Saturday 26 December 2009

Season's Greetings

I hope that everyone is having or has had a happy holiday of choice. We celebrate Christmas, and this year it has been very low key.

If Santa has been a visitor in your house, what lovely quilty things has he brought you? I'll take pictures of some of what I received for future posts. But right now, he's in our basement (Santa, aka DH) working on making me a large sewing area. I'm currently working in a very small room, and it's difficult to feel motivated when you have to wind your way around things to get to your sewing machine.

I have a question for all of you experienced quilters/sewers out there. I'm sure it's been obvious that I am still very much a beginner. I have a recurring problem while sewing that is driving me nuts. Sometimes, when I'm piecing, the fabric flows under the presser foot beautifully. On other occasions, the bottom fabric stays on one path, while the top fabric decides to go off to the side a bit. Am I causing this?

3 comments:

Cathi said...

I can't wait to see what all you got that's quilt-related!!
As you know, I stitch 99.9% by hand, but I wonder if your presser foot isn't entirely down if the top fabric isn't feeding through straight? What kind of machine are you using?

Liz in Calgary said...

I think it is a problem with the fabric, it is nearly impossible to cut fabric on the straight of grain even with all the tools we use. When all else fails - blame the fabric! Seriously though it is the fabric.

pennyquilts said...

I think it might be your presser foot pressure - hopefully that's adjustable on your machine?

Try cutting two strips, making sure they are straight grain. Then just feed them through the machine on a straight stitch - you should be able to almost let go of the strips and sew a straight line with the strips staying together. If not, increase your presser foot pressure.

If you can't change the pressure, then check to make sure your needle is sharp, and your presser foot is on tightly. Then practice practice practice! I like using a stilleto, or a chopstitck, or even a seam ripper (anything pointy) to keep pieces together as they are feeding through, especially at the end of a piece and on corners.

Hope this helps!