Thread: No more fear of Y-seams!

Have any of y'all tried the "butterfly" method of sewing Y-seams? I had given up on machine sewing those dreaded Y-seams. I have sewn clothing and pieced quilts for years and I tried every person's new and improved ways of sewing Y-seams that I could find and never was happy with my results. Finally I have found a way, other than hand piecing, that works for me! I have 9 perfectly pieced, 6-pointed star blocks to prove it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DFqprE4T2g

I'm glad you found a way you can do the Y seams. I never had a problem sewing Y seams but don't do them much. No matter how you do them they are a pain in the butt.

This looks way too complicated for me. Y seams don't bother me that much.

That's really a unique looking quilt and that sounds hard. The birds look like they are paper-pieced.

Originally Posted by purplefiend

I used to belong to a small guild in South Carolina. Our block of the month were skill builders. We'd have an easy block and then a harder block. I learned to do y-seams because of these blocks, learned many techniques as a beginning quilter.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/39168443@N06/16048002620/

The bird blocks in this quilt was a block of the month. It has 8 y-seams in the block. I won the blocks by default, nobody else wanted them. I had to make 10 more blocks to have enough for a queen size quilt. The plaid and stripe blocks were made in a quilting class. It helped to set the blocks and frame them so they were all the same size.
Sharon

thanks! I needed that!

It's not complicated at all. All seams are sewn full length and then, where the seams form an X, you pick out any stitches that went out into the seam allowance. (Gyleen Fitzgerald says the reason you sew all the way and then pick out rather than stopping is that last stitch you save is tighter if you sew past and then unpick.) Sooo much easier than marking all the 1/4 seam marks, trying to line up the marks, stopping at just the right place. This way you are not lining up marks, but lining up the fabric pieces, edge to edge on top of each other and sewing like traditional seams. You basically ignore the other adjoining pieces (folding them back in half on themselves like the wings of a butterfly) and just unsew where you sewed past the intersections. Open it up and everything is lined up perfectly and super flat. Seams kind of automatically go where they need to go, swirl in the right directions. Then press. I love this method! So thankful there is not just one way of doing these things and delighted to finally find one that works for me. There is a video of Gyleen teaching this on a web site where you have to sign up and pay for, so can't post it here. The photography is much more professional on hers, so you can see better what she is doing.