Employee Hints

Machine Quilting Ideas
from Pam

In our last newsletter, I shared some information about the ins and outs of long-arm quilting. This time I want to tell you about something that you can use on your home sewing machine to bring something new to your quilting skills. It’s all about the thread! The rainbow colors of Isacord thread at the Sewing Center have always looked so pretty to me, but because I haven’t been bitten by the machine embroidery bug, they didn’t totally captivate me. Pretty to look at but no reason to buy. Well, that has all changed, and I’m in trouble now! I have discovered that this is a great polyester thread for machine quilting, and I keep going back for more colors. I use this on my long-arm and mid-arm and my domestic machine with great results. A little bit of sheen, good strength, and many, many colors to choose from right in my backyard! To top it all off, it is a good value—– 1094 yards on a cone for $5.89, Purchase 5 at a time and get a 6th one free!

Border Adjustments
by Laurel

I don’t know about you, but I absolutely HATE to piece the outer borders on any of my quilts—well, unless the piecing is part of the design. But I’m talking about straight outer borders.

Generally, when borders are pieced, you sew the strips together with a diagonal seam. Diagonal seams are less noticeable to the eye than crosswise seams. If your border is quite wide, that seam gets very long and uses up more fabric.

To convert a pattern from crosscut strips to lengthwise, look at the length of the quilt. We’ll pretend our quilt is 60 x 80”. Now look at the width of the outer border. Let’s say our outer borders are 4-1/2” wide. Double that measurement and subtract from the finished length of the quilt (80 – 9” = 71”). I’d buy 2-1/4 yards (81”) – that’s an extra 10” for good luck. This yardage assumes that you plan to add the side borders first and then the top and bottom, or that you plan to have squares in the corners. If you plan to miter your corners, you’ll need to have the entire length of the quilt, plus a little extra.

Our imaginary quilt would have needed about 8 crosswise strips for the borders and called for about 1-1/4 yards. In addition, it would have needed about 2/3 yard more for binding. That means you would need to purchases just under 2 yards of fabric.

By purchasing an extra 1/4 yard of fabric, you can cut four lengthwise strips for the border AND four lengthwise strips for the binding. You’ve eliminated the need to piece the borders, have fewer seams in the binding (because the strips are longer) and you’ll have stronger borders.

Pick up a piece of fabric, grasp the two selvage edges and pull. Notice there’s some stretch. Now pull parallel to the selvage. There’s no stretch on the lengthwise grain. Additionally, since there are no seams, your borders are even stronger.

So next time you decide to make a quilt, look at the pattern directions to see how the borders are made. You may want to consider refiguring the yardage for lengthwise cut borders. And, if you can’t remember how to figure the requirements, we’ll be glad to help you at Bear Patch.