In a quilt class a few years back, I sat next to another student who was using small pieces of fabric to begin and end her sewing while machine piecing the blocks. We were not able to do the "clothes line" style sewing, where you keep sewing without cutting between piecing, while learning this particular block.
Instead of cutting the thread at the end of sewing two block pieces together, she used a scrap of fabric that was folded to about 1 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch and three thickness of fabric. She would begin sewing the two block pieces and when she came to the end, she stitched off on to the "landing strip" across 1/2" width and left it under the presser foot and cut the thread to remover her stitched block pieces. She added the next block piece to the first two and began stitching again beginning with the "landing strip" and kept going on the pieced block, adding another landing strip at the end.
This made the sewing go faster and didn't use as much thread as usual.
Does this technique have a name?
My soul is fed, by my needle and thread
My Mother always called those little pieces of fabric "frogs". When I teach a quilt class I always tell them it is easy to use a frog. I get a funny look until I tell them what I mean.
I don't think I've ever heard of frogs except frog quilting. I really like the take off and landing strips though as I think that is very discriptive. I only use these when sewing from corner to corner if I don't want to change the plate to the one with just a single hole for the needle.
I find all the conversations about what people call things so interesting.
Life is like a quilt...bits & pieces, joy & sorrow, stitched with love
We just had a 'thread' about pieces of squares getting eaten up by our machine. We talked about the little pieces of fabric to keep the machine from gobbling up our squares. Is this what the 'take off and landing strips' is?
Kathy Patterson - Fort Worth, Texas
Yes, I think that these are used with that in mind.
Where can I read this discussion thread?
Hi Juli,
that's what I do as well and it is very efficient. I like the "take off and landing strips". Frog sounds good too.
How about, " if you don't put in the frog, than you (fabric) get eaten by the dog (feeding dogs)".
Happy quilting!
Jutta, California
Jutta, CA
Juli,
I hope this works... I'v not posted a link yet so here I go... here is a link to the thread about the eaten edges. 868.aspx Hope it helps!
I'm not sure if the technique has a name but it is quite popular and I do it most of the time. One tip I picked up from "Quiltville" is to feed through pieces from other projects instead of bit of scraps. I tend to have more than one thing going at a time so it's a great way to get more done. You don't even have to have a project in mind. Just make a bunch of half square triangles or sew squares together from your scraps. Before long you'll have enough pieces to use in other quilts.
Happy Sewing!
Kris
Great tip Kris!
I like the idea of feeding parts of a simple bloc through to keep a piece from getting caught in the feed dogs.
I just call the little scraps, "Start/Stop scraps". I use the same one over and over.
Marge Campbell
Littlefield, TX
Margie Campbellmargecam52@valornet.comTinLizzie18 LSLittlefield, TX
I still don't get it. I guess I need a visual. If I have several triangles that I'm sewing -- I first fold a dog ear in half and sew it but don't cut it. Then I butt my triangle up against the ear. This is the part where I'm confused. Do I then cut the dog ear and sew it again before I do another triangle? If so, that means that I can't chain stitch the fifty triangles, right?
the idea is to always have a piece of fabric under the needle. the fabric gets caught when you are starting to sew. so start with the little piece of fabric, do your chain piecing, and the last thing under you needle is the little piece of fabric you started with, ( you cut it off the far end of the chain piecing and bring it back to the needle and sew onto it again) , when you start sewing again, there is already that piece of fabric under your needle, so fabric won't catch under the dogs. hope this clarifies the matter. gini
gini in north idaho
Thanks Gini,
I was seeing a little piece of fabric, a triangle, a little piece of fabric, etc. That make more sense to me. Thanks, again.
I've always heard them called anchor cloths. But "take-off and landing strips" is so aptly descriptive that I'll be using that name from now on. I do use them almost all the time and get much stronger stitches, especially when chain piecing.
Kissimmee, FL
Jutta--
Your response gave me such a chuckle
Kathy, I'll do a video of it. I'm a little back logged what with prep for a Quilt Out Loud shoot, but it's on my list. Might make it a Tip of the Week. It's an easy one to do, so it'll rise to the top of the list.
~Jodie