Sewing Against the Grain: Knowledge is Power

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When most of us start to quilt we usually start with projects that look pretty easy. Square pieces, simple straight lines. So why is it that we're sewing along and all of a sudden the seams we pinned don't match and one side is a lot longer than the other.

We think of fabric as being square. That's not really true. Fabric is thread woven. Those threads can and do shift within the fabric. Fabric is only square if we cut it square. And that can change when we pick it up and move it.

Illustration Janet Wickell

The secret is in the weave. The long threads of your fabric going down the length of your cloth  (the weft) are tightly stretched in the weaving. The threads that go back and forth between the edges of your cloth ( the weave) is placed between the stretched weft. They don't have the same tension on them so they are never as tight. What does that mean? The weave edge of your fabric is stretchier than the weft.

When we're cutting our fabric we think of straight of grain. Both weft and weave are straight grain. But they don't act the same way. The weft is much more likely to stretch. And it will stretch right under your sewing machine foot.

Is this a good thing?
A bad thing?
Nothing is good or bad if thinking makes it sew.

Back to our seam. It makes sense if you sew a weft cut piece to a warp cut piece that one will stretch more. Here's some strategies that help us work around that.

• Pin everything well. It will move some. We just want it to move less.

Janet Wickell About Quilting 

• Cut cleanly. Clean rotary cut fabric is  is always easier to sew because it's more accurate. It's impossible to sew torn fabric evenly because the edge stretches in the tear.

• Consider sewing strips and cutting them in segments for construction. It's much more accurate.
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• Even up squares before you stitch them together. You're seams aren't completely even in the block? A swift round of rotary cutting each block to exactly the right size can save you a lot of trouble later.

  

  Amanda Herring The Quilted Fish

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• Sew long strips together from the same side. I know it's awkward. But your strips will stretch the same way and iron much better.
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• Use a sewing machine foot that helps you keep your seams even.  A  consistant 1/8 inch discrepancy in a nine patch makes for blocks that can be 3/4" different in size. Accuracy does count.

  

  Faith Jones of Fresh Lemons Quilts

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• If you have one side of a piece your piecing that is longer, you can put that on the bottom. The top will stretch and the bottom will not.
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• Finally figure out how much accuracy matters to you. You are the only judge here. If you're happy with your results, no one else gets a say about that. My grandmother's quilt seams didn't match either. I'm upholding a fine tradition.

Janet Wickell has a great article fabric grain  at  quilting.about.com.

Faith Jones also has a great article for making seams match on Quilting Gallery. 

Next time we'll talk about the exception to all of this, bias.