Tag Archives: quilting

The Sock Puppet Method: Hand Tensioning a Whole Quilt for Sashiko-Style Stitching

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Sashiko is stitched with no hoop, no frame, and no tensioning bars. None. The only thing holding that fabric steady is a pair of hands, and that works beautifully when you are stitching a coaster or mending the knee of a pair of jeans.

Now try it on a queen sized quilt.

This is a problem we run into constantly, because we stitch sashiko-style quilting across large art pieces and full quilts, and there is simply no way to gather all of that fabric into your hands while you work the middle of it. We solved it years ago with something we call the sock puppet method, and we are going to walk you through it.

But we are not starting there. We are starting with the quilt itself, because hand tensioning only works on a textile that was built to be tensioned. If the fabric underneath you is unstable, no amount of clever hand work will save you.

First, build a stable fabric

This is what we mean by Textile Architecture. You are not just sewing pieces together, you are constructing something that has to hold its shape under load, the same way an architect designs a building to stand up to weather and gravity and time.

Our clothing quilts make the point better than anything else we make. We piece them improv style, but improv here is not a shortcut and it is not chaos for its own sake. The goal is a large piece of patchwork fabric that behaves as a single stable cloth.

Consider what we are actually working with. Garment fabric means the contents can be anything. Organic cotton and linen. Fabric spun from recycled plastic. Fibers that have never once been near a plant. Poly blends, acrylics, and weights that run from heavy canvas and denim all the way down to gauzy little wovens you can see daylight through.

Every one of those behaves differently. They stretch differently, they resist the needle differently, and they will absolutely fight each other if you let them. So we build with a few rules:

  • Spread the weight around. A cluster of denim and canvas in one corner with lightweight wovens everywhere else creates a heavy zone that drags on its neighbors. We distribute the heavier pieces across the whole top so the load is even.
  • Give unstable fabrics a stable neighbor. A loose weave or a stretchy knit-adjacent piece gets surrounded by something with more backbone, rather than being seamed to another piece that is just as willing to move.
  • Watch the grain on improv cuts. Cutting freely means bias edges show up everywhere, and bias stretches where straight grain does not. We are not avoiding bias, we are just paying attention to where it lands and not letting a whole run of bias edges stack up in one seam line.
  • Back the featherweights. When a piece is too light to hold its own against the fabric around it, we back it with muslin before it goes into the top. It joins the party as a stable piece instead of a liability.
  • Press as you go. Every seam, every time. Skipped pressing is where warp sneaks in, and you will not notice until the whole top is together and one section refuses to lie flat.

Get this right and you end up with patchwork that pulls evenly in all directions. Get it wrong and you have a top that warps, and a warped top cannot be hand tensioned. It will pucker somewhere no matter what your hands do.

Then, build a sound sandwich

Not every quilt needs three layers, and we wish more folx knew that.

We both grew up with summer quilts. Two layers, a top and a backing, no middle at all. They were made for exactly the kind of weather where the afternoon is too warm for anything heavy but the night turns cool enough that you want something over you. They drape in a way a three layer quilt never will, they are dramatically faster to stitch through, and they show off hand quilting beautifully because there is no loft competing with the stitch line. If you have been putting off a hand quilted piece because the thought of pushing a needle through batting sounds exhausting, start here.

When we do go with three layers, the middle is rarely what people expect. It might be a reclaimed cotton or blend sheet. It might be draping muslin off the studio roll. Sometimes it is actual batting, or wadding, if you are reading this from somewhere that calls it that.

The backing has the same range. Reclaimed sheets are a favorite, and one of the coziest quilts we have ever made is backed with an old flannel sheet. Muslin works. Wide back quilting fabric works. And on our clothing quilts the backing is pieced too, which means the sandwich has patchwork on both faces and every stability rule above applies twice.

Whatever you choose, the layers need to be compatible with each other. A backing that moves a lot under a top that does not is going to make itself known the moment you start pulling on it.

Now baste it like you mean it

Before a single quilting stitch happens, those layers have to be locked together. This is not optional and it is not the place to rush.

