Magic tool against puckers in your quilt

today we're talking about puckers i'm going to show you my very first quilt and i am sharing with you my magic tool to eliminate puckers [Music] hi there thanks for tuning in welcome to the shoe video channel my name is irena and today we are talking about puckers have you ever had a pucker in your quilt so maybe in the front that you got while piecing so you're piecing two pieces together and fabric is bulking up a little bit and your foot comes and then it puckers well it folds over and you sew it there you have a pucker fabric is stretchy material so that can just happen when you're making something but the puckers that i want to talk about today are the puckers that you can get at the back of your quilt or even at your top when you're making a quilt sandwich and then quilting it through especially when you're doing straight stitching and maybe doing a grid so where the straight lines are crossing um i got a lot of puckers when i started quilting that way and i thought that it was just part of the game and that when you crossed two lines while quilting that that just resulted in a pucker every now and then but when i started to see more and more quilts of more experienced quilters i didn't see so many parkers or maybe i didn't see any at all as what i saw in my own work that already can mean two things that can mean that either they don't make puckers or either you don't notice some mistakes in other people's work as much as you do in your own but that's not what this video is about i'm going to show you my very first quilt that i made i think this was my very first probably i've made a quilt block before this um but this is the first one that really was sandwiched and turned into a quilt it took a long long time before um we got the binding on and i think even my mom put the binding on this because it was laying for so long uh unfinished but making the top and doing quilting i did myself so let me show you here is my very first super duper wonky quilt it's with not even quilting cotton it is with um a thinner kind of cotton fabric from a fabric market over here but not especially for quilting so this stretches even more than normal quilting fabric so what i did was sew blocks of three strips together and then join those and then do some straight line stitching at the back and when i would show it like this you probably can't notice any packers but when you're working on something and you get a pucker you really notice it and um there is a way to prevent it so for example here at the front there's a little pucker uh where those lines intersect that is mostly where i got my parkers to be and most of the markers i had were at the back of my work so now i even i even have to search a little bit but here there's a whole there's a whole piece that's fully double and i've just sewn it down also here a nice deep wrinkle in there that i've sewn in and actually i'm quite happy that i left this all in because you don't notice when you use it you don't really notice it and it would have been such a trouble to take it out sew it again and then have packers all over again here we have another one so fabric folded double and i've just stitched over it and there you have a parker so why does this happen i i was wondering why does this happen and it changed a little bit when i started using a different type of foot so this little quilt was made with no kind of top transport just the feed dogs at the bottom of your work and a very normal flat sewing machine foot in there so only the top uh well only the bottom so the feed dogs were moving the fabric and the top was at the top so the sewing machine foot was standing still and that is what i was using for this um adding on to that that i wasn't a pro at basting my quilt which is a very important step for quilting when you want to prevent puckers so maybe i can make a list um steps to do to prevent puckers while quilting straight line quilting and especially straight lines across so first thing um make sure that you have a good sandwich so when you're sandwiching the backing fabric the batting and your top make sure that you iron them very well and that they are not wobbly so when you have a quilt top that is kind of bubbly because maybe in the middle you have a part that you haven't squared off very well and you just continued adding pieces to it then again get wobbly and it's okay but then you probably will have some puckers when you do some grid quilting on it um so i'm making sure that the backing and the top are ironed and then also that your cooled sandwich is really well good either use spray basting or use stitches to baste it or pins the method doesn't really matter but just make sure that it's all it will all stay in place while quilting so with this one i have no idea how i um basted it it could very well be that i've just put in some pins at random places and then started quilting it i didn't really know that you needed to make a good sandwich back then so um that is one step to prevent parker's when all the layers they add the same position then your fabric won't move and when your fabric doesn't move then it won't bulk up so um when your fabric moves so this is your flat quilt top and then it starts moving then you will get puckers but when the the sandwich stays in place then you can just sew it without getting any puckers so making a good quilt sandwich pretty important next step can be to go slow and to make sure that the pressure of your foot so let's say you have the situation where i started that you just have your feed dogs that transport the fabric and you have a normal sewing machine foot on top of it when the pressure is super high so when you're sewing together two pieces of fabric that is much thinner than when you're doing a quilt so i could be thicker so then the pressure of the foot could be less so if that is adjustable at your sewing machine that is something that you might want to try out so lower the pressure of your foot a little bit because this is a pretty good example when you're going over it with a little pressure then it will probably stay in place but if you're pushing harder with your foot then you can move the fabric it's quite a good example actually to show you what i mean um yeah so uh pressure of your sewing machine foot that could be something going slow could also be something to keep in mind because when you're going slow especially for the top of your quilt of course you can't see the bottom of the quilt when you're quilting it through but especially the top you can notice fabric um starting to bulk up while you're sewing and then you can stop and maybe lift your foot and then flatten out the quilt a little bit so that you spread out that extra fabric that was bulking up so that you spread it out a little bit when you see it happening you lift your food and spread it out a little bit so that it is more fabric at one place but just so much that it's just not puckering um and when you're going super super fast so i know that i was really kind of hurrying with this was my first quilt