Category Archives: Tutorial

Quarter inch, SCHMuarter inch!

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Ah, the quarter inch seam allowance. The holy grail of quilting. Love or hate it, embrace it or ignore it – it can be friend or foe. For those of you who do most projects with a healthy dose of improv, this puppy might not be high on your list of things to master. But if you make things that need to fit together, getting a grip on it is a good thing. Master it well and you’ll never have to worry about it again.

Any time you add mastery to your craft, you get more room in your creative practice to play rather than fight with your skills or tools. No matter how much improvisational piecing you do, it will never hurt you to have a reliably accurate 1/4” seam in your arsenal.

Like most of us, I got my first intro the the quarter inch seam via a piece of carefully placed masking tape in my first quilting class. Which, once I had removed it to reload the bobbin, never got back to exactly the same place again. Harrumph.

I struggled with this on my old Kenmore until I bought my first Janome machine, which came with an exciting little widget called a Quarter Inch Foot. It has a flange down the side of the foot (see below). I was prepared to never miss the corners of a block ever again, expecting the heavens to open and harps to thrum, but alas… it didn’t make a perfect seam no matter which needle position I used – I was always a thread under or over. Bah.

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So I grumbled about this to my quilt teacher, the fabulous Marilyn George. Marilyn was a wonderful teacher for newbies – utterly unflappable and full of humor – and full of all sorts of solutions as only a seasoned quilter would be. (Marilyn… all of this is *still* your fault!).

So Marilyn tut-tutted, and pulled a funny little foot out of my box of bits. “Behold the Adjustable Blind Hem Foot,” she said. I had ignored this foot because I thought it was for hemming pants, and I knew now that once I started quilting, such mending was supposed to be beneath me.

It’s an odd looking foot… it has a rolly wheel on one side (the adjustable bit) and a pretty healthy bumper that helps hold the edge of the fabric straight. After a few seams of fussing it into EXACTLY the right place and a dab of superglue on the wheel to stop it from moving, I had the perfect quarter inch foot – and I’ve been using it for some 20 years across three different Janomes!

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And that big bumper extends further forward of the needle than the flange of the other foot, so I get my fabric aligned straighter and earlier as it approaches the needle. Having the bumper also means I don’t have to keep an eagle eye on my fabric wandering past the edge of the type of foot that doesn’t have a flange. This makes not only for accuracy, but for some serious speed too (helloooo efficiency!). Yes, I know… we’ve talked about this… it’s not all about how fast you can go. But if you can go faster with more accuracy, you get to make more stuff. And I really like making more stuff.

So here are some hints on how to set this foot up:

1. First find the Adjustable Blind Hem foot for your machine style. They tend to come standard with the higher end Janomes, and aren’t too expensive at all for the lower ones ($18 on Amazon at the moment). I imagine that all brands have one – or might have a foot that will clip to the Janome version. There should be a rolling wheel and a bumper.

2. Move your needle position to the LEFT, and roll the bumper about a 1/4” to the RIGHT of the needle. Now take a look at the set up, and make sure that your feed dogs are somewhat centered between the two. If they aren’t close to center, they could pull the fabric sideways – but we’ll be testing this so get close to centered for now. Use a ruler, and set up the space between the needle and bumper for a hair less than a 1/4” (that hair is taken up in the bend of the fabric at the seam when you press it open, so always start just under).

3. Accurately cut some swatches of fabric that are 1 1/2” wide, and 2 1/2” long. Make at least a dozen as we’ll be playing with some tiny adjustments here, and we don’t need to play with the seam ripper at the same time – ripping them apart can make them distort, so let’s use fresh swatches for this exercise.

4. Sew 2 of these swatches together along the 2 1/2” side. Press closed to set the stitches, and then press open.

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5. Place the ruler over these two pieces, and make sure that the result is a piece that is EXACTLY 2 1/2” wide.

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6. If it isn’t EXACT, adjust the bumper and sew two fresh swatches until you get it. While you are doing this, make sure that the fabric is tracking straight through the feed dogs. If it isn’t, then move the needle position and bumper together and re-test.

Don’t be discouraged if this takes a few goes. It’s worth it. Cut more swatches if you have to.

7. Now that you have it… one final test: sew 4 swatches together. This shows the accuracy better… one thread off on one seam might not show up but across three will be quite visible. Again, adjust and re-test until you are happy.

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8. Put a drop of superglue on the wheel, and make note of the needle position. If you have a label maker, this is a good time to write that needle position on a label and stick it to your machine.

9. Go make a nice cup of tea (or your fave beverage). Sit back and admire your handiwork. You won’t have to re-do this until you buy your next machine!

