Then this evening, before jumping in with the machine, I decided to take Bilbo's unspoken advice (are your ears burning yet, Hobbit?) and starch all my cut fabric before sewing. The reason for this is that when I have a diagonal seam, I'm always wary of pulling the pieces and stretching them in one direction or another once I come to press the seams.
All started well whilst I laid out the fabric pieces on the ironing board to give 'em a good spray and press, when I realised that my rectangular pieces varied in length somewhat. Some were 5", some 5 ⅛" and some were 5 ¼"!
Grr! Any inaccuracies at this stage are going only going to multiply, so it was back to the cutting board with quite a proportion of the pieces. The good news is that I have plenty of spare fabric to use now that the quilt has been resized, having bought for the original sizing.And now with every piece being individually measured for accuracy, and starched, I am ready to sew.
One good thing Hazel, is that they were larger rather than smaller. Another tip when pressing seams is not to use steam and just gently. Happy sewing.
ReplyDeleteGood tip - since encountering a couple of years ago some cream fabric which shrunk at the first *hint* of steam, Sue, I am VERY WARY of it and make sure the iron is not too hot, either.
DeleteI'm putting in my 2 cents for what it's worth; the more you handle the cut pieces the more the cut sides will react to being handled and that includes starching, pressing, pinning, measuring, etc. I think that it's okay to starch and press before cutting, but once you have cut, the pieces go directly to the sewing machine. Then you don't starch again until you have a block sewn together.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Joanna - I've been quite rigorous with each stage of piecing to try to keep the blocks the right size/shape - a discipline of my seam work as well as seam pressing!
DeleteHope you have great success with your sewing! You sound so organized!
ReplyDeleteTrying to keep each stage straight, Lesley - it's one thing to have a wonky quilt top if it's me, quite another when it's for someone else!
DeletePS If I was organised, I wouldn't have buggered up the block cutting!!
Aaaggghhhh. Don't you hate it when that happens? I wonder if you used different rulers on your trips to the cutting table? It's surprising how much different rulers can vary from each other. Anyway, at least they were too big, so you could cut them down.
ReplyDeleteYou know what I should have done, Sue? I should have marked the ruler for each cutting session with sticky tape, so I cut to the right line each time!!
DeleteA couple of smaller ones had to be re-cut from scratch, but I have enough fabric, so all's well that ends well! :-)
Far too late to be of any use with this quilt (sorry), but for your next one, starch the fabric BEFORE you cut each individual piece.
ReplyDeleteThe more you put an iron near a small bit of fabric the more chances there are for it to grow/shrink/warp/eat cookies*. If you starch the entire piece before you cut then you should be good to go from the off.
(And Sue will tell you, in Hobbit-land there is no such thing as "too much spray starch". I've had fabric so stiff it could almost stand up on its own, BUT, it was flimsy crappy cotton which would have behaved appallingly in the quilt if it hadn't been tamed before it was sewn!)
* and therefore get a bulge in the middle!