To Change Direction or Not
 

Hello Everyone. I’m back for more advice. I use a domestic machine for all of my sewing and quilting.

I usually quilt straight lines from edge to edge. I feel compelled to hide my threads when I don’t. The last time I spent a couple of days hiding threads, I promised myself that I wouldn’t be in that situation again.

It seems that every time I’m ready to start quilting and look for ideas, I find conflicting advice on whether or not to reverse direction every other line. For every website that claims it’s the only correct way, there’s another website stating that every line should be sewn in the same direction. Is this one of those “do what works for you” things?

I’m looking for any advice or pointers in this area. I’m attempting some soft curves with my walking foot on my current project…just soft curvy lines from side to side. Not sure if I should change direction every other line or not.

Thank you for all comments. I’m learning so much in this forum.

I changed directions every other line once and my quilt ended up with waves between those lines. Now I stitch totally in one direction (vertical) until all stitching is complete and then if I want to add horizontal lines I will. This way my quilts are flat and not wavy.

I think the changing direction refers to the piecing. I work in same direction when doing my quilting. I start at the halfway mark on the quilt and work towards the edge. Then turn the quilt and do the second half. This leaves no more than half of the quilt under the machine at a time .

I also sew all my quilting lines in one direction.

Most of my quilting has been edge to edge, stitch in the ditch.

My reason for starting on the same edge all the time is to avoid those drag lines. If there are any, they will all be in the same direction and not nearly as annoying to me.

Same here. I quilt with my domestic and I sew in the same direction. Once I decided to follow some 'advice' that I had read about doing every other line in the opposite direction and I had all kinds on waves, puckers, and catching fabric to overlap under a stitch. I usually do a grid either square grids or diamond grids, but I always sew in the same direction (top to bottom, top to bottom) etc and then turning on the sides to do (left to right, left to right) etc. -- or on the diagonal the same direction for the diamond grids.

I do a lot of machine quilting. I glue baste the quilt all over. it can't move or shift. It's like sewing on paper. I wash it and it becomes crinkly and soft. I use a glue roller about three inches wide and roll every inch of the top to the batting and the back to the batting. A little prep work gluing and excellent quilting for the time spent. Oh I glue base the quilt sandwich to quilt on my Cutie Frame too. Makes a world of difference by taking the fussy out of the hooping.

Most of my machine quilting has been edge to edge, stitch in the ditch.

I also stitch ALL my lines in the same direction. Even with my walking foot on my "old" Pfaff 1471, a bit of "drag" happens on/at the stiching line.

I stitch in one direction, but halfway through, I turn the quilt around to avoid too much quilt in the throat area. However, for closer together lines, I stitch every other line, and then come back for those.

I quilt on a 26" Innova machine and I find it stitches much better if I go in one direction even for E2E. I used to stitch back and forth but my machine rules so I go with what works for her.

When piecing, then I stitch the rows back and forth as mentioned above to keep it from curling or curving. Just seems to work better that way.

But again, someone mentioned to go with what works for you and your machine.