Look up Bonnie Hunter's "leaders and enders." These are little pieces of scrap fabric (or not) that you place under the presser foot to begin stitching. Then you stitch right off of this to sew your first piece together. I usually begin my stitching right in the middle of the piece so that I don't have this "swallowing up" issue.
Last edited by GailG; 02-03-2016 at 04:00 AM.