Here is why it matters more for us than for most quilters. When you quilt on a frame or in a hoop, the tension comes from the equipment and the layers are held in a fixed relationship. When you hand tension, you are actively pulling on the quilt, over and over, hundreds of times. Every pull is an opportunity for the layers to shift against each other. Basting is the only thing standing between you and a backing that has quietly crept two inches out of alignment by the time you reach the far border.

We have used pins. We have used powdered glues. We have used most of the basting sprays on the market.

Our favorite we found while we were writing Scrappy Wonky Quilt Block Extravaganza, and we found it the hard way. We were using a traditional spray basting glue, the highly toxic kind, out in the garage with all the doors open and a fan running to move the air. It still caused nausea, dizziness, and headaches. Basting a quilt should not come with a recovery period.

That is when we switched to Roxanne basting spray. No noxious fumes, no headaches, and we can work as long as we need to without feeling like we are going to pass out. No specialized ventilation, no waiting for a dry day so we can drag a quilt sandwich outside. We baste indoors, on the studio floor, whenever we want to. For those of us in the Pacific Northwest, that alone is worth the price of admission.

The stitching: needle, thread, and stitch length

We borrow heavily here from our background in boro and sashiko, the ground we cover in Boro & Sashiko: Harmonious Imperfection and Stitching Sashiko, where we dig into the traditional Japanese methods for mending, reinforcing, and reclaiming fabric. Layer that over years of hand and machine quilting and you get the approach we use to finish these pieces.

Two tools do most of the work.

  • John James Long Darners The length is the whole point. Sashiko is stitched by loading multiple stitches onto the needle before you pull through, and a short needle simply cannot hold enough fabric to make that work. Colonial Needle Company markets these as our sashiko needle of choice for exactly this reason, and it is not marketing on our end, it is what is in our hands every single day.
  • Presencia 12 weight thread A 12wt sits up on the surface of the cloth instead of sinking into it, and that is what gives sashiko its raised, tactile line. It is also mercerized, which matters more than folx realize. Mercerizing makes cotton thread stronger and more dimensionally stable, so the thread holds its position in the stitch line instead of shifting and slipping around as the quilt is handled and washed.

Stitch length is doing quiet structural work here too. Sashiko stitches are longer than what most quilters are used to, and each long stitch spans more of the quilt sandwich, binding the layers across a wider distance with fewer anchor points. Fewer anchors, more distance between them, and the cloth between those anchors is free to lift. That is where the texture comes from.

Because the thread is strong and does not compress or creep, that tension stays where you put it. A weaker or softer thread would let the stitch line slacken over time and the whole surface would go flat. The stitch length gives you the texture and the thread is what makes the texture permanent.

And we will say the obvious thing out loud: running your hands over that raised stitching and the crinkle around it is one of the great tactile pleasures of this work. It is comfort you can feel through your fingertips.

The sock puppet method

Right. The actual technique.

The key to hand tensioning is pulling the fabric taut between your hands so the needle can pierce it cleanly instead of pushing a wobbling piece of cloth around. On a small or lightweight piece, you gather the fabric into your hands and manage the needle and thread at the same time. Easy enough.

On a large, thick quilt, when you are working the middle of the piece, there is no gathering anything. There is just acres of quilt in every direction. So:

  • Bring both hands up underneath the quilt so the cloth is draped over the backs of your hands.
  • Form a puppet mouth with each hand. Fingers on top, thumb below, exactly like the sock puppet you made as a kid. Face the two mouths toward each other. Hello! Hello!
  • Your needle hand keeps the needle throughout, with the eye of the needle seated firmly in the dimples of your Palm Thimble. Do not skip the Palm Thimble. It is not a comfort accessory here, it is the thing that lets you drive the needle while your hands are busy holding tension.
  • Close both puppet mouths onto the fabric.
  • Draw the two puppets away from each other to tension the cloth. Enough force to make it taut, never enough to stretch it. Stretched fabric will relax later and take your stitch tension with it.
  • With the fabric tensioned, bring the quilt up to meet the tip of the needle rather than driving the needle down into the quilt. Angle the needle up or down as you go using the sashiko unshin needle motion.

That last point is the one that trips people up, so it is worth repeating. The needle stays relatively still and the fabric comes to it. You are feeding cloth onto the needle, not stabbing at cloth with a needle.

Pinch, push, pull

On a thick quilt you will only get a few stitches loaded before the needle is full. That is when we switch to what we call Pinch, Push, Pull.

