Originally Posted by WilliP
Originally Posted by grma33
I had never heard of no seam down the middle either until my neighbor who is a professional seamstress came to help me with backing and told me this.
The reason is too much stress on the one seam.
You need to use 3 panels if its a big quilt.
I don`t worry about this for baby or lap.
Hope this explains it.
Gale
I guess I still don't see it if one is having enough quilting done to more than tack the top to the back. I do know that my method of flat fell seams causes too much bulk along the seam area so have changed that unless I am hand quilting,
I've been longarm quilting for only a year (4 quilts - 1 big one and 3 smaller). I, too, didn't know about this "rule". I had one seam down the middle of all and it didn't seem to matter. Course, time may show that I should have done 2 seams.
I don't tear my fabric, either....I hate the strings that seem to be more prevalent when tearing.
You have to remember to leave 4-5 inches on each side of the quilt for a Longarm quilter...... if you tear, you may run into a bad situation if the tear goes askew and you end up with 1" along the quilt.
I don't trust my measuring...so, I lay my backing out on the floor, lay my top on top of it, then I mark with a sharpie where I want it cut. Then I fold neatly and leave about 1 foot unfolded....on the end that was marked. Then you can lay it on a smaller table to cut. I've cut as much as 6 layers this way. Yes, you may get an uneven cut, but if you're leaving plenty of extra fabric, it can be dealt with.