There are times in sewing where going fast does not pay
off. A few years ago, our Row by Row was
Slow and Steady. Ruth designed the row thinking that skillful quilters go
slowly and carefully through the process.
The popularity of our new Simply Sixteen long arm quilting
machine has made this an important point. It does apply to all sewing machines. The
machine can go really fast; so can a Maserati, but you don’t want to drive it
around at 120 mph. I was quilting using
the Pro-Stitcher , and it was taking a long time, so I pushed the speed up. I
was so pleased with myself that this was going to just whip through the
quilting. But as my block progressed, it was missing all the key places I had
lined up. By speeding up, I was not allowing the fabric and batting to return
to their place after the needle pushed them out. Curves and points also begin to pull in at
faster speeds. If you see the top thread
pulling the bobbin thread up and in around curves, slow down. On a regular machine, going too fast can distort the fabric when the presser foot and feet dogs push the fabric along for the same reason- it needs a chance to bounce back.
There are also
mechanical reasons for not racing your engine. This is a finely tuned machine
we want to last us for years, so we need to treat it gently. I get aggravated
at my husband for how many times he gets his oil changed, takes the car in for
service etc, but his car is going to last. My little car…probably not since I
have only changed the oil once and don’t get that little hesitation checked
out. There is an alarm that goes off
when you go faster than the stitch regulator is set for. At that point, you will lose your even
stitches, but you really don’t want to run your machine close to that.
I used to think it was a compliment when my quilting teacher said,"wow, you sew really fast." Now I know she was trying to tell me to slow down.
