Sewing in one direction causes bows?
#42
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Northeast Colorado
Posts: 422
Originally Posted by woohoowendy
I think after cutting the thread, pressing, going downstairs to get coffee, answering the phone, picking up scraps off the floor . . . . . I will SURELY forget which direction I was sewing when sewing a whole bunch of strips.
Does anyone have an easy method for remembering which direction you sewed each strip?
Should I just use a perm. marker to mark an arrow in the seam allowance at the start of each strip? Or maybe there's an even easier solution . . . . please post any ideas.
Thanks!
Does anyone have an easy method for remembering which direction you sewed each strip?
Should I just use a perm. marker to mark an arrow in the seam allowance at the start of each strip? Or maybe there's an even easier solution . . . . please post any ideas.
Thanks!
#43
Member
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 8
I have never posted before, but I wanted to share my solution as to how I keep track of which direction I sewed which strip. I leave the long thread tails at the beginnng of the row when I start to sew on a strip and cut the tails short at the end. That way, if I get distracted, I can always tell that if the long tails are at the top, that is where I started sewing that strip and know to start the next strip should start at the other end. Seems to work for me.
#45
OMG!!!LOL!!! When I was a pure newbie, I was so excited, I sewed all of my bargello strips in one direction on the machine. WOW! BOW MENS WAVY, WAVY, and more WAVY! Think about it. Everytime you sew in a direction, it pulls a little bit on the material.....keep doing that and it exaggerates the pulling! Sew once in one direction, then in the other. It will keep the material flat. I had to take my bargello and lay it out, finding small, six inch squares, and then I put those together. It was a lesson well learned. The new six inch bargello squares came together in a kimono pattern and it was lovely but far, far, far too much work due to not understanding! I love that quilt because it improved my work! (Always get something positive from whatever you can.)
#47
Super Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: AZ and CT
Posts: 4,898
Originally Posted by AnnieF
I was reading a blog and the woman was talking about making scrappy strip quilts....her specialty....you know the ones where you cut all the fabrics by width of fabric and just arrange them in rows. She said the way she conquers the bowing of the strips is by sewing the strips by twos....and then sewing the 2-strip sections together...and then the 8-strip sections. Apparently she says that by having 2 strips sewn, it stabilizes the fabric and you don't have to do that right to left and left to right sewing. It's worth a shot.
#48
Originally Posted by woohoowendy
I think after cutting the thread, pressing, going downstairs to get coffee, answering the phone, picking up scraps off the floor . . . . . I will SURELY forget which direction I was sewing when sewing a whole bunch of strips.
Does anyone have an easy method for remembering which direction you sewed each strip?
Should I just use a perm. marker to mark an arrow in the seam allowance at the start of each strip? Or maybe there's an even easier solution . . . . please post any ideas.
Thanks!
Does anyone have an easy method for remembering which direction you sewed each strip?
Should I just use a perm. marker to mark an arrow in the seam allowance at the start of each strip? Or maybe there's an even easier solution . . . . please post any ideas.
Thanks!
#49
Originally Posted by Lisa_wanna_b_quilter
Sew two strips of fabric together. Sew the third strip on starting from the end you just finished with.
It is said that sewing multiple strips in one direction will bow the fabric.
It is said that sewing multiple strips in one direction will bow the fabric.
#50
I have done ALOT of sewing strips in "strata", and I've found that the pressing has more to do with bowing than the sewing does. And that if it's possible to work with 22" wide strips instead of 44", that helps. too. If you pull your strips at all when you feed them through, it will cause bowing, but if you let the machine pull them through, you should be OK.
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