Anybody have tips for sewing itty bitty squares together
 

aside from the obvious strip method which won't work with my pattern?

(I'm getting nervous)

Thank you

A new sharp needle, shorter than normal stitch length and using ( leaders & enders) will help your success. And starting out slowly. I would also place a pin at the end of 2 squares together to keep them from separating, becoming skewed on one end

Fusible grid works great and is available in various sizes, down to 1" squares which make a 1/4 inch finished square. Pieces are fused to the the single sided fabric and then folded and sewed in vertical rows. Then horizontal folds are
made for the stitching in the other direction.

When joining mini blocks, I use Elmers to glue the blocks together so they don't "shift". Off seams really show up in mini quilts. I do use the plastic paint tips by Plaid to make a tiny stream of glue.

Plain fusible lightweight interfacing can work well too. I have one of those folding cardboard with blue grid mark boards..... i lay my fusible interfacing on that, secure with straight pins to hold the interfacing in place and use the grid lines as guides. Being cardboard, i can then also press tack with my mini iron right on it.

What size itty-bitty to you?

When you have not shared any info as to what sort of a pattern you are doing, it's hard to know what tips might help.


No matter what you are doing, IMHO making sure that the single hole plate is in your machine can make a big difference to end quality.

Some use tweezers when doing small work.

Sometimes it helps to oversize and trim down to keep all square ... again, without knowing what you are doing, unknown whether this is even a possibility.

I have an older miniature quilt book that has you sew fabrics together as a strip, then cut the squares out. These would be HST's of course.

I use a tear away embroidery stabilizer. Although they do tear away all around your embroidery, they have a grain and will tear much easier in one direction. I cut about an 18" piece (width doesn't matter, but I usually work with 4 to 12 inches) and make sure there's a good straight edge going in the direction of the grain. Lay your pieces so the raw edges match the edge of the stabilizer all along the length. Sew your 1/4" seam, like you are chain piecing down the entire length of the stabilizer, then carefully tear away. Because you sewed down the entire length, you can usually tear the 1/4" piece off. Lay the next group of pieces on the remaining large piece and repeat. I often do this if I have a bunch of small HST, as this prevents the leading edge from being pushed into the needle plate.

I watched a F&P episode where someone was demo small blocks like Dear Jane. One of her suggestion is to oversize the individual pieces, press and then trim down to the correct size. It was an older episode with Liz Porter. It works for me.

There's a wash-away grid that you can use or you can draw your own grid on a wash-away foundation/stabilizer and use it like the gridded ones. Because they wash away, no bulk is added to the finished product...important with "itty bitty" squares of any size.

Are you making a pixelated quilt?