Hey quilter bees, it's Mitzie here!
We're back with another lesson from the Brave Beginner Quilt Course, Learn to Make Your First Quilt. If you caught the last video, Kelly had her Sidewalk Cracks quilt laid out and ready to sew. This time, we're diving into how to sew the top together without losing your place or your sanity along the way.
Whatever You Do, Be Consistent
It's easy to get lost in your own layout. So, before you sew a single seam, build a system for keeping track of the top, the direction, and the order. This is the system that works for me.
A few pieces of that system:
- Pin your rows. Odd rows get one pin, even rows get two, and the pins always point down. That way, even if you get turned around, the pin tells you which way your quilt strip is facing.
- Take pieces down one row at a time, not the whole layout at once. It's a lot easier to lose track when everything's off the wall at once, and taking it slow cuts down on mistakes.
- Work in the same direction every time. Don't stack one row left-to-right and the next right-to-left. Pick a direction and stick with it so you don’t accidentally sew things backward.
- Work from the bottom up, not top down, so you're not reaching over pieces and knocking them off the stack as you go.
Getting Pieces to the Machine in Order
Kelly coined a phrase that has been getting a ton of traction at the studio. She described using a "quilt charcuterie board." In this case, it was just a scrap piece of cardboard we used to carry a whole row of pieces to the machine. It's a great way for a beginner to see the whole row at once: what's next to what, and what's coming up next.
Nesting Seams Like a Pro
When you join two rows, match up the end first, then find the spots where the seams from each row meet. Press seams so they run in opposite directions row to row, and you'll feel them nest together with a little bump where they lock into place. Clip both sides of that nested seam rather than just one, so nothing shifts when you pull the top clip off right before it hits the machine's foot.
Small mismatches happen, even for pros. If a piece runs a little short, ease it in: find the center of the bubble and clip it, which spreads the extra fullness out into two smaller spots instead of one big pucker. The feed dogs will do a lot of that easing work for you at the machine — just don't force it, or it'll bunch.
And when it's time to press those bigger seams, press them all in the same direction, down toward the bottom of the quilt. That sets you up to quilt in straight lines from the top down later without your thread catching on a seam.
Sew Rows Into Pairs
Once your individual rows are sewn, it is easier to sew pairs of strips together instead of just starting at the top and sewing all the way down. Start by sewing the evens and odds together. When those sections are sewn, join the pairs to each other. This reduces bulk through the sewing machine, and you'll touch far less fabric overall, with a much lower chance of things sliding out of place.
First Quilts Don't Have to Be Perfect
If your seams aren't lining up exactly, that's not a failure — that's a first quilt. Even after years of sewing, easing pieces in is just part of the process. We're not making show quilts here. We're making quilts to snuggle under and give away, and a little bit of easing never stopped a quilt from doing its job.
Next up: we'll show you how to baste and quilt the top using one simple, beginner-friendly method, so you walk away with a finished quilt in hand.
Happy quilting, Mitzie
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