Barb in Louisiana

I hate all those threads on the back of my pieced top. I use the leader & ender scrap of material and a smaller stitch length to help with the extra threads and I still get some, but not many. I trim the extra threads every time I iron a block. I admit that I am a fanatic about having a thread free back on my quilt top. It's much easier to quilt without having to deal with all those threads.

Now if the fabric is unraveling, that is another issue. I bought one piece of fabric because I loved the color and didn't realize the weave was so loose. It gave me fits. I ended up having to sew a stabilizing wavy stitch within the 1/4 inch seam allowance every time I used that fabric in the top. I only sewed on the bad piece. I learned a lot in a few minutes. The wavy tighter seam stopped the raveling and took a little bit of extra time but not as much as trimming and retrimming every few minutes. I thought about trying my pinking shears and trimming the edges but was afraid the pinking action would take too much fabric off since it was already shredding. I didn't want to have to replace those bad pieces after the quilting had been done. Thank goodness, it was a small quilt. That's one of the reasons most of my quilts these days are sewn with batiks. The thread weave is so much tighter.

Wish I had thought about the starch. I'll try that next time.

Edited to add: I always sew a stabilizing seam around the outside edge of the quilt top if there are small pieces or a lot of pieced seams. It took one time of several of them pulling apart after I got it on my longarm for me to realize what was happening. Never again.