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I always aim for a full 1/4", but admit that I can sometimes be off. In the end, I rarely have trouble doing it that way. Fabric stretches and 'compacts', so I find that things that don't quite match up are easy to ease. None of my quilts are 'perfect' and that's just fine with me. I don't stress about it.
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Originally Posted by dunster
(Post 8329782)
The seam allowance is not the important thing. The size of the patch is. Look at it this way. If you have a piece of fabric that is exactly 1.5" wide, and you sew seams exactly on the .25 and 1.25 lines, you will not wind up with a patch that is exactly 1" wide, or a seam allowance that is exactly 1/4". That is because the thread takes up some room on both sides of the seam. For some patterns this does not matter, but for many it does. (A simple example is, if you have 5 patches on one side of the seam, each supposed to be 1" finished, and 1 patch on the other side, cut at 5" finished, then they will not match up if each of the 1" patches is actually 4.95".)
It would be impossible for pattern designers to write patterns that would make up for the width of the thread. For one thing, thread weights and fabric weights are different. When I press a seam using BottomLine thread and a lightweight quilting fabric, it will be act differently than if I press a seam using 40 weight thread and a heavier fabric. By necessity, patterns have to be written as if the thread takes up no room in the seam. We quilt with fabric and thread, and both are 3-dimensional. If we worked in a 2-dimensional world, then we could ignore the scant 1/4". Here is one video on how to figure out where to set your seam allowance. There are many more if you google "scant 1/4" seam allowance". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j0wFhr8Jfk |
Scant 1/4" kind of frustrates me in a way, some of our machines can barely handle a quarter inch regular, so adding in that it has to be scant almost makes the quilt unattainable to some of us.
What I would do is an audition block, it's something I got into a while back and the amount of frustration, seam picking and just headaches alone have almost stopped. Do the pattern with just a regular quarter inch and see what transpires. If you are able to make the block and still retain the measurements, you're good to go. |
Scant is a very old word that mean "an immeasurable amount". The only place I feel that you run into risking a smaller piece than expected is when you are sewing pieces on the diagonal. This is why most flying geese and half square triangles are made larger and then trimmed to the correct size needed. If when you cut your pieces for straight edge sewing you include the ruler line on TOP of the Fabric and sew an exact 1/4" seam, it will be the right size expected. The word scant is in the category of "tad" "pinch" "smidge". Seriously...
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Pressing most of my 1/4 seams open I don't lose the fold over when a scant is called for.
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Here, here. The English in me made me say that. Right in the middle of a "scant" confrontation with Accuquilt. The one die that I'm trying to use does not give me enough fabric for a seam. Some seams can be sewn on the Bernina and some are just too big to make the 3 1/2 inch target block. Plus, I'm so shaky that I can't seem to seam a straight line at all. I end up with a 3 1/4 inch block. I've tried moving the needle position back and forth from 4 to 5. But it depends on which piece.
These words are jumbled and so is my brain. The little 99, that was supposed to be a featherweight, has a better foot and about half of them pass. The quilter in Washington state that has the free blocks, can't think of her name now, Thompson-McInness ??? has you cut much larger pieces. There is plenty of fabric to make a mistake and play with. Her stuff turns out much better. I'm glad I'm not the only one. |
I do like Onebyone and press seams open. I've been doing this a while now, and like it. Nothing has fallen apart and I get good results. Also love what Dunster said - it is the size of the finished product that is important. Not necessarily the quilt, or the block, but the piece. There are times that fudging is possible, but, if cutting is good then doing a practice piece to see how it measures after sewing is a good idea to figure out where your guide should be. And thread size does matter. Thicker threads take up more room. Everyone has their own preferred thread combo. If precision is critical to a project (and sometimes it just isn't) then I think we should do a practice piece on the same or similar fabric and thread we are using, in that particular machine, and press and measure. It seems laborious, and maybe it is in the short run, but in the long run things will fit together better. I am seriously working on my "precision", haha. I have a Sally Collins book and she is way more precise than I will ever be, but I aspire!!!! It's fun to make a block and put pieces together and they fit properly. Woohoo!
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Originally Posted by Onebyone
(Post 8329761)
Scant 1/4" is ridiculous. If quilters would stop buying patterns that call for scat 1/4" then the designers would stop using it and design for 1/4" .
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Every time I see this topic I squirm. There are too many variables involved and I just want to get a quilt sewn and enjoy it...not deal with the intricacies of how wide is that thread? In my opinion, if a designer wants to design a pattern using a scant 1/4" seam, they need to tell you exactly what material, how it was prepped, and what thread was used and the exact measurement of the finished unit, how the seams were pressed, was steam used or not, etc. And to get that exact measurement, you need to duplicate the design exactly. To me it's just too stressful. I have too much fun experimenting with different things. For me one of the biggest factors influencing the finished block size is the original preparation and cutting of the fabric. So I take the time to starch and press and cut as accurately as I can, and if the finished 80" quilt is 1/2" smaller than it should be, well, it's going to a friend, not a museum.
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I always think of the scant 1/4" as either moving one click over on one of my machines or 2 thread widths over from my normal 1/4". However I have come to the conclusion that the most important part is squaring up each section of the block to get the exact size not matter if it reads 1/4" or a scant 1/4". I want the block the right size.
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