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Straight Line Quilting Help Needed!
This is urgent - the wedding quilt is due on the 20th.
I'm straight line quilting a moderately large (70") quilt I've made for a friend (I promise pics later). I started yesterday and I did a test sandwich and had no issues with my walking foot or the tension on the thread.
When I started doing the actual 3/4" straight line quilting I'm finding that my quilt top is being pulled in the direction that I am quilting as compared to the back. My quilt sandwich is pretty solid and my pinning was very thorough. I hand picked out 5 rows of stitching last night that made the fabric look really wonky. It's not quite puckered but it's almost and my straight blocks are now on a lean.
Is it the tension? I played around with the test sandwich for a bit but I think it's too small to really show the issue.
Re: Straight Line Quilting Help Needed!
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Partner to J | 02.15.05
Mommy to C | 02.18.09
I'm guessing it is a combination of tension and improper pinning.
You need lots of pins, an insane number, to make sure your quilt sandwich doesn't pull. Upwards of 200 for a quilt that size I'd say. I did a similarly sized quilt and used 325.
re: tension, this is a decently good guide:
http://www.generations-quilt-patterns.com/sewing-machine-tension.html
Stand up for something you believe in.
I had both sides of the quilt fully rolled and pinned pretty tightly to keep them stable. I can clear the desk tonight and I will put my sewing machine on the end so the quilt runs down the desk. The roll was going off the edge of the desk at a certain point.
I've never straight line quilted before so any suggestions are appreciated. I really don't want to have to pay for long-arm quilting. Does anybody know an average cost or a realistic time period? If I can't get this straightened out (hah!) in the next two days I'm going to be needing a back-up plan.
Married Bio
Have you masking taped off the lines?
Which foot are you using? And are you using it with a guide?
Those are the only things I did when I straight line quilted.
Stand up for something you believe in.
The issue isn't that the lines aren't straight - it's that the fabric seems to be twisting or pulling (ever so slowly) in the direction that I'm sewing in comparison to the top. You can only see it after I've done 6 or 7 lines and I didn't notice at all until I started quilting in the middle back in the opposite direction.
I've been using a walking foot and then the lines of the sashing and a quilting guide where necessary. The spacing of the lines hasn't been an issue. I'm not looking for perfection with the lines but I sure don't want the top to come out all wonky either.
I went through the tension link that you gave me (Thanks) but it doesn't appear as though tension is the issue. It must be the pinning although it seemed pretty solid to me. I'll repin it tonight and change up my desk layout so the weight of the quilt doesn't drag it down. I also think I'm going to buy some new needles and I'll clean out the feed dogs on the walking foot and in the bottom.
I was worried that quilting this way was going to trip me up but I love the look of the straight line quilting so much. I really want it to work out.
Married Bio
No I didn't go that far. I used the sandwich method off the Oh Fransson website but I kept all my pins about a palm apart (4") as per my grandma's instructions. She doesn't do machine quilting and she did recommend basting but I just thought it would take hours to do that. The layers seemed just as stable as the baby quilts that I've made in the past but I always did them with meandering designs so I'm thinking that the straight line style is causing more pulling.
Ugh. I'll tear out the last of the quilting and redo the sandwich tomorrow I guess. It already has a couple of mistakes in it but this is so obviously bad-looking the more I look at it.
Married Bio
Just for informational purposes I found this tutorial:
http://amyscreativeside.com/2010/05/13/basics-tutorial-straight-line-quilting/
That advises doing each straight line in opposite directions in order to prevent the straight lines from pulling the quilt to one side. Hope this helps someone else and you'll get to see the pictures once I get this sorted out hopefully!
Married Bio
One last tip, now that you're an expert on tension.
I don't pin or stay stitch, per se. I adjust the tension on my machine so that the top is really really loose, and then use the biggest stitch possible to baste the quilt sandwich. If you're quilting lines, you'll want to baste lines perpendicular (90* right angles) to the lines you're quilting. Then, when you're done quilting, go back and pull out the loose stitches. I HATE pinning with a passion and think this is way easier than pinning.
The only thing I can think of that hasn't been suggested so far: are you sure that you are letting the machine pull the fabric through as its stitching and not 'helping' it along by pulling it yourself? I sometimes get impatient and try to pull/push fabric through faster than the feed mechanism, if you're doing this too (by pushing/pulling one layer of your sandwich) it could mess with the stitching/fabric alignment, especially on a long line of stitches.
I wouldn't let the quilt drape over the back end of the table. It'll pull it too much due to the weight of the quilt. I usually pull my machine forward and set up my ironing board (to lengthen the back end of my little sewing table) and let the quilt pool up on the back end. Are your bottom feed dogs up? Can you PIP what the bad row looks like so we can get an idea?
Just remember that in the end, your recipient isn't looking at the quilt nearly as closely as you are and any imperfection will go unnoticed.
Thanks everyone for the replies. My feed dogs are definitely up and I was trying not to push or pull the fabric.
It looks as though I am going to use a whole pile of these suggestions when I finally finish unpicking my stitches. Fun!
Married Bio