once that's done you can see which side (or sides) are looser than the other. Put the looser side on the bottom where the feed dogs will gather it up. I really hope that makes sense...it's so hard to explain things without pictures. Please let me know if you need help!

[pinkberryquilt]

I am in the process of trying to lock my seams and I remember Jenny said in a tutorial to put the seam to lock in the "up" position. This help pull the seam down to butt up to the bottom seam. For me this won't work since it makes my block to the right of the needle.

[Denis]

Krysta, how are you constructing the X blocks? Are you cutting triangles off the larger intial square and sewing smaller triangles to fit the corners? or sewing smaller squares onto a larger square in opposite corners?

If you'er doing it the first way I described, I would stop right there. This method is for a more advanced or comfortable quilter.

If you're doing it the second way, make sure you draw a diagonal line down the centre of the smaller squares, pin them to the larger square, then sew on the line. This way you shouldn't have too many headache not matching up your seams. Fabric does have some play in it where you can pull a wee bit to make seams match without too much distortion.

Hope this helps

[Nena]

Hi Krysta----the only thing that I think that I can add to the above suggestions is that I find pressing with a hot iron and starch really does help me and to control the fabric. My cornors and points come out much better when I do this.

[krystalann]

Do you use starch before sewing or just when pressing your finished block?

Hi Krysta----the only thing that I think that I can add to the above suggestions is that I find pressing with a hot iron and starch really does help me and to control the fabric. My cornors and points come out much better when I do this.