Thread: Keeping fabric edges together on long seams

Originally Posted by moreland

I attended a class at a retreat this week and the lady told us how to keep the edges of long seams together. Why hadn't I heard this before in the 69 years that I have been sewing?????
Anyway she told us to hold the bottom fabric with our right hand and to hold the top fabric with our left hand as you match up the edges and then feed the fabric into the sewing machine. I can't believe how easy it is to have edges perfectly matched! Thought maybe I wasn't the only "old timer" or new sewer for that matter, that had not heard of this tip.
I seldom attend a class but what some tip or technique is taught that is new to me. Isn't learning new things great! I love it.

This is how I do it, I never really thought about it before.

The way I was taught to sew long strips is to hold the top strip up off the bottom strip until it goes under the needle. This feeds the top strip the same as the bottom and keeps the edges matched almost automatically. If the strip is long enough I toss it over my shoulder (jelly roll race quilt sewing).

i go both ways on this too, pin or not, but thank you for sharing this tip will try it soon

I found this demo on how to do this, but you have to watch closely what she does with her right hand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=KB6QUWcOcOY

I have enjoyed reading all the comments this has brought. It was interesting to find out this is an "industrial" way of sewing long pieces together.
The lady who told us about this just off handedly said "you should be doing all your seams like this"--that's when I realized I wanted to update my methods.