Pinch the fabric to secure it onto the end of the needle. Push the needle forward using the Palm Thimble. Then pull the fabric back over the length of the thread.

That final move, redistributing the fabric along the thread, is a vital part of the process and the step most likely to get skipped. Once the needle is free, pull it all the way through until the thread lies evenly across the surface.

Then lay the quilt flat and smooth it out. You are checking that the fabric and the thread are working at the same tension, with no puckers pulling the surface in and no loops of thread standing proud. Do this as you go rather than at the end, because a section that has gone off tension is a quick fix in the moment and a genuine problem three feet later.

Go build something

None of this is difficult. It is just a sequence, and every step in it supports the one after. Stable patchwork makes a stable sandwich. A well basted sandwich makes hand tensioning possible. Hand tensioning makes the long sashiko stitch possible. The long stitch and a strong thread make the texture, and the texture is why we do any of it.

So build your fabric on purpose, baste it without giving yourself a headache, get a Long Darner in your hand, and go make some puppets say hello.

Stitch On!

Shannon & Jason

▶️ Watch the full video on YouTube here.

📚 Boro & Sashiko: Harmonious Imperfection and Stitching Sashiko here.

🪡 Shop John James Long Darners here.

🧵 Shop Presencia 12wt thread here.

🖐️ Shop Palm Thimbles here.

✨ Shop Roxanne basting spray here.

Roxanne Chalk Marking Pencils: The Game-Changer We Didn’t Know We Needed

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We’ll be honest: we almost overlooked these.

For years, the Roxanne Chalk Marking Pencils sat in our tool kit like wallflowers at a dance—present, but not particularly noticed. We assumed they were just another marking pencil, nothing special, nothing different from the dozens of other chalks and markers cluttering our workspace.

We were so wrong.

It wasn’t until we really dug into what these pencils are made of and why they behave the way they do that we had our revelation. These aren’t just marking tools—they’re problem-solvers, game-changers, and (in the case of that silver pencil) actual unicorns.

Let us explain.

The Problem With Most Marking Tools

If you’ve been making for any length of time, you’ve probably been betrayed by a marking tool. Maybe it was the wax chalk that melted into your quilt when you accidentally hit it with an iron. Or the “disappearing” pen that left a permanent yellow ghost after washing. Or the heat-erasable marker that reappeared the moment your finished project hit cold storage.

We’ve all been there. It’s heartbreaking to spend hours—sometimes days—on a piece, only to have your marking tool leave a permanent scar.

The truth is, most marking tools involve a trade-off:

  • Wax-based chalks are durable and don’t rub off easily, but they can become permanent if heat is applied, and they’re notoriously difficult to remove completely.
  • Heat-erasable pens give you fine lines that vanish with an iron, but they often leave white “ghost” shadows or reappear in cold temperatures.
  • Water-erasable pens are easy to see and precise, but their chemicals can react with detergents to leave permanent yellow or brown stains if not thoroughly rinsed.

It’s a minefield. And for those of us working with precious fabrics, heirloom projects, or pieces destined for exhibition, the stakes are high.

What Makes Roxanne Different: The Chemistry of Clean

Here’s where Roxanne Chalk Marking Pencils break the mold entirely.

  • Pure Chalk, Zero Wax
    Unlike most marking pencils, Roxanne pencils contain **no wax binders**. None. This means marks will never “set” into your fabric if you accidentally iron over them. The chalk stays on the surface of the fibers rather than melting into them.
  • Chemically Inert
    These pencils are mineral-based, not dye-based. There are no chemicals to react with your detergent, no dyes to oxidize over time, no “chemical roulette” that might leave rust-colored stains months after you thought your project was finished. The marks are just chalk—pure, simple, inert.
  • 100% Water Soluble
    Because there’s no wax or chemical binder holding the chalk in place, Roxanne marks brush off easily or disappear completely with a damp cloth. When you’re done stitching, the roadmap vanishes—no ghosts, no shadows, no evidence it was ever there.
  • Archival Quality
    For textile artists concerned about the longevity of their work, Roxanne pencils are acid-free. Your marks won’t degrade or discolor the fabric over time, making them safe for heirloom quilts, museum-quality pieces, and everything in between.

