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Old 01-25-2016, 06:51 AM
  #24  
Sewnoma
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Sonoma County, CA
Posts: 4,299
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I think it partially depends on your basting skills, and also on how stretchy the backing fabric is.

If the backing is NOT stretchy in either direction and you can get it well-basted, I think SITD before FMQ makes sense because you can then remove all the pins after the SITD and you can FMQ with confidence knowing it's all been taken care of.

But if your basting is like mine and a little sketchy sometimes, or if you have backing fabric that stretches in either direction, I think SITD beforehand can give you problems with puckering when you run up against one of your SITD seams.

Therefore, for MY quilting abilities/techniques/habits, it usually works best if I do NOT do SITD beforehand, or if I do, I do very minimal quilting and then follow the same patterns with my FMQ. Like I might sew one long vertical SITD seam and one long horizontal SITD seam, dividing the quilt into 4 quarters. Then I FMQ each quarter separately, starting at the center and fanning my way back and forth across the quarter until I hit the corner.

Or if I know I'm going to be FMQ'ing a sort of "medallion" into the center of each block and keeping my FMQ stitches at least an inch from the block edges, I'll go ahead and SITD around all of the blocks beforehand. That inch gap lets the fabric have some space so I don't get any puckers, and can help emphasize the blocks.
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