Burying Knots
 

Good Morning! I am hand quilting on Andover fabric so it's not cheap fabric. The fabric is dark, mostly black. I'm using No. 12 perle cotton thread. When I go to bury my knot, I'm getting a white line on the fabric which looks as if a thread of the fabric has been removed. I've been covering it with laundry marker, but would prefer it wouldn't happen in the first place. I'm using a tiny quilters knot and I just don't know what I could be doing wrong. Any advice? Thank you!

It sounds to me as if the knot is pulling one of the threads and exposing the undyed area. A smaller knot would be the only thing I could think of. Or somehow enlarging the hole you will be pulling the knot through before you do it.

I don't know if this will help but I learned a great knot buying trick long ago when I was handquilting. Place your thumb nail on the knot then pull it through. I will not distort the fabric or have thread breakage.

I am not a hand quilter so I don't know if this will work. Just thinking of how I don't make knots on hand embroidery, knitting, and yes machine quilting. Could you maybe do a few small back stitches and maybe another forward one, then run the thread between the layers in the batting, pull the needle up and cut the threads?

Would it work to pull the thread through to the back and then knot and bury?

Rob

It is probably because you're using such thick thread. It's hard enough to bury a knot that is tiny. Rob's idea sounds good.

The only other suggestion I would make, is to use a much THICKER needle to bury the knot. I just finished machine quilting a baby quilt and found that the knots were much easier to bury when I used a thick needle. I didn't have to tug on the thread much at all.

Oh wow! Thank you everybody for those suggestions! Gives me a lot to try and I'm already feeling better about my quilt!

Sounds like the fabric is a digital print. This issue is well known and very frustrating. It happens to longarmers, too. The way it's explained is digital inks sit on top of the fabric, instead of soaking into the threads like conventional inks. As the needle/thread passes through the fabric, it spins the thread so the un-dyed bottom side spins up to the top. I would hope that when the quilt is washed, maybe the threads relax and adjust back to their normal position, but I don't have any personal experience with it.