How to Make a Quilt Sandwich

Hold the Mayo! Quilts come together like a sandwich. There's a top, a back and the filling, and here are some tips and tricks to handling each piece.

If you are going to have your quilt finished on a long arm machine, you will need at least 6 inches of backing fabric and batting on all sides of your top. Measure your quilt top in several places (top, middle, bottom) to get the exact size.

When you have your quilt top done, the next thing you need is the back. The back needs to be square, and cut straight of grain to allow your quilt top to lay flat after quilting.  If you piece your back, remember the more pieces, the harder it will be to keep it straight of grain, and absolutely do not use any selvages. Trim them off (they shrink differently than the rest of the fabric). One nice way to buy backing is 108" wide backing.

Image from Threads Magazine

Now that you have your top and back ready to go, you need batting, which is used as a layer of insulation between the fabrics. Batting comes in many, many kinds, weights and brands; it usually is made from cotton, polyester or wool. Some batting works better for hand quilting, some makes your quilt puffy, and some makes quilts lay nice and flat. The kind you use is your choice. Everyone has a different opinion.

If someone else will do your quilting, ask what batting they prefer. As a long arm quilter, I prefer Warm and Natural cotton batting because it is really nice, lays flat and doesn't stretch as it goes through the long arm.

-Cindy Ogle

How often do I change my Sewing Machine Needles?

The key question to understanding sewing machine needles is, how often do I change it.

First and foremost, don't wait until the needles breaks or bends before you change it. A good rule is to change it after 8-12 hours of sewing.

Think of the needles the same way you would a lead pencil. When a pencil point gets dull as you write, you sharpen it. In sewing, the needle wears down after going up and down so many times in the fabric and needs to be changed.

Another way to know when it's time to change the needle is listening to your machine. You will hear a popping sound as the needle gets dull.

While you're changing the needle, take the time to brush out the lint that's sure to built up in the bobbin area, especially when you are sewing flannel, fleece or felt.

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                                                   If you own a Janome
                                                   sewing machine, we
                                                   recommend you use only
                                                   Janome sewing needles
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                                                               ~by Ruth Middleton

Select the Right-Sized Needle for your Fabric and Project

Ruth Middleton explains some simple guidelines for selecting the right size needle to use.

• Light weight woven- Size 9-11 sharp, quilting
• Quilting cottons (piecing)- Size 11-14 sharp, quilting
• Homespun, flannel (piecing)- Size 11-14 sharp, quilting, universal
• Denim, twill, wool- size 14-16 sharp, denim
• Machine quilting (light weight and poly batts)- size 12-16 quilting, top stitch
• Machine quilting (cotton batts, heavier fabrics and threads)- size 14-16 quilting, top stitch, denim

Choose the Right Needle from the Haystack

Are you confused about what kind of sewing machine needles you need, and how often the needle should be changed? Do you just muddle through the whole process and hope for the best?

Ruth Middleton explains the different types of needles available today for sewing and quilting.

• Microflex/Sharps have sharp points designed for tightly woven fabrics such as quilting cottons, microfibers, fleece and batiks.
• Embroidery needles have a fine sharp point and larger eye. They are designed to stack stitches closely together.
• Topstitch needles are bigger so they go through heavier fabrics or multiple layers.
• Quilting needles have a fine tapered point designed to stitch through multiple layers of cotton fabric when piecing or quilting.
• Universal needles are designed for flannels, homespun, and other woven and knit fabrics. These are not recommended for batiks and tightly woven fabrics.
• Denim needles are very strong with a large sharp point so they pierce heavy fabrics and carry heavier threads.
• Metallic needles are specialty needles with a fine sharp point, elongated eye and deeper groove to help protect fragile, metallic threads. Change these more often throughout your project than you would other needles because the thread can make a groove in the needle and cause problems.
• Titanium needles have an extra coating which makes them stronger and less likely to drag from adhesives. These are not recommended for everyday sewing.

Righty Tighty Tension

Every person who works with machines usually has part of the job that gives them fits. For us sewists, that is thread tension. Is it the bobbin? How the machine is threaded? Do I need to twist the knob?

