Tat:
No, I don't finish the pieces. You have to be a little careful to keep the fabric from ravelling but it is 100% cotton, medium-weight, and so it doesn't ravel like satin or something like that would. (If I were doing a quilt with a more raveling fabric, I probably would either cut the pieces larger and pink the edges with pinking shears, or else maybe take very small hems on them). Or I'd do larger than the standard-for-quilts 1/4" seam. I'd probably even do that working with flannel. Some people make quilts with flannel but I don't; I find it ravels like crazy and it also is stretchier than the quilt cottons, and those both lead to annoyances I don't need.
You also have to be careful if you are not finishing the ends (tying off) of the seams. Often times quilt patterns instruct you to "chain piece" - that is, sew a bunch of units together all in a long strip, with just a couple centimeters of thread between the units, then you cut the threads. I actually find I have bigger problems with those seams "undoing" in the process of working with the pieces than I have with the pieces raveling.
If a finished but unquilted quilt top needs to be washed (like, you spill something on it), I think you would need to finish the outermost edges to prevent raveling, though. Also, if you have the bias edge of a fabric on the edge of the quilt, you might want to do a...I forget the term, what dressmakers call it, but it's just a narrow line of stitching that stabilizes everything and stops the stretching. ("Staystitching." I just thought of it).
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And Ellen, I started reading "Shop Class as Soulcraft"....had underlined stuff in it, written a few blog posts on it in my head, and then I got busy with other stuff...and never finished it. (I do that a lot with books). I need to find it and pull it out and finish reading it. Because I do think it says something important about how we live now, and how we might live.
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And Grace, I have read a few things about heavy-duty exercise depressing the immune system; that marathon runners seem to fall prey more easily to colds than folks who exercise, but exercise less intensely (not sure about totally sedentary people and where they fit in). That could be part of it.
1 comment:
FJ, thank you for expansive reply; I learned quite a few "shop" terms. Evidently, I have "pinking" shears without knowing that's how they are called, and the "staystitching" is something good to know.
I, too, experience the problem with unraveling of seams when chain-sewing details, but it only happens when I'm being lazy. My amateur-dressmaker grandma taught me to be thrifty with thread and do not have long "ends" sticking out of each seam, so chainstitching is what she was doing all the time to save on thread remnants. And to solve the unraveling problem she taught me to go on reverse for a few stitches at the end of the seam, and then going back again, thus making the end of the seam 3 times. When you cut the threads in between the pieces after that, the seam does not unravel and you didn't waste the thread.
I too use cotton sometimes, although rarely - for this little project, for instance.
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