The “Silver Unicorn” & Why It Changed Everything

If you work with dark fabrics—indigo for sashiko, black cottons, navy solids—you know the struggle. Most marking tools are either invisible on dark fabric or rub off the moment your hand touches the surface.

Enter the **Roxanne Silver Pencil**, which we now affectionately call “the unicorn.”

  • It Works on Everything
    The silver pencil uses a light-reflective mineral that creates a metallic sheen on fabric. On dark indigo or black, it glows like a beacon. On light cream or white, it shows as a soft grey. This means you can work across high-contrast patchwork—going from a dark navy sashiko block to bright white cotton—without ever switching tools.

    Let that sink in for a moment. One pencil. All your fabrics.
  • It Survives the Handling
    For sashiko artists and hand quilters, this is critical. The metallic mineral base “grips” the fiber better than standard chalk, staying crisp and visible through the heavy handling that complex stitching requires. We tested this by aggressively rubbing our hand across marked fabric—the Roxanne line stayed sharp while a standard white chalk line nearby smeared into oblivion.
  • It Still Disappears Completely
    Despite its tenacious hold during the stitching process, the moment you’re done, a damp cloth or a quick wash makes it vanish. In the video, you can see the mark literally pop off the fabric with zero effort and zero residue.

It’s magic. Truly.

The Artistic Revelation: Permanent When You Want It

Here’s where things get really exciting for mixed media artists, embroiderers, and textile artists who work freehand.

Because these pencils are water-soluble, you can use them wet—dipping the tip in water and painting directly onto fabric like you would with watercolor pencils or graphite. The effect is soft, blendable, and beautifully artistic.

Once the marks dry, you can heat-set them to make them permanent. Suddenly, these aren’t just marking tools—they’re design tools. You can sketch freehand, shade, blend, and create dimensional effects that become a permanent part of your textile work.

For artists who want to move beyond rigid patterns and embrace spontaneous, organic design, this opens up an entirely new way of working.

The Bottom Line: Confidence in Every Mark

We spent years thinking Roxanne Chalk Marking Pencils were just another option in an overcrowded market. We were wrong.

These pencils solve problems we didn’t even realize we’d been working around:

– The frustration of switching between light and dark fabrics

– The anxiety of wondering if marks will truly disappear

– The heartbreak of accidental permanence

– The limitation of working only from traced patterns

Whether you’re a quilter who needs marks that survive hours of hand-stitching, a sashiko artist working on dark indigo, or a textile artist who wants to sketch and paint directly on fabric, Roxanne Chalk Marking Pencils deliver precision, versatility, and—most importantly—peace of mind.

Mark with confidence. Create with joy. Let Roxanne take care of the rest.

Ready to Try Them Yourself?

👉 Shop Roxanne Chalk Marking Pencils here.

📺Watch the full video demonstration on YouTube to see the silver pencil in action and learn how to use these tools for both temporary marking and permanent artistic effects.

Have you tried Roxanne Chalk Marking Pencils? We’d love to hear about your experience! Share your thoughts in the comments or tag us on social media with your projects.

Stayin’ Sharp!

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There are a vast array of reasons to love rotary cutters. From the easy speed they provide, to the clean edge of the cuts they make, to that smooth slicing sound they make when elegantly gliding through a stack of cotton…yea, that sound… rotary cutters are a crafters best friend. But what if your best friend is no longer fast, clean, or smooth. It’s time for a little intervention.

Just like dull knives in the kitchen, dull tools in your sewing room are a recipe for frustration and accidents. A blunt blade can mean skips, and ragged edges which can result in thread snags and pulls and having to take the time to go back and snip those threads and missed cuts when all we really want to do is sew. In addition, when the blade is dull, we usually compensate by applying more pressure which can lead to hand, wrist, and shoulder pain or injury. And none of us has time for that! The solution? Either out swap the blade (in this economy?!?) or give it a spa day and sharpen it. Yeah. That second one.

While we do keep a stash of spare blades “just in case,” there’s an easy, budget-friendly option: Colonial’s Rotary Blade Sharpener. This magical little tool is like a fairy godparent for your rotary blades—no wand required. Carefully remove your blade, pop it into the sharpener, and give it a few gentle twists. Voilà! The dual grit sides work together to turn back the clock on your blade’s dull days, leaving it sharper, shinier, and ready for action.

