Last week, I made a quick trip to St. Louis, where I could see the arch from the front of my hotel. I was there for the Baby Lock convention, but also got to see my sister Angie for a couple of hours and my good, good friend, Sara Gallegos. She writes for several sewing magazines, and her husband Zac works for Baby Lock .
The highlight of the convention was the introduction of the new Baby Lock sewing and embroidery machines. They are really exciting. One of the sewing features I love is the Guide Beam. It is a narrow beam of light that can be adjusted to show needle position or a guideline to follow. I always tell my students not to watch where the needle is. It’s too late to make corrections if that is where you are watching. Watch where the needle will be in a few stitches. You’ll find you sew much straighter and you won’t do nearly as much unsewing. Now there is a feature on the new Baby Lock machines that makes it much easier to do just that – watch where the needle will be. Think of the applications that can have in your quilting and sewing. I can’t wait to sit down and sew on one.
Speaking of sewing, I’ve spent a couple of hours this past week doing just that. As I was sewing, I worked at paying attention to the things I do to make the actual sewing process go faster. We’ve talked about tools and the cutting process. Now we’ll talk about actual sewing.
There are no big hints that will save you hours and hours, but if we can save a few seconds per step on every block in the process, the time adds up nicely.
I always make one or two blocks to be sure that everything goes together the way I want it to. If not I can make the adjustments needed before I have a whole lot of sewing done.
Chain Piecing
Once I am happy with the block, I start assembly line style chain piecing. In other words, I sew all the A patches to the B patches for all the blocks. This has a couple of advantages. First, when you do assembly line sewing, you’ll be faster since you know exactly what to do and you can get in a rhythm. The second advantage is that you don’t have a lot of threads to trim. One snip and you have the thread for one side of two blocks taken care of.
Ready to cut
When I cut the chain pieced blocks apart, I let one block hang over each side of the scissors blade. The fabric will usually be out of the way so you can quickly snip the thread. I then stack them all in the same direction to be ready for the next step.
I never stitch over a seam that I haven’t pressed. As I press, I stack the pieces so each piece is laying the same direction. When I start on the next seam, I can turn the whole stack so it lines up in the easiest way for that step.
I seldom pin. I press my seams so they can be nested in the next step in assembly; then I just hold them in position with my fingers. No pins to put in, no pins to take back out.
The last hint for the actual sewing process will probably make some of you smile. If I am not at work, I sew barefoot. The foot pedal can’t get away from me when I am barefoot. When it starts to scoot away, I can pull it back into position with my foot. I don’t even have to look at what I am doing.
Before I go, I want to thank all of you who followed our 12 Days of Christmas Blog Tour. It was lots of fun to see how many of you were visiting the other sites.
Have you been checking out Quilters Newsletter TV? We are having so much fun with it and hope you are enjoying it as well. This week ZJ Humbach talks about solving long arm quilting challenges.
Oh my goodness, I thought I was the only one who sewed barefoot for that very reason!
I wish I, too, could sew barefoot. I used to run around barefoot as a child but those days are long gone. Now I wear shoes the podiatrist recommends and keep them on until bedtime. But I’ve found that the foot pedal won’t move around if I have it taped to the floor with double sided tape.
I use a mouse pad turned upside down,
the mouse pad doesn’t wander and neither does the sewing machine pedal.
Peace through Creativity.
Dahlia
I was surprised you seldom pin. As currently a beginner trying to learn to sew all the classes I have attended the instructor always pins and they are always part of the supply list. It is probably something that works for some people and not for others. It is also a good tip to remember to watch where the needle will be and not where it is for straighter sewing. Also, I do not really have a preference for sewing barefoot. At home I usually sew with my socks on and have not had any issues. Looks like Baby Loc has some great events on their website. Thanks for the great info Lori!
I am from Adelaide, South Australia. I was in America two years ago visiting my American cousin for 17 days. I landed at St Louis airport where I was picked up.
I had given up quilting some years ago. The passion came back after visiting many quilting shops while I was there. I have been back quilting again since.
I love the American quilting and find it hard to get patterns here in Australia. I will continue looking. I just love making the ”Log Cabin” quilts.
Love to sew barefoot. I finally got a pad with velcour on it and stuck it to my foot peddle and now it sticks to the carpet in sewing area. Now since Christmas is coming soon I plan on making all my kids and grand-kids lap rag quilts for Christmas. I am leaving on the 18th of Oct. for one month to spend with my sister who lost her husband to cancer in May so I plan on sewing while she reads. We are also spending 2 weeks in Florida at there condo and taking her mother-in-law who is 93 and blind with us, so she listens to audio books. I have so much fabric already packed and ready for the trip, not counting my sewing machine and serger plus all my rulers ,scissors etc that will be necessary. We will need a moving van just for my stuff. Cannot wait to get on the road. She lives at the southern outer banks of the N.C. coast. I just hope the sun shines and no hurricanes while I am there. What a great way to bring in the fall with my sister and at the beach without hubby even though I will miss him after 44 years. Have a great fall and keep up the good work with magazine and web-site.