I can tell that quilting the Rainbow Improv Exposed Seams quilt is going to take me quite a while, so instead of sharing more quilting progress photos this week, I thought I’d open up a discussion. I always look forward to seeing where the conversation goes, so don’t miss out on the insights and thoughtful responses that I’m sure will be added in the comments.
Quilting can be a very meditative process. This post started percolating in my mind as I worked on the Rainbow Improve Exposed Seams quilt center spiral quilting, which I shared last week. I knew that starting the spiral only ⅛” off of center line meant that I wasn’t going to have much distance to work with before I needed the quilting to be turned 90-degrees and ¼” away from the center. Usually when I am setting up for walking foot quilting, I will set my stitch length to 3.0 mm. For this center spiral, I set my stitch length to somewhere around 0.8-1.0 mm.
Center Block Quilting – Central Spiral on Quilt Backing
With the stitch length set so low, I had about 6 stitches to work with to get the quilt turned 90 degrees. If I had stuck with my normal 3.0 setting, I would have had 2, maybe 3 stitches at most and the start would have looked much more angular. I’m quite pleased with how the spiral turned out, but I was oddly hesitant to set my stitch length so low. Because of that, I started to think about why I use 3.0 as a default and why I felt a bit uncomfortable changing to a different setting.
My First Quilt with Grandma’s Hand Quilting
I know for a fact that because my paternal grandmother hand quilted my first quilt, I started off as a quilter with a much different perspective on quilting than I have now. I didn’t even try to quilt my own quilts for years (I instead opted to pay for them to be quilted by a longarm quilter), but once I started to learn how to quilt on my domestic machine, I was absolutely thinking about the stitch length in relation to my grandmother’s hand quilting.
Cloudy Night Sky – Quilting Detail
Cloudy Night Sky is a great example of my typical 3.0 stitch length walking foot quilting, and although the zoom level between the Cloudy Night Sky photograph and my grandmother’s hand quilting aren’t exactly the same, I think the relationship between them is obvious now that I’ve thought about that influence.
Babsie {Mini Quilt Detail}
It’s interesting to note that I’ve given big stitch hand quilting a try and I very much enjoyed the hand quilting process for the Babsie mini quilt. In this case, my stitches were much larger than what my grandmother used, and I didn’t feel a tension in using a larger stitch length. Maybe that is because this is a style I have seen on modern quilts on display at QuiltCon?
Wonder in Issue 65 of Love, Patchwork & Quilting (photo courtesy of LP&Q)
After I purchased a longarm machine, I also struggled with the quilting stitch length options available to me. I think the largest stitch I could ever use was 12 stitches per inch, and even at that setting the stitch length felt too small to me at the time. I quilted Wonder, shown above, on the longarm machine and you can see how the stitch length is smaller on the straight line quilting than what I use when I use the walking foot on my domestic machine. But the longarm setting allowed for smooth and small curves on the back and forth lines.
Improv Patchwork – Sunset Mini – Quilting Detail
Which made me think about free motion quilting on a domestic machine. When setting up for free motion quilting, the feed dogs are lowered and the stitch length is regulated by the speed that the needle moves in relation to how far the quilt is moved between each stitch. And as you can see from the mini quilt detail above, my free motion quilting stitch length is smaller out of necessity for many of the curvy motifs.
Quilting Stitch Length {Discussion}
It has been several decades since my quilting journey began, and now I just do things a particular way because I have previously worked out what worked for me. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best way to approach the project in front of me today. And there is a certain kind of tension to stepping away from what is expected/usual/normal.
I’m really curious to hear if you have a “normal” setting you use when you think about quilting stitch length. At this point, I’m fully convinced that there is no one right answer to quilting stitch length and that the combination of machine and quilting motif will lead to a different answer from project to project and quilter to quilter.
I typically use 3.0 stitch length which is about 8.4 stitches per inch when I quilt with my walking foot. PCQ’s long arm has settings for 5 stitches per inch for basting and either 9 or 11 stitches per inch for quilting and we all use the 11 setting. The stitch length usually comes out looking good and makes for smooth curves when meandering or following a panto.
I’m pretty new to walking foot quilting so I don’t have a lot of experience to pull from. Most of the books I’ve consulted suggested larger stitch lengths for quilting so I’ve stuck with a 3 to 3.5 mm stitch length in the two quilts I’ve done myself. But I certainly get that in some situations you may want smaller or larger stitches. Though I think you’d have to watch getting too long as those stitches are more like to get snagged and pulled.
I typically use a 3 mm stitch length when quilting on my domestic machine. I recently bought a longarm and I’ll have to evaluate how the stitch length works best when I get it set up. I do love the insight of your thought processes Yvonne!
I use a longer stitch length for walking foot quilting, usually 3.0 or longer. I agree that tiny stitches for machine quilting make me uncomfortable. I also adore hand quilting with perle cotton and now prefer hand quilting if I have the time.
This is interesting! Thanks for starting the discussion, Yvonne. When I’m machine-quilting, I use a stitch length of 3 to 3.5; most often 3.5. I confess I’m often in too much of a hurry once I get to the quilting step, and sometimes I quilt faster than I probably should (specifically on my most recent Overmuch. Quilting is definitely a step when I’m open to continued learning, so I’ll come back to peruse the comments in a few days.