The result? Your blades work better, live longer, and stop making you question your crafting life choices. Give it a whirl—you’ll thank yourself, and so will your fabric.

As always, Stitch On!

Shannon & Jason

Glue Basting with Roxanne Glue

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One more product we can’t seem to live without!

Greetings makers, crafters, and creators! Today, we’re diving into another group of Colonial Needle Company products to cover a sticky subject: glue. Specifically, glue basting with the Roxanne Baste-It family of glue.

Glue basting is a technique where you apply a thin line of water-soluble glue along the seam allowance or cut edges of fabric pieces to hold them in place before sewing. This allows for precise piecing, perfect points, and smooth curves. It is especially useful for boro, finishing quilts, and a manner of appliqué – completely removing the need for pins.

How to use Roxanne Basting Glue in Four Easy Steps:

  1. Simply apply a fine line of glue
  2. Line up the fabric pieces
  3. Press with a hot iron to set (this step is not always required–as you will see in our video)
  4. Then sew as usual.

Key points about glue basting:

  • Application:
    Roxanne Baste-It comes in a wide variety of container sizes and shapes to suit any purpose. From the spreadable 2-Way applicator to small pipettes and dab on applicators. And the Roxanne Glue Stick glides on smoooooooooth as silk without gumming up your fabric and needles. You choose which glue is best for your project and where to place it.
  • Heat setting:
    Although not required, a hot dry iron can be used to quickly set the glue and further ensure there is no shifting once the placement decisions have been made. Once set, you can easily sew without worrying about shifting seams or fabrics, even when rough handling of the fabric such as for hand quilting, sashiko, and boro.
  • Portability:
    Baste-It products come in easy to store and access sizes. You can take your handwork projects with you whether you’re traveling across the city or just to your sofa for the evening
  • Basting Glue Benefits:
    Say good-by to pins! Baste-It glues reduce the need for pins and clips, making sewing faster and smoother. Especially hand sewing. No fussing to work around pins and no stuck fingers!

Improves accuracy and precision in piecing, especially for points and curves.

Especially well-suited for appliqué, where you need precise placement of fabric edges.

The Roxanne Glue Stick is our go-to for placing boro patches and visible mending patches prior to sewing down. Watch the boro section of our video for how we create boro inspired fabrics as well as some examples of our work.

Baste-It Glue won’t leave a mark on your delicate creations. All of the Roxanne glues are non-staining and wash away completely with ease!

How we use glue basting for different techniques:

  • Boro and Visible Mending:
    Boro Stitching
    Apply a thin layer of glue to the patch and adhere to base fabric, adjusting your placement as necessary. Then stitch down. We love the Roxanne Glue Stick because it glides on smoothly and the patches stay where we place them…until we decide we want them someplace else. Or… someplace else again. But then they stay put!
  • Quilt Binding and Bias Tape: After sewing on your binding to one side of the quilt, fold the fabric over the edge and apply a layer of glue. Press with a hot, dry iron to set, then hand stitch or machine sew the remaining seam down. No clips or pins needed; you don’t have to worry about that binding shifting. Our video features a no worries technique for making fabric tape with Roxanne Basting Glue.
  • Curved seams: Apply a thin line of glue along the curved edge, carefully folding and shaping the fabric edge.
  • Appliqué: Glue the edges of your appliqué piece to the base fabric, ensuring smooth edges and precise placement. Then use your favorite visible or invisible appliqué stitch for attaching. Be sure to watch the video for our tip for sharp corners on those appliqué pieces.

That’s all for now! Let us know if you want a recommendation for which glue is best for your project or share your favorites with us. And remember to check back for more about our fav products from Colonial Needle Company as well as projects and tutorials that show how we use this all-encompassing line of products in our studio.

Keep up with the Colonial Needle Company on their social media channels and YouTube.

You can find us at shannonandjason.com and on our Instagram and Facebook pages we are @embracethecreativechaos.

Which CNC products do YOU have questions about? Let us know and we might just feature your question in a future video or post.

Until then…STITCH ON!!

