Monday, January 13, 2020

Jump Stitch Quilting

Want to alleviate the tedium of pulling threads to the top at every start, when the next start is just stitches away? Want to make stitching a quilting design more efficient? Then try jump stitch quilting!


jump stitches used in quilting

For owners of embroidery machines, this should be familiar.
Digitized designs employ 'jump stitches' to get from one area to another in a design. Sometimes the design uses stitches, but most of the time it's a jump stitch. That's un-stitched thread between different design areas, with lock stitches at each end.

In this picture from Brother, USA, the circled areas show how jump stitches are used in this embroidered design. 


brother usa embroidery jump stitches


I'm all about efficiency, so the jump stitch concept really came in handy yesterday when I was quilting overlapping lines. It was far easier to make jump stitches with lock stitches at each end, than to clip threads and start again pulling up and holding threads.

Below shows stitching up to the line, adding lock stitching at the line, then jumping over and restarting, with lock stitches, on the other side.

lock stitches after a jump stitch

Then it's easy to continue the design, 

stitching continued after a jump stitch

and repeat the process in the other direction, creating two jump stitches over the previous quilting.

jump stitches within a design

Since each end is locked, those jump stitches can now be trimmed away, on the front and the back.

removed jump stitches

My design also required some straight lines behind these crossed bars, which meant more jump stitches. Because they're so flat, they're hard to see - just follow the white arrows, which shows half of them.

numerous jump stitches

After stitching, they're all clipped to clean up the design.

clipped jump stitches

And what a time saver! This was so much easier than locking, clipping the threads, moving to the new area, pulling up threads, and locking, just to stitch a few stitches. I could have backtracked to stitch this design, but one thread pass looks much nicer.

So, that's my tip for today - make use of jump stitches in a quilting design to get the needle where it needs to be, and to make more efficient use of quilting time.

Happy Quilting!

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6 comments:

  1. Jump stitches are really helpful. I've used them to save time (and thread), too. Love the quilting you did with the straight lines.

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  2. looks like a good idea for machine quilting

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  3. Hi Susan! To expound on that tip just a little bit, I do this when buttonholing appliqué pieces on my DSM. For example, let's say you have the letter "O" to appliqué. Start in the center or the outside, end the stitching like normal but don't clip the threads. Lift you needle, move over to the new area, lower your needle and take a few stitches. Continue around, end and clip like usual. Then you can pull the appliquéd piece from the machine and clip the threads right away (both sides) OR keep going on to the next letter. In theory, you could do all the appliqué at one time as a jump over. I don't - just on letters that have an inner border that needs to be done. Great tip! ~smile~ Roseanne

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  4. Very cool idea. I've never heard of that before.

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  5. A great tip! Thanks for sharing!

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  6. Great tip! I’ll have to give it a try.

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