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..