World Wide Quilting Page
Question of the Week
Question for the week of April 22, 2002:
Our question this week comes Robyn P
When machine quilting, I often have to start or stop quilting in the
middle of the quilt - how should I knot and hide the loose
threads at the beginning and ending of my sewing line?
Pat Mantooth :
You can do this in 3 different ways. 1st. Leave your needle and thread intact and put a pin cushion where you are quilting and stick your pin in it.
2nd- Remove your needle and leave the thread long, and when you return, rethread the needle and continue.
3rd. Go ahead and tie off and knot and pull through and secure and when you come back you can continue anywhere. But whatever you do. DON'T LEAVE NEEDLE IN QUILT.
Pat :
I plan out my quilting so that I can go from top to bottom or side to side. That way I can hide the starting threads as well as the begining and ending tiny stiches inside the binding. If I plan right I have very few thread tails to put onto a needle and weave into the batting. Good Luck!
Barbara H. :
I left the thread ends long, carefully pulled them to the back, and used a hand-sewing needle to pull the ends into the body of the quilt. It was a small quilt, and I only had a few spots where I needed to do this. I plan to try the stitch-length idea from Rose U. on my next machine-quilted item.
Rose U. :
I learned in a machine quilting class to put the stitch length at 0 at the starting point for quilting, then every couple of stitches to gradually increase stitch size to the desired size; and again at the end point for the quilting to gradually decrease stitch size. This has worked well for me for several years now.
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