Trim a Little to Gain a Lot
We all try to create quilts with accuracy in our cutting and piecing, for excellence in our finished products as well as avoiding waste. With environmental conscientiousness growing, we try to minimize unnecessary fabric use, not to mention wasting money on yardage that gets cut away during piecing.
Yet many patterns call for cutting patches larger on purpose, then trimming them down to the correct size! I was skeptical of this practice, feeling that taking care during construction should result in perfectly finished quilt blocks. But I have found that trimming definitely can enhance accuracy and therefore the visual appeal of the finished quilt!
In a perfect world, all pieces of a block would be cut exactly on the planned dimensions, seams would be a consistent, unwavering 1/4 inch, and pressing seams to one side would never result in even a thread’s width of extra fabric moving to that side.
In reality, fabric may shift slightly when it is cut. seams may get slightly narrower or wider as they are moved through the sewing machine and pressing physically has to reduce slightly from the finished block width. After all, fabric is being pressed over the seam below it!
While designing a block for a quilt recently, I was stitching five 2-1/2 inch wide strips together using 1/4 inch seams. The finished strip-set should have been 10-1/2 inches wide. But it wasn’t! It was only 10-1/4 inches due to inevitable slight losses during pressing, etc.
Does it matter? It depends on the pattern. If these blocks were to be stitched to slightly longer blocks, they would have to be stretched to fit, resulting in buckling, warping, wrinkling and other undesirable deviations. Better to trim the larger block, if possible, to fit the strip set!
Similarly, after piecing a block, place it on a cutting mat to check if the dimensions are as predicted. Trimming off the excess from edges here and there can result in clean, straight edges that will interlock near perfectly when being stitched together.
Trimming can seem tedious, block by block taking a tiny amount of the edges, but the result is far greater accuracy in piecing the quilt top to be flat and without waviness or puckering!
I am now a fan of trimming to size because of the improved accuracy and satisfaction it brings while sewing the quilt top to as near to perfection as possible while minimizing fabric loss.