Tips for Burying Threads

Whenever possible, my goal is to start and end my quilting stitches off the edge of my quilt.  But sometimes bobbin thread runs out, thread color needs to change, or portions of your design do not need to be quilted.   The result?  You need to bury threads.

The process can look quite daunting but with the right tools, it is easy!

Let's get started!

As you are quilting, pull the bobbin thread to the front of your quilt - a seam ripper or a pin is all you need to grab that little loop of bobbin thread that pops up as you tug on the top thread.  Leaving bobbin thread on the back of your quilt is just asking for trouble with a big mess of thread!

Tie the two threads together twice to secure the thread.   Trim (if needed) so these threads are roughly 3'' long.

The self threading needle is essential for burying threads. The needle pictured below is from Clover and has a double eye.

There is a very, very thin slit in very top that you can snap your thread into.

 Push your needle part way into the same hole the bobbin thread come to the quilt front.  Push the needle tip about 1/2'' away, making sure you are running the needle through the batting and not  through the quilt back.  Pop your thread pair into the eye of the needle.  Pull through and remove needle.

I like to do each of these steps in batches - popping a whole series of thread pairs through before moving onto the next step.

Pulling slightly on the threads, carefully trim with curved tip scissors.  The curve tips help to protect your quilt top.

Great lighting and a quality lamp is critical.  I love, love my Daylight lamp.

I do my thread burying in bulk, sort of like chain piecing!  I will usually do 5 thread pairs at a time -  tying the 5 sets of knots and then bury the threads for all 5 before finally coming back and trimming off the excess thread.  The only exception is when I need to restart the line of quilting if the bobbin ran out (or a thread breaks.)  For those situations, I will bury and trim those threads before restarting my stitching.  In these cases, you may have to pull out some stitches in order to get thread tails long enough to actually tie.

The self threading needle really makes this process possible so invest in some before you give this a try.

Pin it for later:

Have a wonderful day! Patty

One Monthly Goal - October Finish Link-up

Ready to link up your October finishes?

Don't panic - this link-up is open until October 31 at 11:55 pm ET.

My goal for October was to turn my tiny piecing blocks into a quilt top.  I'm well into the quilting stage and can't wait to share a photo of the full quilt finish.  Until then, miles of stitching to go before I am done!

Now its your turn to link-up.

There will be three winners this month - Fat Quarter Shop is offering a $25 gift certificate, Quilters Planner is offering a 2020 planner, and Mary Hertel of Made by Marney is offering a copy of her pattern 3 Dogs and 1 Sassy Cat.

Congratulations Sharon, Jan & Lisa - our lucky winners for October.  (updated 11/22)

Visit the One Monthly Goal event page for the specific requirements for links and social tags. 

And remember, to be eligible for the prize(s) by random drawing you must linkup at both the goal setting and the accomplishment linkup in a given month. (October Goal Setting Link-up.)

Make sure you add a link to this OMG post so others can follow where you are linking.   Let's make that easy -  just paste this into your post:  

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal - October Finish Link-up

Sign up to receive email notifications when the One Monthly Goal linkup is open.  Think of it as a helpful reminder!  Joining the link-up from Instagram -see the tutorial.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Tiny Piecing Progress

This summer, I had the absolute pleasure to take a class from Chawne Kimber where I absolutely fell in love with tiny piecing.

My technique is to sew together strips of fabric roughly 6'' wide and then subcut them down into my chosen width.

Earlier this month I shared two of the blocks I made from 1'' wide strips.  Making a square spiral was a lot of fun and I love the way it looks from the front and especially from the back!

My quilt top is assembled and I am now in the process of densely quilting with straight-ish lines.  On the left of this photo, they quilting lines are 1/4'' apart.  On the right of this photo, they are 1/2'' apart.

Given that the fabric stripes are 1/8'' apart, I'm thinking the quilting needs to get that dense as well.  Those colorful spirals also hold soooooooooo much fabric that the quilting needs to be dense enough to support it.

But first, I've got a million threads to bury before I go back for another round of stitching.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Mini Quilt Show

In my local MQG chapter, we've spent several meetings this year talking to members on the elements of modern quilting.  In June, we issued a challenge to make (or finish) a small quilt that uses an element of modern quilting and bring them to our October meeting.

The result?  Our own mini quilt show!