All Printers Are Not Equal

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My trusty testers and I have been trying out some new pattern ideas that include paper piecing. I like to use paper piecing when I need accuracy in small places, although I can find it a bit long-winded at times. The best cure for long-winded sewing that I know of is sewing with friends… somehow a project that, if done solo, might make you want to run screaming for the hills is a pleasant afternoon’s sojourn when done in the company of people you like hanging with. Add some chocolate and laughter and the afternoon turns into satisfying play.

We were playing with some words, and I missed printing one of the letters that morning before heading to my friend’s home. I at least had the PDFs with me… no problem, says friend, running to her office with the jump drive. Two minutes later we were looking at the pattern for the missing letter. Which was almost a full quarter inch shorter than the ones made by my printer at home. Hmm.

We solved the problem by tracing an existing pattern onto scrap paper – we are, after all, a resourceful bunch. But good to find out that all printers are not created equal during a test drive and not at a higher stakes moment. And duly noted for the tips in the pattern.

Tutorial – Pieced Backs

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Often times at the quilt store, we have a customer agonizing over having purchased a few inches too much fabric (can there be such a thing?!) and fretting about having to keep it around when it doesn’t match the next idea in the queue. Often times this same customer is one who frets equally over the back of the quilt, having heard a rule somewhere along the line about solid one-fabric-only backs that have to match the fronts.

To which all I can say is horse feathers! Rules about backs? None exist… (regardless of what the crotchety biddies at your guild might say) short of the fact that there must be one.

I usually suggest that the customer makes a pieced back, starting with all the leftovers from the front, and this often gets me a horrified expression or blank stare. I get it… it seems like a lot of work, especially when you can probably buy some yardage and pop just one seam into it. But if you are minding your pennies (to buy new fabrics) and have some stash that could use being moved out (to make room for more new fabrics!), a pieced back is a good way to go. I also think it can be a fun surprise to turn a quilt over and find something interesting lurking back there.

So where do you start? Well… here’s the latest one I made, along with some running commentary about my decision process along the way:

Here’s the quilt top – a smaller version of Dingbats (coming soon!) made from Kona solids and an Alexander Henry “Matchstick” print (wonderfully colorful and whacky – just love it!) I have the top up on my ever handy design wall – I find that I can see so much better when it’s all vertical.

And here’s a pile of what was left over from making the top:

So – first course of action is to fuss that pile into some type of large block or rectangle. I chose to set the strips alternating back and forth, and then ended with the larger pieces at the top and bottom – I do this to frame the leftover section and to make attaching it to other pieces easier. And so this is where I ended up:

Only two little bits left over – not bad! These will go into my “Megan” bag, so named for a friend who likes to work with little scraps. She gets anything that I deem not worth keeping (which is anything under a 2.5″ strip, and odds and ends like these). Yes, I could have fussed these into one more strip somehow, but while I’m willing to burn some time on a pieced back, I’m not willing to burn the whole day at it. Thus, a judicious decision about how far to go with the scraps. Besides, it’s fun to see my fabric reappear in Megan’s projects :-)

Next, I start covering the quilt top with the leftovers, pinning them right on top. I aim to overshoot the quilt top by 2 to 4 inches on all sides – go for at least 4 if you plan to send it out.

The top piece is a full chunk of the Alexander Henry print (minus the binding, already made and put aside) and the bottom is the bits and pieces. Not a bad start, but a good ways to go. And so off to the stash drawers, specifically those with purple or red fabrics.

The purple drawer proved quite fruitful – lots of older but decent purple prints that I no longer love enough to hoard. Several colorways of a spotty design (I must have been on a roll there) and a lucky find of a purple with a wavy red stripe in it. The piece had never been cut so it was obviously waiting for this moment! So take a look at the lower right (above). I need another piece in here, but it could end up skinny, which isn’t an issue unless it puts me at risk for having a seam close to edge (which could interfere with how the binding settles in). So I moved the skinny strip towards the inside, and moved a wider piece to the outer edge. While I was at it, I moved the leftovers to the right too, to make the whole composition look more balanced to my eye.

The last addition is the chunk under the leftovers, a confetti-like print that looks like it belongs on a Miami Vice set. Old and un-hip, to be sure, but funky enough to play well here. And certainly a conversation piece when someone sees the back. “Yes, crazy fabric isn’t it, and to think I thought it was the coolest thing when I bought it back when rocks were soft!”

Next, I assembled the top half and bottom half and re-checked that I have enough space going around the edges (I will be quilting this one myself, so a little bit tight is okay).

If I needed a little more length (which I don’t), I can still add it in the middle. Remember, don’t add little bits at the edges in case the seams get close to the edge.

And here it is – done! It probably took me a little over an hour to make including running back and forth to the camera and trying to be aware of documenting my process for you.  Certainly not as fast two lengths and one seam – but now I have room for a little new fabric shopping!