A word on pinning . . .

For newby quilters or others learning to machine quilt.

There are 2 ways to pin a quilt top, the right way and the wrong way.

Can you tell how closely my pins are spaced?  Yup that's right, very close.  Those squares are 1-1/2" and I try to pin around 2" apart to prevent shifting as well as bunching of the bottom fabric.  Never a fun discovery.

Can you see that the pins go in different directions?  If you pin in only one direction, the quilt will shift in that direction as you sew.  And you don't want that to happen.

I use dry cleaner pins and buy them by the 10 gross, or 1,444 pins, from a dry cleaner supply store.  If they get rusty, I throw them out.  Rusty pins leave marks.

Some folks use extra large pins which leave extra large holes.  Aaand you really don't want to do that.

There have been times, depending on the quilt, when the contraction rate was so great, I had to re-pin entire sections or borders half way through quilting the top.  But that's just part of the process.

Any questions?

This is Squigley.  He has friends . . . Wigley, Figley, and Bartholomew.  They all came for lunch today and, as you can see had quite a bit to say about menu choices.

 I mentioned they were nutty and the conversation went downhill from there.  Dolly went out and solved the matter.  Nobody messes with Dolly's porch.

Until then, keep stitchin' . . .