To display the quilts, we used this quilt stand (affiliate link) and clipped a large bed sheet to the top.  The quilts were then pinned to the bed sheet.  One quilt was also clipped to the back of a chair when our display stand was full.

It was great fun to stand and look at the quilts and admire all the great work.

Members were then given the opportunity to make the tough selection for our Viewer's Choice award.  (Since I was counting the votes, I choose not to vote myself.  I was happy when my quilt got some votes!)

I used this great tutorial for our award ribbon.

Image credit: Triangle MQG.   Maker's are identified in this Instagram photo

That's me and my quilt in the front row, second from the left.  As it turns out, my sweater matched my quilt perfectly!

The challenge and our mini quilt show made for a fun meeting!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Leftover Geese

Earlier this year, I made a quilt for my sister which held 50 geese in honor of her big decade birthday.   (You can read more about the quilt called Special here.)

Since I made the geese via the 4 at a time method and wanted a variety of color, I had extra geese.  So I made a table runner!

I love the way it turned out!  As I did in the quilt, I choose to highlight some of the geese with some hand quilting.

The runner measures 16'' x 36''.   It is likely a gift.  Although, I really like it so I might just gift it to me!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

September Temperatures

I'm a bit late posting my September update to my 2019 temperature quilt.  I realized a mistake in how the columns in August had been sewn on so I had to un-stitch both August and September and then reassemble.  Whew!  All good now!

The first two columns are January and the last two are September 1-15 and then September 16-30.

As you can see, while the distribution is different, the temperatures compare relatively well year to year.  Perhaps a few more days in the 90s in 2019 but they were spread out a bit throughout the month. 

Looking ahead a bit to October, I am very excited that we actually had a 100 degree day!!!!  The official thermometer as recorded at the RDU airport read 100 degrees for all of 10 minutes but that is enough to count.   I'm really loving all the variety in October already through the first week or so.  Looks to be a colorful month and can't wait to share!

Here is a mapping of the colors.

There are so many temperature quilts popping up and I love them.  I wrote up a tutorial on a temperature quilt if you are interested.  In addition, Anina is running a 2019 QAL!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Mosaic Mystery QAL

While most of the quilts I make are my original design, I still really love participating in QALs.  It is fun to be sewing along with other people.  Plus it is nice to just sit and sew without thinking too much!

The Mosaic Mystery QAL is being hosted by Cheryl from Meadow Mist Designs.  I've done her mysteries in the past - in fact for this years quilt, I'm using the leftovers from the 2017 QAL (see that quilt)!

Fabric is Painter's Palette solids and the colors are Frolic, Cadet, and Aluminum.

The September blocks were the little 'house' blocks shown above.

For October, the clue was to make some Square in a Square blocks.  I had fun playing with possible layouts below.

As always, I am downsizing the blocks to end up with a wall hanging instead of a larger quilt.  Because my version of the SiaS block needed to be 3 1/2'', I actually paper pieced them for greater accuracy and less frustration!


Have a wonderful day! Patty

Kinship flimsy

I was excited to assemble my Kinship blocks to see if my master color plan worked.  The Kinship QAL is this year's #100Days100Blocks2019 QAL hosted by Angie at GnomeAngel.

I am very happy with this!

In total, I made 13 blocks.  The patterns has blocks that finish 4'' and 8'' which gives you the opportunity to play and create your own layout.  My quilt measures 24'' square.

I created my color plan ahead of time by redrawing the 13 blocks in EQ7 so I could play with layout and color. 

As you can see, I deviated a bit from my original plan.  After all the blocks were made, colors mapping to my plan, I really didn't like the color balance of the blocks in the lower right corner.  So I remade them, retaining just a little bit of the purple.

I want to continue to experiment with quilting and am planning a combination of hand quilting and machine quilting.

This year's event is based on a pattern called Kinship 100 Block Fusion Sampler written by GnomeAngel and Skyberries.  I highly recommend this pattern - the blocks are fun, usual, and the instructions are very well written.  More information here on the overall QAL page.)  (affiliate link)

Have a wonderful day! Patty

My Hand Pieced Pumpkin Patch

Happy October!

It's pumpkin season!

I dug into my October colored scraps - you know, the oranges, deep yellows and browns - and hand pieced a bunch of pumpkins.

My pumpkin flimsy is done!  The quilt is basted and ready for some hand quilting.  I've got a hand sewing social with some guild members this weekend and will bring this project along!

