need a little help Please
 

I made a table runner and I am having a problem, I wanted to snow ball the log cabin block but I had a hard time matching them up, as you can see they don't match, there not to bad and after ripping out the seams and resewing them a few times they still don't match.. I decided that I would leave this as is because I am tired of trying to get the squares to match, I really don't like ripping!

For future quilts can someone tell me the best way to match up triangles together, I would sew them together and I thought they were ok but everyone was off a little bit.. There has to be a easy way to match them, I even tried to just baste the seam and see how it looked but most times it was off. Any help or suggestions would be great.. This is very frustrating when I was trying to get them to match..Thanks

Here's what I do. I take them to my ironing board and place a pin straight down through both pieces exactly at the seam allowance. I can check the match by lifting up the seam allowance or the pieces. Then I place a dot of elmers white school glue in the seam allowance near the pin and iron it dry. The glue acts as a "pin" so the layers can't shift while I am sewing. Hope this helps!

I do essentially what Prism does except I don't use glue. I stick the pin exactly through the stitching of both pieces and hold that pin as perfectly perpendicular as possible. I then place a pin in normal fashion on either side of it as close as possible to the perpendicular pin and then remove that one. It is usually sufficient to get my seams to match up properly. I also press my seams open which, for me, reduces bulk and creates less possibility of shifting.

Good luck.

I do what NJ Quilter does. I like the idea of using glue though.

Your cuts look a little off to me like they're biased

tessagin, you mentioned the bias. That may be part of the problem. But I like the pin approach as well. I have not used glue because I won't want to wait for it to dry. LOL

The size of the seam may also have something to do with the points not matching. I have problems keeping the 1/4 inch seams right. When I snowball, I mark a line to follow. There is a post somewhere about sewing just the outside of that line. Experiment with these suggestions and let us know how you are doing.

I feel your pain. Isn't it frustrating? When this happens to me it's usually from cutting, especially bias. I do what NJ does.
Finish it up and move on :)

Thank you so much!!! I do like the glue thing and the three pin thing too, I will try that on my next project as this table runner is not going to be ripped again I will just finish it and be done with it...

THANK YOU!!

I'm a beginning quilter, so I may be stating the obvious. My first quilt was a mess. It was a disappearing 9 patch. The cutting was off, the seams were off and nothing matched. So, I hid the worst of it with a new arrangement. Then, I went on a hunting expedition on how to get my seams to match (+ I cut more accurately).

When I'm trying to match seams, I pin the spot where it has to match, right though the seam, top and bottom and pin on both sides as described above. Once you do that, you can usually see if one side is larger/longer than the other. (That's generally the reason seams don't match.) I put the long side on the bottom and kind of stretch the short (top) side as I sew. I've even switched back and forth between sewing the top and bottom several times on a long seam. (They say the feed dogs will pull the bottom faster than the top, so always put the long side on the bottom.) I also check the seams and if they don't match, I just redo that seam by ripping out about an inch on each side and repeating the above process.

There are several tutorials about how to take up the slack in the wrong place. Some are on youtube and some are just web pages. It's really helped me a lot on getting my seams to match.

bkay

Yes, Prism, that's what I do, too. and because my ironing board is too hard to put a pin in I use a small piece of foam board.

Charlee, be at your ironing board if you use glue. After applying the glue just press the seam with your iron.

QuiltLady1941 ... here's a tutorial that may help you with matching those points as well as dealing with fabric on the bias. You might "know" this blogger as Peckish, here on the QB.

http://www.seamstobeyouandme.com/201...matched-seams/

When I use the pins the way she explains/demos ... I say I am building a "picket fence"!!!! :)



I bet the snowballed log cabins look terrific, but right now, you are only teasing me!!!!
So, please .... would you show me a full view to see the blocks together? Thanks!

I learned in a class once that the pins you use matter. Don't use the yellow ball pins for detail work, they take too much of a "bite" out of the fabric. Look for the glass head, thin long pins for accuracy. I use the ones by Dritz that have a blue/green head and a yellow head in the same package. They are glass and see thru. I then pin like Prism does without the glue. But I like that idea and may give it a try.

Would it help if you pressed (or pinned) those corner seams in opposite directions when joining the blocks? That way they should nest together and may be easier to get the points to meet better. Just a suggestion

Are the other strips in the design supposed to be equal width? In the photo the grays don't match each other, nor do the horizontal yellow ones. If this is not how they're supposed to me it might be part of your problem as the triangles will never match. If that is the case you need to double check your fabric pieces before that are sewn and make sure you have an accurate 1/4" seam allowance. If the widths are correct though, matching seams by pinning straight down at matching seams and then adding two more pins at the sides usually works.

In addition or instead of: When you sew the darker corner on the yellow, make sure you are sewing the seam allowance accurately.

After marking the line, pin the square to the corner so the pins don't get in the way of the seam. Then sew just one thread inside the seam. That way you won't run short.

As for your picture, it is high magnification and honestly, once the quilting is finished and it is washed, you WON'T find this tiny bit of "offness."

I've been doing the same thing as NJQuilter. But I really like the idea of a dot of glue the seam! Thanks, Prism99!

It appears that some of you pieces are not cut straight and that could be part of your problem.