Hiding knots????

What Debra said! Your knot needs to be small enough to go through the top layer and disappear into the batting, where it is held; but large enough to hold fast in the batting. Your wife will find that holding the top fabric taut will help get the little knot down into the batting; and it needs a quick pull (like a little jerk?), rather than a slow steady one. Hope she has lots of fun. There are quite a few hand quilters around here. . In message , Bill writes

The same happens at the end of a thread. You make a little knot, put the needle between the layers and pull it through, "popping" the knot into the batting. Then snip the thread and the end disappears from view. I often do a three thread wrapped french knot, to get it close to the top then dive the needle into the next stitch and out on the line of stitching.

I was told ( and it seems to make sense) always to start and stop _on_ the line of stitching. This is to ensure that the knots and trails of thread are always a) hidden by the stitches above and b) nipped tight by subsequent stitching over the same area.

Hope this helps. Keep practising, it soon becomes second nature.

Nel (Gadget Queen)

Patti wrote:

the best thing i learned at Houston this year was how to knot my needle better than i'd been doing. i used to just wrap it round my finger and roll it off, made one messy knot, ewwwww. heres how i learned from the lady at the sit down quilt frame, way cool and it really worked. works with either hand too, i use my right to hold and left to wrap...thats just me tho.

hold threaded needle 'point up' between thumb and pointer finger. put end of thread 'point down' alongside the needle. using thread closest to the needle, wrap it round the needle three times. then lay that end 'down' alongside the needle. keep holding tightly as you pull the needle out right to the end and you've got a lovely knot. i was so thrilled to now have a knot that wasnt messy like i'd always had to fiddle with before i could use it. i do hope that makes some sense.

oh and sometimes i have to wiggle the needle thru the batting a bit so it holds in there, depends on the batting i think, then "POP" the knot in to start my stitching. do the same at the end of a line of stitching too, Bill. :) cheers, jeanne

Howdy!

I don't make a knot at the finishing end; I back-sew a couple of stitches, then run the needle under a couple of stitches to hide that thread in the batting. For the beginning knot I roll the thread around my finger like in the olden days when I learned to hand-sew. Winding that thread around the needle takes 5 seconds too long for me. Either way a tiny knot pops into the fabric sandwich and disappears. A too-tiny knot comes right back out... . LOL

Cheers! Good luck to the quilting wife!

Happy New Year!

Ragmop/Sandy

Another thing you can do, especially on long straight lines of quilting, is to cut a thread about twice as long as you normally use. Pull it halfway through on the first stitch, leaving a long tail, no knot. Quilt forward until you use up the first half of the thread, make a little knot, bury in the batting like Nel said. Then thread the long tail into the needle and quilt the other direction. Roberta in D

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Yes, what Debra said. I finally learned to gauge just how much to tug the thread to pull the knot safely into the batting without having it come all the way back out! Hand quilting is such a pleasure, I need to give myself more of that.

Best of luck to your wife, and I hope you folks will join our little group.