October Tips

I was thinking about all of the great tricks people shared on Wednesday, and thought we should write them down. This is what I remember - let us know if there are any others.

1. Use those snappy hair clips (instead of pins) to hold your binding in place while you hand stitch the back.
2. Thread Heaven helps your thread not tangle up and break when you're hand sewing.
3. After you sew blocks into rows, iron the seams of each row in opposite directions. For example, iron the seams of Row 1 to the right, Row 2 to the left, and Row 3 to the right. That way, when you are sewing the rows together, the seams will "lock" in place and ensure that your corners match exactly.
4. Use a Tailor Clapper (AKA block of wood) to help set creases as you iron them. You can actually use any piece of sanded hardwood.
   
5. When doing machine applique, sew through the quilt top and batting together. The batting helps to stabilize the stitches. This only works with the thin cotton batting; fluffy polyester batting will get caught in your feed dogs.
6. Instead of using safety pins to hold your layers together for quilting, try a temporary spray adhesive.
7. Alli remembered another one: Make a tube of fabric the same width as the quilt, and hand stitch it to the back for a rod pocket. Having a full tube will protect the quilt itself from any chemicals or whatever that might seep out of the rod. And making it the same width as the entire quilt will distribute the weight evenly so that the quilt doesn't begin to sag.
   

Anything else?