Please help - Making a very large HST
 

How would you make a very large HST without stretch the fabric?
I made a bunch of HST's with 6" squares and they were stretching a bit
even with heavy starch. I drew the diagonal line and sewed on each
side of that line (like I usually do for most of my quilts).
Now I want to make a modern quilt that needs two HST's that's about
40" square. (Yes, that's forty). Any idea on how to avoid stretching.

Do you also pin? I would lay it out flat on my ironing board and pin about every two inches.

I recently dealt with a bunch of 6 to 6.5" squares that I sliced along the diagonal and had very little issue even without starch, but my machine has a good pull and I start with leaders.

I'm thinking you are possibly having issues with the machine pulling on your fabrics or that you are putting some tension into the fabric as you are feeding it in.

My usual machine is unhappy and I have my back-up portable Brother in use -- it requires me tug slightly on the fabric coming out in order to get the feed coming in correctly. I hope that makes some sense, basically it boils down that my Bernina feeds nicely (sometimes I fumble finger the ends of the pieces and it trails off a bit but that is me and not the machine) as did my old vintage machine and I could let them do the work. With the Brother I need to help it along a little and from the back of all things and not from feeding it in to get it to work smoothly.

hhmmmmm ...... I have made the supersize HSTs, but not had a problem.
Did all the same things you have done EasyPeezy ... Guess I was lucky ... I'll just count my lucky stars! :)

hhmmmmm again ...... what about measuring it and marking it as normal ...
then
at the pinning stage, include a piece of paper (or tissue paper?) on the backside, the length of the seam lines?
Or maybe you wouldn't need to pin it, but lay it on the machine bed so that it gets sewn in place.
Then once stitched, carefully remove it without disrupting the stitching.

My thoughts are that the paper would help stabilize the diagonal/bias to prevent the stretch.

hhmmmmm #3 ...... what about a very thin iron-on stabilizer pressed in place the length of the seams?
Maybe a 2" piece that would straddle your two seams?

The iron-on stabilizer sounds like a good idea. Are there very thin ones?
Just to make things more complicated, there's more cutting and sewing after that. :)

Now that I think about it, I should have used the accufeed foot instead of the clear
one. Maybe that would have helped.

Wonder if I should adjust the tension? Or would that make it worse?

It's been a while since I did this 6" HST project. I'm pretty sure I pinned.
I know I was very gentle handling the fabric.

There are thin stabilizers, but sorry, I have no clue as to the brands etc. to look for.

Yes, definitely the accufeed foot is what you want.
... from the start, I always used it and the same sort for my Bernina now).
Maybe that was why I got through the Supersize-HSTs without problems.

Tension ... in my mind, I would see no need to adjust the tension.
That said, with the assumption that it is working fine for your regular stitching.

Hi,
For sewing on bias edges.....I find it helpful to use my walking foot and to use my single stitch plate....really helps....I use that combo when stitching on long borders also and even applying my binding....just got to remember I have my straight stitch plate on so I don't break my needle when switching over to my serpentine stitch that I use to stitch my binding down from the front....

I don't think it's the tension if you are happy with straight seams. It's just built into some machines that they tug a bit more in one direction or another and we have to work with the machine, or that we are working against the machine and not letting it do the work on a different machines! I also think that machine piecing requires hand/eye/motor skill coordination and some times we need to do a bit of warm up if our skills our rusty.

You might try ironing on a 1" strip of freezer paper on the back of one or both sides and pinning/sewing through it all. Quick rip off of the freezer paper when you are done.

Use a batting tape on the bias.

I now have the skinny accufeed foot. I will give this a try and see how it works.