I am in the process of finishing a small penguin quilt for my
grandson. It has six rows of four triangles of varying sizes.
SIMPLE. Well I placed one of the rows in the wrong place and had to rip it out! (Not my favorite job) My stitch lgth was
2.5. This made it even more difficult to remove. What is the best or suggested st lgth for ease? Also, I purchased some
very expensive (moderate) fabric and it frayed terribly! Do you suggest fray check or serging the edges?

Sewed for many years but new to quilting. HELP

Dorrie

The machine that I use for piecing has factory set default stitch lengths ... The straight stitch in both regular sewing mode and in the quilt mode is 2.2, which is good for me. Another mode called "patchwork" is 1.8 ... way too short for my taste. Of course, they are all adjustable, but I don't use the patchwork option anyway. The 2.2 length is short enough to be sewn well, but long enough to be fairly easily removed with the seam ripper.

I've never liked Fray Chek; I either get too much or not enough on and it feels crispy. I use my serger when necessary.

Eleanor Burns has a 5-thread serger on her old shows and it does both the seam and the edge finishing simultaneously, so that's what she used to do patchwork on those shows. It works really well. My serger is 3/4 thread and does edging, but no seams.

I use small stitches, I don't want to take chances of them coming out. I hate to repair anything and would be terribly embrassed if I gave a quilt to anyone and found out some of the seams came out.

I serge the edge of all my fabrics before washing. You can also use pinking shears but serging works better.

As for stitch length, my machine has auto tension, but I think it is set for 2.2.

Thanks so much. It helps a lot.

did you get it figured out

I use my machines default setting for stitch length and it works great.