The secret to modern quilting using the straight stitch

In yesterday’s post, I used a short stitch to perfecting align my seams. As time was the essence for this project, I wanted to finish making the table runner in two days, so for quilting, I opted for a simple yet elegant straight line stitch with a solid beige color thread. The use of the beige color quilting thread was perfect again to show off the beautiful Kayana Autumn Color fabrics from Banyan Batiks.

Here is the secret to a straight stitch.

In order to ensure I would not create any distortions while quilting, I started to quilt my first line in the center of the piece. I don’t like to stitch in the ditch, so I align ⅛” – ¼” alongside of the center seam, it helped me to keep a straight line and when quilting the main theme fabric, I simply followed the straight line. It’s ok to use a white fineliner to mark the first line with a ruler if it would make you feel more secure.

Once the initial line is stitched, I need to stitch along each side going in the opposite direction. Meaning starting from the main theme fabric to the block section. I simply used the length of my ¼” foot to align my next stitch… like I said, I was in a hurry to finish this table runner. Once those two lines were quilted, I stitched along each side once again starting from the block sections back to the main theme fabric. Basically, I repeated the same alternating direction quilting until the top was all quilted.

The next step was to cut off all the excess backing and batting. I used my rulers to do so aligning with the seams from my block to ensure I squared off the piece perfectly.

I hope you enjoyed learning my secret to a perfect straight stitch to show off the beautiful Kayana Autumn Color fabrics from Banyan Batiks. Come back tomorrow, I’ll show how I made the binding with alternating fabric for a perfect finish.