What I learned today....Quilting 101
 

Today I learned not to ever cut your backing material until you are 100% finished your top.

Because even though you think you've got it all figured out, you might just suddenly have a different idea for the borders, which makes your backing fabric 2" too small. :shock:

Now I'll have to piece it.

Someday I'll learn not get ahead of myself.

What have you learned lately?

Watson

Make one or two practice blocks of a new pattern/block before cutting out all of your material.

OOPS!

Not lately ... but in the same sense,
I learned a long time ago, that as I use fabrics in a quilt, I keep them with that quilt until the end. Just in case I have brainwaves for those same design changes, as you did.

Then, once I have the top finished, the backing is made and the binding readied, even if I am not quilting it ASAP. Otherwise, that extra fabric vanishes into another project and then I am stumped as to what to use (yes, been there, done that!). The bonus is that when I get around to the quilting stage, everything is right ready to go and makes for pretty nice smooth sailing ahead to the finish line.

I learned it's best for me not to try and save fabric when making a quilt. When I think I can make do it never works out for the best.

Here's one I keep re-learning. You'd think I'd remember, but no.

Don't blow into linty bobbin areas of sewing machines with your eyes open. :hunf:

I learned to gather all fabrics for a particular project together, including those fabrics that are just "maybe" choices, along with the pattern or inspiration photo that I'll be using and spools of thread too. There's nothing worse than discovering at 6am on Sunday morning that I only have 1 spool of lilac quilting thread so that I have to twiddle my thumbs until the stores open.

Don't cut border pieces from the fabric until you are ready to use them.

Don't start cutting out all the pieces of a quilt without checking the internet for a pattern error

I have a working theory, not fully proven, but close enough: My machine won't let me FMQ entirely backwards. It breaks the thread after a few inches.
I wanted to just do a wiggly stitch on a border, and knew the quilt was easier to handle if the bulk of it was moving towards me. So I thought, "Why not just FMQ in a gentle meander, but backwards?" I soon found I couldn't stitch more than a few inches without lots of bobbin thread gathering up, then the top thread breaks. After lots of testing and re-threading, etc, I finally got it working correctly. I think. It's sitting there waiting for me to get back to. At first I thought a grand kid had gotten in there and twisted the tension knobs while I wasn't looking, when they were here for the eclipse on Monday. He's 6 and pretty adventurous, to say the least. But then I felt bad for thinking he did something. Fortunately I didn't go accusing anyone. That never turns out well, haha. So I'm sticking with the "No backing up" theory for now.

Don't be afraid to use the single needle plate for straight stitching.
Could have saved me a lot of hassle. It doesn't hurt to put a sticky
note on the sewing machine as a reminder.