Thready quilt backs
 

I guess this is a question for those of you who like to take photos of your WIPs.

By the time I've been working on a quilt for a while, there are lots of threads all over the back. The bigger the quilt, the more it's been handled, the worse it is. If it's really bad, I'll put some Fray-Chek along the ravelling edges, but that's not a solution for an entire quilt.

I have a modest little blog where I post photos of my quilting projects, mostly as a journal for myself (I'm not selling anything!). When I look at other blogs, the backs look nice and tidy. So my question is, am I really a messy quilter? Or do people spend hours snipping away the threads before photographing? Or can you Photoshop away the threads?

I do trim away dark threads where they may show up behind light fabric. This is more of a vanity issue, I suppose! :)

I trim threads on the back if there is large batch and any that might show through light fabric.

I just made a quilt with lots of weird angles and bias edges. I starched the snot out of all the fabric before I cut any of it, and have no strings on the back. It's about half hand-dyes and half Moda Grunge, and neither fabric is fraying, so I think it's because of the starch.

Starch will definitely help.

I've tried to find work arounds to the thread issue since I absolutely hate the little buggers. Once I accidentally cut a top while trying to cut threads. What works for me is to use liberal amounts of starch before cutting, and handling the pieces/blocks as little as possible. I assemble tops in sections so only a few blocks are off my design wall at a time. After they're complete, they go back on the wall until it's time to put the whole thing together. It seems to really work for me.

I only have threads on the face of my quilts. I snip them off while quilting. Lint rollers are another solution.

Man, I am in the midst of this! Putting Talkin' Turkey together, and it's a mess. Each block has 70-ish pieces ("ish" bc part of the center is string-pieced), pieced sashings and then 4 rounds of pieced borders. I have the center together and the borders ready to go on.

Honestly, I am embarrassed to give this to the LA. It's terrible. :(

I mentioned on another thread that snipping threads on the completed quilt top to prepare for sandwiching is the absolute worst part of quilting for me. I starch through the process and that may help but doesn't eradicate. I've learned to clip long threads or tangled threads and any threads near fabric that can be seen after quilting through the top. I use a lot of white tonal in my quilts so this has been an on-going struggle. ugh!

I love Northcutt fabrics, but they are terrible at shedding. I only trim what will show after quilting.