How To Prevent Bowing When Strip Piecing

How To Prevent Bowing When Strip Piecing when sewing together more than two strips of fabric when making a quilt.

Many quilts are made using block patterns made of strips of fabrics, when sewing the strips together with an accurate 1/4 inch seam allowance will help you to cut the strips later to make a quilt pattern with ease.

When the stitched strips bow or arc, it won’t be easy to cut the pieces you need to make a block for your quilt, when you follow an easy to make trick, you will get those strips of fabric sewn as is required.

How To Prevent Bowing When Strip Piecing

How to Prevent Bowing When Strip Piecing with a simple stitching method of stitching your strips on both directions, with this tip all your strips will be stitched straight and it will be easier to cut the pieces to make your quilts!

Cut Your Fabric

The first step is to cut the strips of fabric you will be using with an accurate measure, the quilting ruler, the rotary cutter and the cutting mat will be the tools you will need to use to cut all the strips.

When using already cut strips of fabric, always check the measurements on each strip, as not all the strips are cut the same.

Strip Piecing Basics

How To Prevent Bowing When Strip Piecing

Stitching together strips of fabric is a time saver when making a quilt, there are plenty of quilt patterns to make pretty quilts and they all look amazing.

Most of these quilt patterns instructions will start with sewing together strips of fabric to be cut later to form blocks.

To get always accurate results when stitching together strips, you will need to stitch the strips with a 1/4 inch seam allowance, some sewing machines have a 1/4 inch presser foot, which will help you to get the same accurate seam all the time.

If you’re sewing machine comes with no 1/4 inch presser feet, there is another easy way to mark the 1/4 inch on you’re sewing machine, by measuring the 1/4 inch from the needle on the plate and put a piece of painter tape, this will help you to sew your strips with accurate 1/4 seam allowance always with ease.

You need to sew on the first two strips of fabric together on one end, open and press, then to sew on the next strip, start stitching from the other end, open and press.

If you need to sew on more strips of fabric, always begins to sew the next strip from the other end, by doing this, the stitching direction will help you to sew on all the strips you need with a perfect 1/4 inch without bowing.

Cutting The Strips

How To Prevent Bowing When Strip Piecing

When you finish sewing on all the strips of fabric together you need for the quilt pattern, press the strips well.

Lay the strips on your cutting mat and cut the strips with the measurements require for your quilt. When you get all the pieces you need, you can continue to sew on the pieces to make the blocks you need for your quilt.

Closing

We hope you find helpful to sew strips of fabric by starting on one direction and then from the other direction when sewing strips of fabric to make a quilt.

No more bowing or arc when sewing strips together, it will be easier for you to cut the pieces for your quilt pattern and you will be saving time and get the best results from you’re sewing!

If you have another tip or trick when sewing strips of fabric together to make a quilt or for a sewing project, you can write it on a comment, we all learn from each other.

Happy Sewing!

You can also read: How To Pin Fabric For Sewing 

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How To Prevent Bowing When Strip Piecing

1 thought on “How To Prevent Bowing When Strip Piecing”

  1. What a clever idea. I’ve been sewing for about 40 years but never worked out how to stop the bowing from happening. It all becomes clear when someone gives you a tip like this. It makes perfect sense and will save me a great deal of time and frustration when I am making my quilts. Thanks so much.

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