mumzer

I can just imagin. I did that in front of my hubby and he thought I was angry about something and quietly left the room. When I saw his expression I just had to lol. Then another day he happen to come in the kitchen when I went to punch the bread dough down. I did it on purpose to see how he would react but that time he just smiled and watched what I was doing. Just a smile and a head shake and he continues on. He says "sometimes I wonder about you". After 48 years he is still wondering LOL.

maryfrang

To let you know, when you use a 90 to 120 with of backing, the best way to get a even edge, you tear the backing. So tearing is good for some fabric.

CorgiNole

I spent one afternoon last week tearing old sheets to wrap items for packing. It was quite therapeutic and nice to see how evenly they tore in both directions.

When I need yardage off one of the end of bolt pieces I have in my stash, I frequently tear so that I don't have to wrestle with the entire piece. I wish fleece tore well. Would have saved me a lot of time recently.

Cheers, K

sylviak

You were lucky to have a good Home Ec teacher. I took Home Ec in Junior High and HATED it! The teacher was mean and cross most of the time. All we learned in the half year I had it was how to make a tea towel! Because she was so mean, we were ugly to her. The next year she didn't come back and we were told she had died from cancer. We all felt terrible about the way we had treated her. We would have been sympathetic if we had known she was sick!

I learned most of my sewing from my mother, who taught me to follow patterns so I could make my own "gathered" skirts for school.

Alberta_Irish

I had to take Home Ec in grades 7 & 8. I had already been baking cakes from scratch and went to Home Ec where we used a cake mix. The sewing part of the course made me hate sewing so much that I didn't touch a sewing machine again until after high school.
As for tearing fabric, it's almost as therapeutic as popping bubble-wrap. Haven't torn fabric in years however, as I found it left the edges ruffly. Obviously fabric has improved since then.

IBQLTN

Do be careful though. I was cutting lining for a banner for church and wanted a true edge so I 'tore' the fabric... I lost 12 inches of fabric! It was so off grain I had to just use selvage to shelvage and even with that my lining wound up almost 6" too short on one side. Since it was the day before Easter and it was an Easter banner, we hung it any (without hemming it and missing lining at one end). That part hangs behind the altar table and no one knows it's there but me but it makes me crazy to know it's 'unfinished'!

LindaJR

Ripping the fabric to make it even was one of first things I learned in Home Ec back in 1951.

Sandi

I'm so glad I read these comments. I too had a home ec class decades ago and we learned to find the grain with a pulled thread and then cut on the line it made. I was also taught that to tear the fabric was to distort it.. so I always cut it; this was important when making drapes as a lot of the"seconds" which I bought were printed slightly or moderately "off-grain" I learned these last items from a lady who used to make drapes professionally. As far as
fat quarters, one of the LQS that I use sometimes, uses an acrylic plastic "board" in the size of the fat quarter and cuts from this. Much straighter but not everyone does this.

crzypatcher

They did exactly the same thing when I attended Road to California last month. I ordered 1 yd. each of 8 fabrics, she laid them one on top of the other as she measured, clipped the edge, and tore all eight at the same time! I stood there with my mouth open! Guess you have to figure out the fastest method possible when you have customers stacked 15 deep!

Raine

I love it, I use to tear fabric especially when I was making cloths. The fabric is now on the straight of the grain. I love the guitar fabric....where did you purchase it? Please PM me. My brother plays the guitar, he would love a quilt made from this.