there must be a better way!!!
Aaaagh!
I have spent hours tonight burying threads, and I am still not done! I am doing a small quilt with a quilt pattern on the wholecloth "back", not the pieced "front". It is a complicated design, with overlapping motifs and multiple thread colors (underwater scene with corals and fish and whatnot). I generally prefer not to finish a thread by sewing in place for a few stitches and then cutting it off close to the quilt surface, because I find that I end up with small but noticeable bumps --- which become especially noticeable when you have fifty million of them, because the quilt surface starts to feel like a pillled sweater!
So instead I am tying itty bitty knots, feeding the needle into the sandwich, pulling the knot through, cutting the tail short, and slipping it under with needle.
Is there another way?
Alison-Going-Cross-Eyed