This was so interesting for me to read this morning. Thanks for sharing your observations.
I’ve just made my own observations about longarm quilting vs. domestic machine quilting. I also generally set my domestic machine at 3, thinking I need it long enough to get through all those layers and still have enough stitch on top to see the line of stitching. I have a new-to-me longarm that I am coming to grips with and I usually set that at 10 SPI, I think mostly because it is the default and I forget to reset it when I switch between modes. ;)
The current quilt in progress has 16 patches set inside circle frames. I did some ruler quilting inside the circles. Then I wanted to stitch-in-the-ditch around the circles. My longarm skills are not yet up to smooth curves without an appropriately sized ruler, so I pulled it off the frame to SID on my domestic machine. Even with dropping my stitch length a bit below 3, the stitches from the domestic machine are much longer than the ones from the longarm, and also much more consistent in size. ;) The baby it is for won’t care a bit, though. ;)
Happy Quilting!
Very interesting. I am also primarily self taught and my machine defaults to 2.0 so I’ve only machine quilted at 2. I don’t think I’ve even considered adjusting that so it will be an interesting thing to play with in the future. I have only recently started to play with free motion quilting so have quite a bit of variation there but find i trends to prefer my stitch length closer to 1. I have never hand quilted so I wonder if that’s part of my preference. For me the smaller stitch length feels stronger and less likely to unravel. Great discussion.
After the convo I tried binding with straight stitch length of 4.0 so fun to see how different it felt and looked. The conversation definitely opened my horizons to some fun experimenting.
I’m a domestic machine quilter and LOVE the look and feel of straight-line quilting. It’s annoying when starting –because I just want to be done — but as I get into the rhythm (slow and steady) it becomes meditative and somewhat addictive. I use stitch length 3.5-3.8 for straight-line quilting, and lower the stitch length at the end of each row for securing.
Interesting discussion about stitch length, different machines, etc. I was surprised you used such a small stitch for your spiral — never thought about that. I mostly quilt on a sit-down (Sweet 16) where I control the stitch length, mostly, but how fast my hands move. I recently added a table with sensors to help me even out my stitches; it’s been a great help in this process.
Great post, Yvonne. I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone’s response. I mostly quilt on my longarm, and usually at 11 or 12 spi. I have done a little walking foot quilting on my domestic for smaller projects and, usually set my length to 3.0. My Berninas have the BSR (Bernina Stitch Regulator) which I have used in the past for free motion quilting and honestly I don’t remember what stitch setting I used. It may have been a setting the machine chose when I put the BSR foot on. I will have to try that again soon on the 990 and see how it does. Thanks for starting this conversation!
I only do domestic straight line myself and then I prefer a slightly thicker quilting thread – closer to the 28 Aurifil but not quite. I think it looks wonderful in 3.0 and I secure by backstitching shortly before the end of the quilt. Aiming for 1/4 inch edge that will be hidden in the binding – but not always “hitting” that sweet spot ;) I think I have adjusted a bit depending on project and most certainly for curves. They do need smaller stitches the smaller they get. That is also why I totally get that longarmers usually use smaller stitches for those intricate motives. What always surprises me how used I am not my “normal” quilting thread. I always feel uncomfortable when I use a standard 40wt for quilting because I so rarely do. It feels less secure to me, although I do know it is… So I guess a lot is preference (in style) and what you are used to. xo
I send a lot of my quilts out for longarm quilting, but when I do the quilting, it’s usually 3.0. For mug rugs, I usually drop it to 2.5.
Oh fun! I feel like a newer quilter, still taking notes and looking off of other people’s homework…and it’s still kind of amazing to me how much what machine(s) you have affects how you quilt. I’ve never touched a longarm so I didn’t realize they (right??) measure by stitches per inch rather than length of stitches in millimeters.
My two quilting vibes are a) hand-quilt, and the stitch length is dictated by the thickness of the quilt sandwich I’m wrangling, or b) walking foot quilting on my domestic. I have my grandmother’s beautiful mechanical machine, which only has whole numbers of stitch length marked, and a new computerized one with intervals every 0.2mm. So on the mechanical, I’d use a 3 or maybe a little longer (between 3 and 3.5mm), and on the computerized I’d use a 3.2. Which I think I came to by feel, and because it’s the length I use for topstitching (i.e. for patch pockets, the edges of zippers… most of my sewing is mending clothes, then quilting, then learning to make clothes).
I like trying new things but it is definitely cognitive work, and I might not have noticed it so much before becoming disabled by longcovid but now those formerly small labors are magnified and might be the difference between doing the project at all…so often it’s easier for me, for my brain and my executive functioning, to make a decision once (i.e. topstitching is always 3.2!) so I have more capacity to make other decisions like color choice.
This is the same for me with binding width; it could be fun to experiment with different widths of binding strips, but if they’re always 2 1/4″ wide, I don’t have to decide each time AND i can have a jar of binding scraps that are all that width.
I quilt with spirals a lot. Starting in the middle with a small stitch, go round twice, add one stitch increment, repeat till you get to your usual stitch length. Really small stitches will pucker the work..