Shannon & Jason

Using the CNC Palm Thimble for Big Stitch Quilting

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It’s no secret that we have a special place in our hearts for scrappy quilting and we carry just as bright of a torch for hand quilting with sashiko style stitches. We have done our fair share of machine quilting on our domestic machine (as in our latest book Scrappy Wonky Quilt Block Extravaganza) but nothing comes close to the texture of a hand stitched sashiko style running stitch. For our last couple of projects, we have used the new palm thimble from Colonial Needle Company to make this process even easier and certainly more enjoyable for us. We certainly still use this versatile thimble for all of our sashiko projects and mending but it is a game changer for big stitch quilting. Paired with the John James long darners, and Presencia 12 weight thread held double, the combo is a hand quilter’s dream team.

Now you might want to sit down for this part because we are going to say something controversial.

But stick with us.

Here goes: we don’t like buying new fabric.

<insert gasps here>

We know… who doesn’t like perusing racks and aisles of freshly bolted fabrics in immeasurable variations of color, prints, solids, weave, and content types? We do like looking at them but purposely buying yardage is reserved for specific projects like garments and quilts that require a certain type of fabric or unifying fabric such as a single background color. But, when it comes to every day stitching and projects, we like to shop the flat fold and odd cuts section of our fabric store. More than once we have absolutely raided the clothing and fabric piles at tag sales and the 50¢ racks at thrift stores are not safe from us. Everything comes home and goes into a sanitizing wash and is pressed before disassembling into large pieces of flat fabric. This process of rescuing and repurposing found fabric is almost magical to us and we love the textiles they create.

Our latest joy has been working on our clothing quilts. We made a clothing quilt a while back for a charity auction and NEEEEEDED one of our own. For our personal clothing quilt, we sourced all of the fabric from our own garments which wasn’t exactly difficult considering we don’t throw away anything that even remotely resembles fabric. We sorted through bags and boxes of “old” clothes, the mending pile (from which we used anything that had been in there for longer than a year), and clothes that didn’t fit anymore or weren’t exactly suited to us anymore.

As a result, assembling and quilting this piece has been a walk down memory lane. That purple plaid flannel shirt that Shannon used to wear hiking when we took the Shibakidz everywhere with us. The stripped “designer label” button up that was a gift from one of us to the other when we were first married (that was thirty years ago, y’all) and both of us wore as a throw on top layer until it was pretty threadbare. Jason’s red western shirt he used to wear when we went dancing, the fancy shirt he used to wear to teach in. All of these bring back memories of times and places as we assemble them into new textile panels and create this quilt that will live with and beyond us.

The esthetics of this type of fabric cannot be ignored. The amazing feel of these newly created textiles as they move through our hands. The feel of the needle slipping through the layers of fabric and batting. The crinkle (if you know… you KNOW) of the fabric after a section of stitches are completed. And the weight and density of the layers of fabric and batting is like nothing else.

Overall, the process of making a clothing quilt is very different from a patterned quilt made using more traditional quilting cottons off the bolt. The top is pieced together with panels of individual framed improv motifs and larger sections of fabric as well as smaller scrap pieces tucked in to fill space. The back is large panels put together with as few seams as possible to make the quilting easier so the needle doesn’t have to go through too many odd seams at a time. The batting is organic cotton from Hobbs batting pieced together from leftover panels from our last quilting book. Every piece and seam is thought out and considered as part of the whole and serves to create the intricate decoration of the quilt but also is a meditative practice for us where we disregard any of the outside <waves arms about wildly> stuff-n-things that put our nerves on edge. We can, for a time, immerse ourselves in the physical sensation of the weight of the fabric, the feel of the fabric texture, and the ssshhhhhhp sound of the thread being pulled through the quilt layers.

Did this turn into a love letter to fabric quilts and hand stitching? Probably. Do we suddenly feel compelled to go sit and stitch on our quilt again? Definitely. So yeah… gotta go.

But seriously, we hope this inspires you to consider using found fabric for at least one project this year. There is so much joy in repurposing fabrics and in giving them new life while giving our planet a little bit of a break from just that much more fashion and textile waste. Now, really, it’s time for a cup of tea and some ssshhhhhhp, ssshhhhhhp.

