Rosi Quilts - Hopefully 1/4" Seams!

If you ever hang around quilters long enough, you will hear talk of ¼ inch seams, scant ¼ inch seams and even generous ¼ inch seams.

Quilting relies on cutting each piece of fabric accurately, and sewing each of those pieces of fabric together accurately.  If any of your cuts or seams are inaccurate you risk ending up with a finished quilt that could be inches too short or narrow, or, too long or wide.  Think about it, if your pattern stipulates that you use an accurate ¼ inch seam for all piecing, and you actually use a slightly wider seam, say an extra one sixteenth of an inch, then in a quilt with 100 seams across the length could end up being over 6 inches shorter than desired. 

“Is that really a huge problem?” you ask.  Well think about it – do you like cold feet or warm feet? 

I have 3 sewing machine feet that claim to give me the perfect quilter’s ¼ “ seam.    Two of them do not – probably because of the way I use them, rather than any design flaw.

That one on the bottom left is the only one I have found that works for me. It works and I am sticking with it!

I have found that there is only one method to ensure that your seams are a perfect ¼ inch, and it’s pretty easy – but it takes practice: 

1.    Cut your fabric accurately.

2.    Find the seam allowance that gives you the desired result.

3.    Use it consistently!

There you are – easy, eh?  What to you mean, “no!”   OK, let’s look into it further.

CUT YOUR FABRIC ACCURATELY

Use the correct tools, correctly.  Use a good quality cutting mat, a rotary cutter with a SHARP blade, and a good quality quilter’s ruler with sharp edges.

If you haven’t yet tried it, try pressing your fabric BEFORE you cut it with a product like Best Press. I love this product; it makes cutting accurately easier, and sewing too.  You will love it!

When you cut, apply HARD downward pressure to the ruler to stop it from slipping. Imagine you are pressing it directly towards the floor. Don’t be afraid to press down firmly on your rotary cutter also. And always cut away from your body!

Square off the edge of your fabric, and align the marks on your ruler carefully with your freshly cut edge.  Remember, if you are cutting squares or rectangles, the edges should always align with the weave of the fabric.  That way you will not have to deal with bias edges which can stretch.

 So now we have some 2” x 3” rectangles to play with.  And we are going to sew them together along the 3” edge.  

SEW YOUR FABRIC ACCURATELY

First, let’s do some math! Each piece of fabric is 2” wide – 2 pieces, that 4” altogether.  But once you have sewn them together, you will lose ¼ “ from each piece in your seam. 2 pieces, so you will loose a total of ½ “ – so the joined piece should be exactly 3 ½ “ wide.

 Now let’s sew!  I will sew a generous ¼ “ seam, and exact ¼ “ seam and a scant ¼ “ seam.

 I always chain piece where I can – it’s faster and you waste less thread, cutting and restarting. Notice my “leader” – that little bit of white fabric I put through the machine to start the chain?  If I’m going to get a little knot of threads at the beginning of the seam, it’s going to be under the leader, not under my first seam.

Here we go!

I finish off with a “Finisher” which can stay in the machine, ready for my next sewing session, at which point it magically becomes a “Leader!”

So here are the three units sewn – I have left them attached with a leader at the top, so I know which one is which – and pressed.  Look how flat the seams are – that’s the Best Press! 

Let’s measure the results. Now, I promise that the ruler is aligned with the top and right edges of the fabric in each case – because of the thickness of the ruler, there is a little trick of the light when I photograph it, and it may not seem to be aligned, but it is.

 The generous ¼ “ – wow, what a difference!  Look how much I am off – almost an 1/8“.  Imagine if every seam I sewed over the width of a quilt was that much off – 100 seams, and the quilt would be almost 12 ½ “ shorter than I wanted it!

Now the exact ¼ “.  It is still off by a small amount.  Not as bad as the previous unit, but still not accurate.  

Why is that? Well, when you press your seam to one side, there is a roll of fabric to one side of the stitching.  That roll, no matter how small, takes up space, and reduces the size of the unit you have sewn. The dotted line below shows where the seam is located. You are looking end on at the black and red fabrics.

Let’s take a look at the SCANT ¼ “ seam – the result is perfect!  So that is what quilter’s mean when they talk about a scant ¼ “ seam. The seam is sewn just a tiny bit less than ¼ “ (we are only talking about the width of a thread or two) and it makes all the difference to the outcome.

So remember, it doesn’t matter what type of foot you use on your sewing machine, just find the one that works best for you.  But remember, the most important thing is to test it, just like I did here, and find the stitching location that gives you the desired result– the correct dimensions for your finished unit.

Happy Sewing!