This diagram by Superior Threads is a good visual for deciding what you need to do.
Another guide comes from plumbing and tightening screws: Righty Tighty Lefty Loosey. It even applies to thread tension. The tug of war is a perfect way to think about it. If all your top thread is pooling on the bottom, it means the bobbin is winning and the top needs to pull harder.

If you adjust the tension and are still getting a tangle on one side, try re-threading the machine. Sometimes the thread is not "flossed" into the tension disks. On the bobbin side, make sure that the bobbin thread is coming off the spool in the correct direction. There is usually a diagram in your owners manual. Your machine is also marked with the preferred factory settings. If you have been toying with tension and have all the settings changed, reset everything back to the factory recommendations, re-thread the machine and start adjusting from there. Problems with tension come from improper threading more often than needing to adjust the tension.

5 reasons to rent a sewing machine

Your stichin’ sister is visiting and you both want to sew.

Your machine is being serviced and you can’t live without the sound of thread pulsating through a needle.

 You’re attending a class and don’t want to – ugh! – pack up your machine, lug it out to the car and in to the shop, expose it to the weather or risk damaging it in during transport.

  You’re thinking of buying a machine and want more than a simple test run in the shop.  Plus! If you buy a machine, accumulated rental fees are credited toward your purchase.

  You have $5 burning a hole in your pocket. That’s right, for just $5 a day you can rent a new or like-new Janome sewing machine from Always In Stitches.  

To ensure we have a machine available, please reserve one in the shop or on the phone, (317) 776-4227. 

You don’t get kisses online

Did you know that Always In Stitches has small packs of Hershey’s Kisses ready to give to all those wonderful, chauffeurs and bag carriers that don’t stitch but wait so patiently as their partners wander the shop? There was some talk at a recent staff meeting about what our brick-and-mortar shop offers that online retailers can’t, and we all laughed when Debra said, “You don’t get kisses online.”

But it’s true. And then we realized a lot of other truths about things Always In Stitches can do as a small local shop that big retailers can’t. We thought Small Business Week (May 1-5) was a good time to remind you.

See the vibrant colors

Walk in the door and the first thing most everyone notices is the rainbow of colors displayed from the front to the back and at every stopping point in between. When you choose your fiber here, you know what colors your project will comprise. Photos are very good online, but colors aren’t always what you expect when you open the box.

Feel the fiber’s hand

Petting the fabric or yarn is therapeutic. Rubbing your computer or phone screen just isn’t the same. You can’t tell if it’s silky, soft, nubby, or smooth.

Get advice and help

Anyone who sports an apron here is always willing to help you coordinate colors, be your sounding board and help you calculate how much of anything you need. Have you ever seen a button on an online shopping cart labeled “Hey Ruth (or Betty or Donna), What do you think about…”?

Make friends

Customers have developed friendships with other customers, as well as with the staff. They ask each other how their family is doing, how that project turned out and if they have a good recipe for vegetable soup. Online sites develop buying histories that are used to sell your email address and create pop-ups on your screen (usually appearing at the most annoying times). You’re our friend. If we have your email, we also have your back. We will use your address judiciously and never, ever give it or sell it to anyone. Pinky swear.

Trust the quality

Sometimes fabric sold online is exactly like fabric we sell. Other times the largest online retailers carry similar fabrics with lower thread counts and dyes that don't hold their color over the long term. Using that material, the heirloom quilt you hoped your great-great-grandchildren would cherish someday may start shredding or fading in three years. We want your projects to last. We won’t sell you inferior goods.

Make returns without extra charges

To protect all of our valued fiber-buying customers, we must be careful about what items we can let you return, but we never, ever charge restocking fees..

We value you

We’re a small, independent business. We feel we stock what our customers want and need, what they appreciate and trust. Our orders are often small so our vendors can’t give us the price breaks big online retailers enjoy. We keep our profit margins as low as we can to still pay our bills and we offer customer rewards - $10 when you accumulate $350 in purchases, a free charm when you spend $100 in a month, and more. Sometimes, we just give you something extra because we feel like it (or because Lyneen is working the register). But bottom line, we usually can’t meet or beat an online price.

It’s the price of doing business – something we feel blessed to have done with you for nearly a decade, something we want to be doing with you for years to come, something we hope you value today.