– Shannon & Jason

*For a video tutorial of using the CNC Palm Thimble for Big Stitch Quilting, see our YouTube video:

When Disaster Strikes: Repairing A Thread Break

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We’ve all been through it: You have a favorite quilt, it’s been with you through thick and thin, more like a cozy confidante than a mere blanket. But suddenly, disaster strikes! A quilting line breaks, literally threatening the very fabric of your cozy companion. Now, you could take it to a professional, but is that really necessary? It’s like sending your best friend to therapy when all they need is a one-on-one chat over coffee. Hand sewing quilt repairs is like giving your quilt a little spa day—it’s personal, it’s intimate, and let’s face it, you get to bond with your quilt on a whole new level, whispering sweet nothings to it as you stitch, ensuring that it’ll keep you warm and cozy for many more slumber sessions and rainy afternoons to come. So, grab a needle and thread, and let the healing stitches begin!

Quilting lines break… regardless of what thread you use or the tension you stitch with, sometimes it just happens. And when it does happen, it’s a simple process to repair that line and keep the damage to a minimum. We re-check our quilts for thread breaks before cleaning or before putting them up for the season and make quick mends before they become bigger problems.

For this video, we were repairing a random quilting thread break from one of the quilts from our new book Scrappy Wonky Quilt Block Extravaganza before it shipped out for a trunk show.

How To Repair A Thread Break

Our Video Tutorial can be found here.

Tools Needed:

  1. Thread pick or tweezers (for taking control of those unruly threads)
  2. Sewing machine (for the fast and furious fix)
  3. Matching colored thread (of course we’ll keep it stylish)
  4. Needle threader (for those tiny eye-of-the-needle challenges)
  5. Good hand sewing needles (because not all needles are created equal, dah-lings!)
    – We use the John James Signature Collection Between, size 11. If you like Sharps better they will work great here too.

For quilts where one line of stitching has broken (i.e. the bobbin thread broke on the back as shown in our video) the steps are simple and straightforward as long as you take it one step at a time. First things first, let’s tie off the existing ends of the thread.

Now, onto the grand performance of quilt surgery!

1.Untangle Any Mess: On the backside of your quilt, delicately unpick the rebellious thread in both directions. We need enough thread to secure the line, tie a knot, and tuck it away discreetly—about 4–5 inches should do the trick.

2. Making the Cut: Cut the remaining thread on the top side of your fabric, again you need at least 4–5 inches, more if you can manage it… pull this through to the back. Thread both the top and bottom threads through your needle (needle threader to the rescue here) and finish the stitch on the backside, stitching through the back fabric alone.

3. The Disappearing Trick: Tie a knot roughly 1/4” from that last stitch. Then, like a skilled magician, make that knot disappear by inserting your needle into the fabric coming out an inch or two away from the insertion point and gently tug the end until the until the knot vanishes into the fabric. Snip off any excess thread and repeat the process for the other side. TA-DAA!

4. Time for Round Two: Now, let’s sew that quilting line back! Using a thread that matches the existing one, re-sew the quilt line, making sure to start and stop about 1 stitch length away from the original start/stop points. Leave plenty of thread for finishing touches and tying off—doing this last stitch by hand means your quilt fix will be invisible… even to your MIL or that one member of your guild who loves to point out everyone’s mistakes.

Bonus Tip: We always keep track of the fabric type and brand, the batting type and brand, and the thread brand, type, and color number. This allows us to make fixes later if necessary. It is not a bad idea to add a label to your quilts with this information on it… because who can remember where they put that notebook anyway? Which Dropbox folder was it in?

Label your quilts folx!

5. The Finishing Flourish: Finish the last stitch on the top by hand, then pull through to the back ensuring it cozies up next to the bobbin thread. Thread both top and bobbin threads through the needle, then tie them off with a knot or make a series of small backstitches next to the existing quilt line (it’s in the video), whichever tickles your quilting fancy.

6. The Grand Finale: Bury those thread tails like buried treasure, with or without a knot, and repeat the process for the other side. And just like that, your quilt is ready to snuggle into its rightful place—be it on your bed, on your favorite reading chair, or safely tucked away until its next grand adventure!

While you have that John James Signature Collection needle out, now would be a good time to add that quilt label we mentioned… just saying…

And there you have it, folx! Quilt repair made easy-peasy. Give this a shot with your next thread break and you’ll feel like a thread whisperer extraordinaire!

STITCH ON!!
Shannon & Jason

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