Help with Granddaughter's quilt
 

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...

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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...

I think a fairly dense meander would hold it together.

I agree. An overall stipple will help.

I would be sure to tell her to use a shorter stitch length, like a 2.

Imho a dense meander would be best as well - esp if you are good at meandering on the domestic or have a longarm. Another option is to echo her seams as quilting - stitching 1/4" away from all her seams on each side through the batting and backing. It would provide stability for the seam and there would be little or no pressure on the seam when pulled. This would take time, but once you got it stabilized she might be able the help quilt it!!

I am sure you are proud of her efforts. Hoe you share her quilt when it is complete!

small stipple or meander will fix it . stitching in the ditch never meant to me going in between the seams but along side them but i know some people do "in the ditch". so not this time. pinwheels would not be great for just doing a zig zag on the seams so try your hand at meandering all over. good luck.

You know, this is a hard one... my wonderful, sweet DIL has been working little by little since she married my son almost 6 years ago on a quilt for him. She had no exposure to sewing at all, let alone quilting.

Having taught classes for many years i know enough not to be a discouragement to new quilters by putting too many demands on them at once. Well, although we worked on the quarter inch seam concept many times somehow that idea is a little hit and miss for my DIL. Bless her heart she is really excited about sewing even though the project has now dragged out for years!

Because we cant get together to sew as much as we would like, she has taken the initiative to do some sewing a little at a time at home (i made sure she has a machine she can operate and a SewEzi table cuz she loves mine!). DIL excitedly texts and photos each block as finished and joined to rows. I can tell already we’re gonna have a problem in the final analysis, but she is very happy with her progress.

I usually prefer to wait until the student has their own “aha!” moment and wonders why something doesnt look quite as expected (as in why dont my seams match, etc) then we look at what they see and come up with solutions that make sense at the time. For new quilters sometimes the changes needed just make more sense if its their idea!

Ok, so DIL sez last month that she would like to give her hubby that quilt for Christmas and would i be able to quilt it in time. Loving MIL sez yes... we can take a look. DIL sez she is worried she might not have done a few things right. Since the time frame is tight i am planning to meet with her and take a look and make some suggestions but offer to fix some things so we can get the quilting done. The plan is to gently show where some seams maybe need a little help. In this case i might have to take sections apart but maybe not tell her all of that. But then on the next quilt stress those items. I probably should mention that my son and DIL have some developmental challenges which is why i am being extra specially patient and encouraging teaching wonderful DIL to quilt. She is such a wonderful woman and she loves my son (and us) so very much!

Love can conquer many things!

Absolutely correct, bearisgray! Sometimes ya just gotta take things one step at a time cuz everybody gets there in their own time 😊

Think about doing the quilting as a stitch in the ditch "squiggly line" that would re enforce the pieceing lines

AprilM- your story really touched my heart! :)