Dominant Eye
 

I guess I'm a bit thick or slow when it comes to figuring out why things happen.

For about a year (the time I've been quilting) I just could not figure out why my piecing seemed to be just a bit off when I would finish off a strip of say, blocks. That strip would always measure just a little short.

Today I decided to place my guide on the opposite side of the needle, after sewing along my guide line on the other side. The first thing I notices is that the width of the space between my stitching and the guide line was noticeably different, This leads me to believe we have a dominant eye. For a year, I had always lined up the guide line to the right of the needle. Now I know that my true 1/4 inc seam allowance is 1/4 inch when I put the line on the left side of the needle.

No more 1/32 or so inch extra in that seam allowance. Now maybe I won't have any problems when I decide to make a built from a kit.

Glad you found what works for you. It's frustrating when seam widths don't come out like we think they should. Kudos to you for figuring this out. Happy Quilting!

I really have no idea what you are talking about. It sounds like a thing to try if I could see it. . I'm the slow one. LOL

Most people have a dominant eye - which means the eye you prefer to use (more than the other one). To figure out what your dominant eye, place one thumb over the other (so the tip of one thumb is at the other one's base and vice versa) and then angle your hands so that you have a triangle sized opening (surrounded by hands and thumbs). Hold your hands up in this position and pick something across the room (or out the window) to look at. Close one eye, open it, close the other eye. You will see that the selected object is in the center of the triangle with one eye, and way off center with the other eye. The eye that had the object in the center of the triangle is your dominant eye. About 2/3 of people are right eye dominant, 1/3 are left eye dominant. Once you know what eye you prefer, you can adjust things to make this easier for your body - if you want to often refer to papers while typing, put them on the side of your dominant eye.

I have not thought about how a dominant eye preference would affect piecing. It would make sense to make sure that your dominant eye has a really good angle on the needle and the fabric alignment line/guide. Moving your chair more to one side or the other can help with this. (Unfortunately, some old-time sewing cabinets (like my mother's 1960s one) do not make it easy to move the chair sideways.)

We all have a dominant eye. I don't know if that's what is going on because I don't know where you are measuring from to place your guide. It could just be that your needle doesn't center exactly.

That's so neat! I'm apparently right-eye dominant so thanks for the tip about the papers (although organizing important papers on the right might be a little tricky as a southpaw :) )

Actually, I don't know if it is a dominant eye thing. I just know that when piecing things, I sit directly in front of the needle. It could be that I am off to one side, but I can't tell. But when I shifted from one side of the needle to the other with my piecing, I got that 1/4 inch seam I had not been able to achieve before.

The more I think of it, it probably is just bad body positioning on my part.

I have to shift the needle a couple of notches on one of my machines, to achieve the 1/4 inch seam. And surprisingly, there is enough clearance within the 1/4 inch foot to do that. I use an index card, with its lovely 1/4 inch lines, to check my needle alignment.

I am right eye dominate. I get a perfect 1/4" seam if the fabric runs on the mark on sewing machine plate. I sit straight in front of the needle.

I also had a problem with stack up tolerances on my machine, so I bought the "Perfect 1/4 inch foot". Turns out it is NOT a perfect 1/4". I took a good look at the packaging, and to my suprise, it says <1/4" by design. I had to do some stitch outs to determine that I have to nudge the need a little to the left to get a perfect 1/4" seam.

This is a good tip! Sometimes solving a problem is as easy as looking at it differently!