sewingpup

I usually do my starts and stops in the edge of the quilt on my long arm....hoepfully in the section that will be covered by binding but I do my starts and stops with 7-8 tiny stitches...like about 0.5 and I also do them this way if I run out of bobbin or the top thread breaks in the middle of the quilt. I do not do show quilts but if I did....I would leave the tails long and knot and pop them into the batting. I most allows shorten up the default stitch length on my Bernina to about 1.8 especially if I am piecing small pieces...you can tell if it is hard to pull apart the stitching at the end of a seam. If I am paper peicing, I might even go down to 1.5 as that makes it way easier to remove the paper. when I am applyng binding...I go with the default as I am stitching through more layers. I also mainly use a walking foot when doing the long joinding seams and binding...then I usually do a little backstitching at the beginning and end of the seams so they do not open up and I alwys do stay stitching around the entire quilt top except when using a one piece border. I also sometimes stay stitch around a large block say 12 inch or more when completed especially if there are several pieces or pieces on a bias. Lin