but once i did my first straight line then i was going like a machine so when you're going slow you have more control of what's happening so you have more control to fix something that's coming up there's already a little list of things you can do so the next improvement for me was a different sewing machine so i got a sewing machine with a top transport and at my bernina that's called dual feed let me show you what that looks like so here we have um my bernina set up with a standard sewing foot so this is sewing ford 1d and this is the dual feed so um when you put this in place um this is a little gripper and that will grip the fabric from the top so here you already have a tiny gripper on top and your feed dogs below so this will already have the effect of having one at the bottom and one at the top that will both grip and pull your fabric through so using a machine with a top transport or dual feed like the bernina that is great to have more control of moving your fabric so it all is about moving the fabric evenly so that the bottom layer is not going faster than the upper layer and with that top transport that will help you pull your fabric through the machine evenly but there is a magic tool that i really really love and it helps to make my clothing even better and when i use this in my videos i often get questions about my machine people who also have bernina asking hey your machine has a dual feed why do you use before we continue this video is sponsored by well not really no i don't have a sponsor for this video but i am sponsoring my own video in a kind of way i just wanted to tell you that next week so on the 14th 14th of september the doors for my e-course foundation paper piecing course will open so if you want to dive in foundation paper piecing i want to do a four-week online course with me and a whole bunch of other quilters in an online community where we go through four modules of uh foundation paper piecing information then hop on to my newsletter because i will be sharing my early bird discount there this monday so check out the link in the description below if you want to hop on on my newsletter to be the first to know about the early bird discount for the super redo foundation facing e-course a walking foot because this is my magic tool it is a walking foot and i'm sure that you also have it for other brands of bernina's so just ask your dealer if it's accessible for your machine and what this is is just a super wide big gripper so you see those black parts over here a little bit kind of rubbery parts that will grip your fabric from the top and pull it through so those black parts can actually move like this and this thingy goes well i can show you how to install it um and this is really magic not sure what angle is best to show you but let me first remove this foot over here and then you have the walking foot and for this this gripper goes around the screw of your needle i'm going to show you as well from a different corner so you make sure that that goes around the screw of your needle and then you just lift it up and secure this in place and there it is that's all there is to it to install the walking foot let me show you again from this angle so here we have the little gripper and that goes over this screw so the screw that keeps your needle in place and then we'll just lift it up and fasten it with the thing over here um yeah and then it's in place so that is how you place your walking foot on the bernina and when you start to sew with it you can see that the foot is going to really walk the fabric and the walking part of the foot and the walking part of the foot is moving simultaneously with the feed dogs so when this walking part goes up the feed dogs will be down and then when the walking part goes down the feeders will be up so they will pull through the fabrics evenly so your top layer and your bottom layer go through the machine evenly so for me that walking foot really feels like magic it's a magic tool because it keeps everything so well in place so yes the bernina does have a dual feed but adding on a walking foot to it it's a whole new level of control so i really really like that when i'm doing grid quilting but of course this wasn't my only quilt that i made until i moved up to a different machine i already started making other quilts so here are two other quilts that i've made maybe also nice to show you here we have one kind of similar design here i moved already to quilting cotton so this is a beautiful fabric from ankel and this is what it looks also a nice dual quilt size so this was i guess the second or one of the first quilts that i made and uh no i guess the third and this one with little houses also one i made a long time ago and these quilts um i think they don't have any puckers and i made them on the same machine as i made the blue quilt so what i did was i just changed up my quilting design for this one i went for straight lines with little little wiggly parts in between so here you see straight line quilting and then little wiggly lines to break it up a little bit um it looks fun um the quilt is on the front as well i think let me see if i can show you the wiggly parts so there's a wiggly part there's a wiggly part or a zigzag um so these straight lines uh they don't cross each other so there's less chance of puckers of course you can have puckers because the sewing on top was wonky but with some good ironing and good basting spray that will prevent a lot um yeah so also straight line but no parkers because the lines were just not intersecting and then this little quilt also um no parkers i guess let me see really no crackers not much markers some stitches and some very big stitches very small stitches but what i did here was um free motion quilting so it it's not pretty but it it doesn't really need to be i i mean pretty well i guess it's pretty but it's not perfect so it's not perfect loops not perfect stitches like you can see here it's not super perfect but when you look at it from a distance you won't see that and this also doesn't have puckers so um you can change your design to illuminate puckers or you can change the way you make a sandwich or you can change maybe your quilting foot on your machine see if there's a walking food available for your sewing machine um yeah and change up the design that you're making on your quilt so this little loopty loop design um didn't make puckers so yeah that's it that's my story about my magic tool for eliminating puckers and two other easy to do solutions to just don't have those straight lines crossing on your quill i hope this video helped you a little bit in some way thank you so much for watching i hope to see you again next week on the shirido channel bye bye

Channel: Sugaridoo

Views: 43,721

Rating: 4.8952446 out of 5

Keywords: Puckers, Quilt pucker, Quilt mistakes, Quilting errors, Quilting 101, Help with quilting, Walkingfoot, Bernina Dual feed, Bernina Walking foot, Straight line grid quilting

Id: U9_wfimltRI

Length: 19min 11sec (1151 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 11 2020