quiltlady1941

I bought my granddaughter a basic sewing machine last Christmas, she used it some but making doll clothes and so on and has helped me make some quilts. She decided to make herself a quilt and wanted to do it all by herself. After she had it all done she brought it to me to quilt, her seams were nice and straight and it look really good. But after looking at the seams I noticed she must have had the machine set on basting or a real long stitch.

So my question is will the quilt fall apart.. The seams are fine all stitched nice and straight but just a very long stitch. Is there anything I can do to make sure it won't fall apart after a few washings when I quilt it? I really can restitch it as there are a lot of HST and it just wouldn't be possible to do.

Do you think if I quilted a very dense quilting on it that it would hold together? I will point this out to her that the next time she needs to watch her stitch length, but in a nice way.. Thanks for your advice on this...

Tartan

​I would just quilt the heck out of it. The large stitching would only get stressed if the top has movement.

Iceblossom

It will be just fine. Her standards and yours are at different places.

I've been observing my friends over the years, almost all them sit down to their sewing machines and turn them on and sew. In my opinion, the default stitch length is always too long but they've been doing it that way for years. In my case since quilting is basically all I do, I changed the default length so I don't have to remember to adjust.

Another one of my friends uses a horribly huge stitch width... must be 6 inches per stitch. She always has problems with her seams coming apart at the end but she is happy with it because she can take out mistakes easily. I'd rather have a harder time with a few problems and have nice tight ends myself, but that's the way it goes -- we each have our style of doing things.

Tothill

Things to think about:

How long are the seams?

Where do the seams join up?

How big are the pieces?

Did she wash the fabric ahead of time?

What batting?

What backing?

Did she press open or to one side?

The weakest place will be where seams end, as most of us quilters do not back stitch. The more seams that meet at a T junction the better. Those joins will be stronger. If she has pinwheels where may seams come together, that will be a weaker point and also harder to quilt over.

Did she baste all around the edge? I would do this first, but with a shorter basting stitch.

If she pressed to one side, a stitch in the ditch, will provide lots of stability. I would do this on all the long seams first. Borders, sashing etc.

Then a fairly dense all over design will provide more support to the stitches. You will want to quilting design to go through each piece at least once. So if she used 4 inch squares, your quilting should be not more than 4 inches apart.

If she pieced the back, you will need to provide extra support to it on your LA. I would either resew as many of the seams as possible or perhaps all another layer of backing under her chosen one.

quiltlady1941

The quilt was a pinwheel and it's really not possible to resew the seams, but I could try on some. I would say she stitches are about 6 or 7 to the inch. I think I will just quilt it really dense and see what happens. I don't think she washed the fabric and she pressed the seams open..I will be using a 80 20 batting..I will try the stitch in the ditch, I'm not real good at that and I will be quilting this on my sit down sweet sixteen..Thanks for your advice

donna13350

If she pressed the seams open, and you are going to SID...you will basically just be stitching on those long stitches. I would try a serpentine stitch, to hold the 2 blocks together...or anything other than SID.

feline fanatic

Do not do Stitch in the ditch on this. With the seams pressed open and that huge stitch length you will not be reinforcing the top with quilting by just doing ditching. If you hit the ditch dead on you won't catch any of the top fabric and won't be reinforcing the already compromised seams. I would recommend quilting right next to every seam on both sides of the seam. Or a very dense all over.

sewingpup

I also would some sort of a "wobble stitch" over the seams instead of stitch in the ditch...don't know if you are quilting by longarm or by domestic sit-down....I had a quilt that I wasn't real sure of the seams.....so a quilted a rather dense "bobble" meander hitting every seam intersection I could on my long arm....I put binding on by machine and usually use a serpentine stitch on the front side. I have never had binding come loose dong this...

bearisgray

I think a fairly dense meander would hold it together.

NZquilter

I agree. An overall stipple will help.