C M K

Hi Everyone! -- At this moment I'm pretty discouraged. Today just finished tying a quilt and washed/dried it. Pulled it out of the dryer to find that my knots have come loose! I used embroidery floss (six strands), and tied them in a double knot. Has anyone else had this problem? Is there a specific knot that should be used? The research I did before hand said that you could use pretty much anything to tie a quilt: embroidery floss, pearl cotton, yarn, ribbon, etc... I stayed away from pearl cotton because I thought it might be too slick and would come apart. Anyway, I thought I would ask you folks here at QB because I have learned so much from this board in the past. Any ideas/suggestions are much appreciated.

PaperPrincess

I've only tied quilts once, for a charity project. We used surgeon's knots. If you look on you tube there are many videos. Basically it's a square knot with an extra twist. We used perle cotton. The only other thing I can think of is that you need to leave tails. If you cut the tails too close, the knot will fail.

Kitsie

Yes, I use DMC perle cotton. A surgeon's knot is like this although I only go "over"once the first way :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeaIyAyg_cs

I've had a tied quilt for years through many washings just like a regular load. Never had one un-tie!

QuiltnNan

i agree with the surgeons' knot

pocoellie

I've tied a number of quilts with floss and have never had any problems with the knots coming loose. I'm not sure what the problem was/is, but when you tie the knots, make sure they're tight, is my only recommendation.

suern3

My only experience with tying a quilt with our guilds donation quilt group. They were using some type of yarn. What ever it was it didn't want to be tied. And perhaps it was cut too short, I'm not sure. I volunteered to take the quilt home and do the binding. By the time I was ready to sew the binding, many of the ties had already come loose or untied so ended up tacking all of the ties in place with my machine. And I guess my point is, I'll avoid tying again.

margied

I used floss for a lot of mine and I think the surgeon's knot - at any rate it was a square knot with an extra loop in each direction. Left the tails about an inch and a half which I thought might be long but they stayed!

QUILTNMO

i use pearl cotton and a surgeons knot havent had any problems

Bueniebabe

I tie jean quilts with pearl cotton and leave 1 1/2 inch to 2 inch tail, never had any come out

ArlaJo

I use pearl cotton and triple tie my knots. Never had any come undone.