You can find cutting instructions for differing size pumpkins plus the overall basic block tutorial on hand piecing pumpkins to make your very own quilt top.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Kinship QAL - Blocks 81, 91 and 94

My goal for the  #100Days100Blocks2019 QAL hosted by Angie at GnomeAngel was to tackle a subset of the 100 blocks.   I decided to make blocks that feature flying geese.

I also decided to really play with color.

Here are my final 3 blocks - 81, 91 and 94.

They join all these other colorful blocks -   4, 12, 25 and 27...

...... 41, 44, and 46........

and 57, 64, and 65.

This year's event is based on a pattern called Kinship 100 Block Fusion Sampler written by GnomeAngel and Skyberries.  The pattern is very well written and I'd recommend you check it out!

For more information, visit the overall QAL page.  (affiliate link)

Now time to assemble the flimsy!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

One Monthly Goal - October Link-up

Welcome to October!  We had 76 goals linked up for September - lets see what this month brings!  

New to One Monthly Goal?  Welcome!  To join, share a photo of your project, some words about what you want to accomplish in a blog post, an Instagram post (tutorial) or a post on Flickr and add that photo to the link-up.  Return at the end of the month and share your results.  You can read about the event and the rules on the main event page.


We have wonderful sponsors this month - three (3) winners will be randomly chosen from those that link up in both the goal and the finish event. 

Fat Quarter Shop offers a tremendous selection of fabric, notions, books and just about anything you will need for your project. Consider their Sew Sampler box to receive a monthly surprise delivery of fabric and fun.  Fat Quarter Shop is offering a $25 gift certificate to one lucky participant.


The Quilters Planner has everything you need to organize and keep track of the work, personal and  quilting parts of your life to decrease your stress and increase your creativity.  The Quilter’s Planner also comes with a gorgeous magazine filled with inspirational quilting projects for you to sew.  New for 2020, are four different calendar formats and other options to optimize your planner.  The Quilter's Planner is offering one 2020 planner to a lucky participant.  (I've owned a Quilter's Planner for 3 years and have already ordered mine for 2020!)

I am excited to introduce this month's featured designer - Mary Hertel of Made by Marney.  

Mary, who goes by the nickname "Marney" designed paper pieced patterns inspired by her love of nature, animals and the many years she spent teaching children's art.   Make sure you take a moment to scroll through all the available patterns in the Made by Marney shop - you can purchase individual blocks or entire patterns.  Each of her designs is adorable. 

Mary has authored 3 books - Sew Cute & Clever Farm and Forest Friends, Cut & Clever Totes, and Sew Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.  Each of these books comes with a collections of blocks to choose from and mix and match to the design of your choice!

Photo and quilt credit: Made by Marney - 3 Dogs and 1 Sassy Cat, Dinosaur Quilt, Cute & Clever Totes, and part of the Boo Collection.   Find all her patterns in her Etsy shop.

Visit Mary Hertel of Made by Marney on her blog, on Instagram, on Facebook, and in her store. Mary is offering a copy of her pattern 3 Dogs and 1 Sassy Cat to a lucky participant.  (The pattern will be mailed to a US address and sent digitally elsewhere.)

My goal for October is turn these blocks into a quilt top.  I've got two made and the photo shows the right side of one and the back side of another.  So fun!

Now it is your turn to link up - what is your goal for this month?  (A goal could be to finish a quilt but it could also be to attach a binding.  Whatever it takes to help you move forward and make progress on your projects!  And as long as the project involves making something with a needle and/or fabric, you can link up!)

Make sure you visit the One Monthly Goal event page for the specific requirements for links and social tags.  Your blog post (or Flickr post) must contain a photo of your project, a clearly stated goal and a link back to Elm Street Quilts.  Your Instagram post must include a photo of your project, a clearly stated goal and the tag #onemonthlygoal.  (Entries which don't contain the required information may be disqualified.)

And remember, to be eligible for the prize(s) by random drawing you must linkup at both the goal setting and the accomplishment linkup in a given month.   (The One Monthly Goal accomplishment linkup will be available on October 25.)

Make sure you add a link to this OMG post so others can find the OMG link-up from your blog.  Let's make that easy -  just paste this into your post:  

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal October Link-up.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thanks for linking up!

Have a wonderful day! Patty