Originally Posted by
MeadowMist
Thank you all for your opinions. I usually pin (and baste) where intersections are and for longer seams, but I skip this step for shorter seams. Right now I'm sewing 2 3" squares together. Whereas before I would just stitch these together, this time I've decided to take the extra time to pin. Hopefully this will work to make things a little less wonky for me. If I were to sew two long strips together of the exact same length without pins, by the end of the strip I would have an overhang of a half inch or so on one strip. I'm not sure if it's just my sewing machine that does this or if they all do, or if it's something I'm doing to make it happen. So for the long ones I definitely need to pin.
A "regular" presser foot - as compared to a "walking foot" - usually feeds the bottom layer "faster" than the top layer.
Which is why if something needs to be eased in - the longer length is "down" and the shorter length is on top.
Something that has kind of helped me - when sewing long strips together - I hold the pieces so that they are about four to six inches above the machine bed.
My theory is - the lower/bottom piece now has to travel a teeny bit further than the top piece - so sometimes that seems to help make the pieces "come out even".