Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Tuesday Tip-----Hiding thread tails

Here's a good tip I recently learned to improve my machine quilting technique.
I confess that I have been guilty of just taking a couple of stitches in place and snipping off the thread tails when machine quilting.  I know you are suppose to hide the tails in the sandwich layer of the batting, but threading each thread--with my eyes--is difficult.  So I have been taking the easy way out.  Last night I did things different.  I had purchased a pack of easy  threading needles at the quilt show and thought I would see how they worked to thread and hide the tails on the french braid quilt.  WOW!  In probably 20 minutes I had threaded and hidden all the tails on the whole quilt.  It is large size, about 65 inches by 85 inches, and I used about 4 bobbins of thread to quilt it.  Since it is constructed in panels there were at least a dozen spots I had to stop and end off to move to another area. 
  The easy threading needles have a groove at the top of the eye of the needle.  Both thread tails can be threaded at once by simply  positioning them in the groove and giving a slight tug.  They easily slip into the eye of the needle.  Then carefully guide the needle back into the hole and weave through the batting layer and come out about an inch or so away.  Pull the threads through and snip the tails off.  Hidden tails!

So I will change my ways and hide the thread tails from now on.  It is much neater looking too!

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