Wednesday, February 2, 2011

In The Ditch

I can hear all of you in all those snowy places groan when you hear that phrase.  For me though, here in South Florida it means something totally different...though still somewhat tedious.

I'm talking about stitching in the ditch.  Very boring,eye crossing work; especially when it's a huge quilt and there is tons of it to do.  Certainly not the fun part of quilting, but oh so necessary  in my view.  I think of it as the "bones" of a good quilting plan.  Once it is done, then I can go back and do the other stuff...the fun stuff.

Here's a before shot..and yes, there is a tad bit of extra fullness in this top. With this much piecing, it's hard not to end up with a little fullness.



And then after stitching in the ditch...



Huge difference! And it helps me contain that extra fullness rather than pushing it around to another area that ends up making things worse.

Tedious, but necessary.  Two more days of it to do too...but then it'll be time for the fun stuff!
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9 comments:

  1. Deb HardmanFebruary 2, 2011 at 11:35 AM

    I agree, SITD is not fun at all, but necessary. Kind of like Mammograms & PAP smears!

    It really looks pretty already! Now you get to have fun!

    I'm having skipping stitch issues on one particular Batik fabric right now. That's no fun either!

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  2. ElaineFebruary 2, 2011 at 11:51 AM

    Looks great! I can't wait for the fun stuff. I enjoy what you do.

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  3. EmmaFebruary 2, 2011 at 12:11 PM

    Wow, that's a terrific example of the difference it makes! Several times I've thought one of my quilts needed ditching, but not done it, then decided after quilting everything else that I really needed to. It's even worse having to go back and do it, becasue there's no fun quilting to look forward to!

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  4. TerriFebruary 2, 2011 at 12:24 PM

    It's amazing how good it looks just from the ditch stitching. This looks like a beautiful quilt and I'm betting it will be stunning after you work your magic.

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  5. Vicki WFebruary 2, 2011 at 12:48 PM

    I actually like doing SID on the longarm! I think it makes a huge difference and I hate seeing quilts with lots of lovely stitching and no SID. I know that often that it's a customer decision, not the longarmer's.

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  6. Connie RoseFebruary 2, 2011 at 7:06 PM

    Awesome quilt, Deb!

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  7. HettieFebruary 3, 2011 at 12:32 AM

    I think you chose the best quilt as example to show the importance of S.I.T.D
    Looks stunning as is already

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  8. MaryFebruary 3, 2011 at 12:59 PM

    Is this one of your tops? I don't like and rarely ever do any SID but now that I've decreased the number of donation tops I'm quilting maybe I'll practice doing some.

    Somehow it doesn't surprise me that VIcki likes to do it....

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  9. Kim SFebruary 3, 2011 at 2:06 PM

    I like Vicki W like doing SID.... I find it relaxing :-0 What batting are you using????

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

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