Hungry Sewing Machine~ Part 2

In my last post we talked about sewing mini projects and how to avoid having your sewing machine 'eat' your little pieces.  Here are a few more thoughts...

Instead of marking the line on squares if you are making mini flying geese, use a sheet of fine sand paper under your squares, or~

 

I like to use a nail file. I use the straight edge to draw a line.  The file holds down the little piece, and keeps it from distorting.  This works especially well when you just need a couple pieces with lines.

Generally though, I don't draw any lines. :-)  I put a piece of painters tape straight out from my needle on my sewing machine bed and use it to line up the diagonal corners.  Yes, you can purchase all sorts of plastic templates to tape to your machine, but because of where my bobbin is located, I'd have to remove those every time I change a bobbin~ no thanks! ;-)

When you feed the little piece into your machine, start sewing from the largest edge~ in this case it is the straight edge of the flying goose rectangle.  Try to avoid feeding things in from the pointed corner if at all possible~ that is when your machine is most likely to 'eat' the corner.  If you must feed the corner in, doing HST's or something similar, then chain-piecing is your best bet.  Even running a little scrap of fabric ahead of the corner helps to keep things going through smoothly.  Above I am chain piecing the flying geese with the largest part of the white rectangle leading in first. Kind of hard to see that rectangle. :-/

I made these little mug coasters using the above techniques, and the flying geese came out perfect. My machine didn't get a single 'bite'! ;-)  The pattern is from The Patchsmith. 

Do you have any mini tips to share? I'd love to hear them!

Until next time~

Happy Stitchin'!