Stained glass patchwork
 

Help! Please can you give me any tips for doing stained glass patchwork and tell me of any potential pitfalls! I need to teach it to my group after Easter but have never done any other than a small sample. We will be stitching by machine using a 4mm twin needle. Many thanks!

Is this the kind where you lay the pattern on a dark fabric, cut it out and then fuse on top of the background fabric or the kind where you use the fusible bias tape between pieces?

I have only used the twin needle method once for stained glass. My tip is to make sure the "glass" fabric covers the full space underneath, so that when you stitch the black bias down you catch more than a thread.... or it will pull out when washed. :eek:

I don't have any personal experience but there seem to be a lot of tutorials on YouTube. Good luck!

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...quilt+tutorial

I agree with thimblebug6000: for the bias tape method, make sure the underlying pieces don't leave gaps.

It's the type using 1/4 inch bias.

I did one nice but sewed black strips to the pieces before I joined them together..it was a bought pattern....can't remember name but all the blocks were the same, but then turned to look like "church" type stained glass...I wonder if that pattern is still available...come to think of it I also started one with dak brown strips...somewhere in my UFO cave.....

yes, there's one on YouTube very similar to mine. By rose smith

Many thanks, Suzi; I had found a few of the sites but you have given me loads more!

Sounds like the biggest tip would be to do a lot of practice by yourself between now and April.
That way you can find out what can go wrong/right ... and understand the process.

Otherwise, it could be very intimidating trying to teach others, to say the least embarrassing,
if you really are not proficient with the technique yourself.

Good Luck!

I don't like to use a twin needle for stain glass quilts. You can't use the needle down feature because you can't pivot with both needles in the fabric. Stained glass quilts have curves to stitch around..

Is there a pattern that can be purchased to do a stained glass quilt using the purchased 1/4” bias.

Thanks for the link suzi.

Are you using the bias tape that irons on and then you sew it? I think it is from Clover. That is how I did my last large stained glass. As others have said be sure all the pieces butt together and be aware of the overlap before sewing down anything because some leading will have to go under other leading. You can see on her hair, I had to do the long parts of her hair first, as the short parts had to cross the tops of the long parts. That sort of thing.
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Watson

I believe you can find the pattern on Quilters World or Annie's catalog.

So much help here and wow all the ideas. THANKS SO MUCH for sharing

I prefer not using a twin needle unless I am sewing a straight line. My stained glass had lots of curves and corners.

Stack and wack
 

I used a stack and whack for my stained glass. Very fun.

I agree with QuiltE about getting lots of practice in before teaching this class. Some people can be very intimidating with all of their questions.

Depending on the knowledge of the class for this technique, you may want to keep it very simple for those who have never tried this method. At the same time you will need to have something just a little more challenging for those who have some experience with it.

Not to complicate things, you may also want to show them the different ways that you can do the stained glass window method. This would give them an overall idea of which technique would be better for them. I took a couple of classes and with one class I was totally frustrated with the way the teacher taught the class. I could not get my blocks covered completely and my bias tape that I was using was too small. The other class I took, the teacher showed different ways to do it and I found I like one method that was really helpful to me.

As for patterns, if you look in some of the stained glass books by Ed Sibbett, Jr., he has some really easy floral designs that would work well with a quilted stained glass design. A lot of his books are published by Dover Books and are very inexpensive and you can find them on Amazon or any bookstore.

And I agree with Mac .... take samples for show and tell!
Take lots of samples!! The good, the bad and the ugly, too.

All that practice work will not be in vain,
and can show them a lot more than you can ever tell/demonstrate/instruct.

I know it has helped me at classes, when an instructor can say, do it this way, because if you do it this other way, it will look like this. Seeing the two differences often means a lot more to me (and I am sure others) than to just be "told" and perhaps not quite understand the meanings behind what is being said.

Thank you, everyone, for all your advice which has been gratefully received! I think the name of the game is 'practice, practice and more practice!