Awhile back I noticed this but stopped doing what I was doing and moved on so I never got back to figuring it out..but now...it is happening again. I was making mug rugs and kids totes and doing FMQ meandering on them. I couldn't figure why if I cut the size I wanted and when I FMQ'ed them, the piece was smaller! I just used them as is and then stopped making them.
Now.. I am making a zipper pouch that I wanted to have batting behind the front parts and a lining inside. So I cut 9.5"x7.5", front fabric and batting, then FMQ'ed it. I went to put the zipper on and I looked at it and it looked to small so I figured I cut it wrong. I cut another one, this time I cut it 11x9 and also cut the batting that size and the lining that size. I FMQ'ed the front with the batting and trimmed off the extra batting, and looked and it looked smaller and I measured...and now the piece was 9x7. I layed it on the lining piece I cut and sure enough, it was smaller. So investigation showed...apparently FMQ will "shrink" the size of the fabric by 1-2 inches! In thinking about it, I guess there is some pull of the fabric as where there is no FMQ stitching, it creates a hump in between all stitches so that apparently takes up some of the fabric size.
Has anyone else noticed this or experienced this? Am I missing something or doing something wrong to make the piece pull up so much? Is it shrinking like this because I didn't have a backing on it? Would it have not shrunk if I had a backing on it? When I did the mug rugs, I did it with the back fabric on and then did binding..and they still "shrunk".
And in further thinking, if it does this on a small piece sandwich...if you are doing it on a full size quilt..does the FMQ stitching pull up the fabric like this, thus "shrinking" the quilt...meaning if you cut everything in the blocks to get a 12x12 finished blocks and sew them together, once FMQ'ed...if you were to measure the blocks, would they now be 11x11? I don't have one here so I can compare or measure. If this is what happens, is that why those "puckers" show up on a quilt? I always thought they were because the fabric was not pre washed..but now I wonder...are the puckers due to fabric shrinking on its own, or the fabric being pulled up between the FMQ stitches?
Hope that all made sense. I need to get some kind of answer so I can always cut my fabrics the bigger size to get them to be the right size, once FMQ'ed.
Now.. I am making a zipper pouch that I wanted to have batting behind the front parts and a lining inside. So I cut 9.5"x7.5", front fabric and batting, then FMQ'ed it. I went to put the zipper on and I looked at it and it looked to small so I figured I cut it wrong. I cut another one, this time I cut it 11x9 and also cut the batting that size and the lining that size. I FMQ'ed the front with the batting and trimmed off the extra batting, and looked and it looked smaller and I measured...and now the piece was 9x7. I layed it on the lining piece I cut and sure enough, it was smaller. So investigation showed...apparently FMQ will "shrink" the size of the fabric by 1-2 inches! In thinking about it, I guess there is some pull of the fabric as where there is no FMQ stitching, it creates a hump in between all stitches so that apparently takes up some of the fabric size.
Has anyone else noticed this or experienced this? Am I missing something or doing something wrong to make the piece pull up so much? Is it shrinking like this because I didn't have a backing on it? Would it have not shrunk if I had a backing on it? When I did the mug rugs, I did it with the back fabric on and then did binding..and they still "shrunk".
And in further thinking, if it does this on a small piece sandwich...if you are doing it on a full size quilt..does the FMQ stitching pull up the fabric like this, thus "shrinking" the quilt...meaning if you cut everything in the blocks to get a 12x12 finished blocks and sew them together, once FMQ'ed...if you were to measure the blocks, would they now be 11x11? I don't have one here so I can compare or measure. If this is what happens, is that why those "puckers" show up on a quilt? I always thought they were because the fabric was not pre washed..but now I wonder...are the puckers due to fabric shrinking on its own, or the fabric being pulled up between the FMQ stitches?
Hope that all made sense. I need to get some kind of answer so I can always cut my fabrics the bigger size to get them to be the right size, once FMQ'ed.
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