Quilty Crime Friday!! Threads!!

Time for Quilty Crimes Friday again!!

This week it's about trimming those pesky threads on the quilt tops and sides before machine quilting.

I have heard from a couple of gals about NOT wanting their quilts to make the cut and be a focus of my posting.  Well....this week's quilt belongs to none other than ME!!  Yep, it can happen to us all, even the machine quilter herself.  My goal for Quilt Crimes is to TEACH so you can learn and we'll all have better quilts.

                      On to the show......

Threads, Threads, Threads!!

A very important part in the construction of a quilt, it really is the tie that binds.  BUT too much thread in misplaced areas can be a very, very bad thing.  

I know that every longarm quilter out there asks that you "TRIM your threads BEFORE sending your quilt".  I'm sure you are thinking about all of the time that it's going to take and what a hassle!!  No problem if your machine quilter just floats right over them, sooner or later they'll come out in the wash or it's no big deal anyway.  Got you pegged, don't I??  

Here's why you (we) need those threads off of your quilt.

I forgot to trim the thread when I stitched the side down.  This long 

thread was laying on top of the quilt and got trapped/tangled 

as the machine was stitching.

Here's a description of the photo....

What a mess!! And even worse when this happens my machine continues to attempt to stitched but since it's tangled it just goes "clunk, clunk, clunk..." and I'm racing to it so I can hit the stop button as fast as I can!!  In the mean time I'm aging 5 years in 5 seconds because if the needle gets stuck in the down position I run the risk of putting a hole in the quilt.  Nerve wrecking, I am telling you!!

In the photo above I've slipped a white card under the thread for a better 

view of it's path.

Now all of that is bad, but since the machine is clunking it tells me the machine is no longer on track and has moved off of the design.  I can get it back on track, after I of course remove the mess that it's created, but trust me on this, it is MUCH, MUCH easier if we just remember to 

 

TRIM THOSE THREADS!!!!!!!!!!!

 

and one more just for reference.....

 

 

 

 Okay, that's it for today.

Remember to trim those threads, it IS important and helps

us out.

 

thanks for checking on me,

hugs,

 

joanne

 

love to hear what you've got to say...............