Serpentine Stitch: Can’t Live Without It
I hope you’ve discovered the serpentine stitch on your sewing machine. I could not do without it.
The serpentine stitch makes a pretty, wavy line. You just sew straight and the machine does all the work. It’s the bomb. I use the serpentine stitch for machine quilting with a walking foot. It’s easy and it looks terrific.
Serpentine stitch
I stretch out the bumps or hills for my purposes. You can do this by increasing the stitch length, or by using the plus “+” button, if you have it. Not all machines will be exactly the same for this, so you’ll want to experiment. I like the bumps to be about 5/8″ apart. A little more or a little less would be fine. In the photo below, some of the hills are tighter than others, but it still looks all right.
On this quilt, I used variegated thread. Don’t be concerned that the thread colors match the quilt colors exactly. This quilt has greens, reds and turquoise, but the thread is red, orange and purple—it looks great!
Don’t stress about how to handle the corners. Engage the needle-down feature if you have it. When you come to a corner, slow down and pivot, checking to see that your walking foot is in position to continue down the next side. Off you go!
This corner shows you where I started and how I finished. Begin near a seamline and secure with a few tiny stitches in place. Then quilt around the sides continuously, moving out a bit with each round. Remember to leave some space unquilted for the binding. When you come to the end of the final line of quilting, just sew right off the edge of the quilt as shown above.
Baby Windmills by Diane Harris. Photo by Kristen Laing Photography.
The first time, you might try this on a baby quilt or a charity project. I think you’ll come to use it often, as I do.
Serpentine stitch used on an Asterisk quilt, a Karen Griska design.
Tags: how-tos, machine quilting, serpentine