Jeanette Frantz

I have never "serged" or "stay-stitched" the edges of a quilt and my reason for it is this: My serger has cutters that trim the edges of the fabric fed into the machine. Unless you can absolutely keep the fabric edges straight, the cutters on the machine can cut off any fabric, no matter whether it's fed into the serger straight or not. Stay-stitching does compress the fabric and batting, too. I square up my quilts to make certain each quilt is square. To then use a serger (and the resulting trimming by the serger's cutters) defeats the purpose of squaring up the quilt. I either pin or clip my binding to the quilt to hold it all together while stitching it on with my machine. In my opinion, any time you add stitching or zig-zagging at or near the edge, you add bulk, making the edges stiffer. This is just what I do and it works for me. Each one of us should do what works for them, unless one finds something else that works better. JMHO!