QUILTsocial | Issue 07

Sewing the Y seam
Before we get started, let me show
you a picture of a Y seam so you can
understand what I'm talking about.
You can see in the picture below that
there are three different seams that
come together and they look like the
letter Y, hence the name – Y seams.
A Y seam
Setting up the sewing machine
This time, I'm going to use the Quilter's
¼" Piecing Foot. This foot has red lines
on it that mark the pivot points and in
the case of the Y seams, the start and
end of each seam. I love this foot. No
guesswork is needed. I can easily snap
that foot onto the presser foot ankle of
the Sapphire 960Q.
I'm going to choose a straight stitch and
make sure that my stitch length is set to 2.0.
I don't want those seams coming apart.
The FIX function makes it easy to stitch
these Y seams. A normal seam runs right
off the edge of our quilt blocks and in
most cases, another row of stitching will
close off the end securing that line of
stitching. When sewing a Y seam, you
start ¼" in from the edge of the fabric
and no other seam will touch it to lock
the end of the seam in place. Using
the FIX function will essentially tie off
the ends of the stitching, both at the
beginning and the end of the seam. A
very useful function!
The FIX function will tie off the beginning and the
end of each seam to secure the ends
In the photo below, I'm about to start
the first seam. I've taken two of the
blocks and placed them right sides
together. Keep in mind that the line of
stitching you see in the photo is the
basting to secure the three layers of
the block.
I'll use the red lines on the presser foot as
a guide so I can start my seam ¼" in from
the top of the fabric and using the edge
of the foot as my ¼" guide, I'll be sewing a
¼" seam. I hit FIX and the Sapphire 960Q
will tie off the beginning of the seam.
I'll then sew the remainder of the ¼"
seam until I get to within ¼" at the end
of the seam. Again, I can use the red
lines on the presser foot to guide me. I'll
use the FIX function once more to tie off
the end of that seam.
I now have the first seam for the cube
cushion that starts and stops ¼" away
from the top and bottom of the blocks.
Use the FIX function and the red lines as a guide
to start the seam ¼" from the top of the block.
Use the FIX function and the red lines as a guide
to end the seam ¼" from the bottom of the block.
Sew four blocks together in a row using
the same technique as outlined above.
Then join the first and last block together
using the same technique to get a
square with your blocks. Now we have to
add the top and the bottom.
Adding the top and bottom of the
cube cushion
For this next part, I found it easier if I
removed the extension table from the
Sapphire 960Q. It just gave me more
room to maneuver the project. I'm
going to place the right side of one of
the remaining two blocks right sides
together with any one of the blocks in
my loop of four blocks.
Match up the corners. I'm going to sew
the exact same seam (beginning and
ending ¼" from the edge of the block)
as I did to join the first set of four blocks.
Because the seams don't extend all the
way to the edge of the blocks, this is an
easy task.
Adding the top of the cube
You can see below that the ends of each
seam are just touching, but they're not
overlapping each other. Remember that
that line of stitching right at the edge is
the basting stitch which holds the three
layers of each block together. Without
that basting stitch, it would be very
difficult to stitch these cube cushions.
Ends of the seams are touching, but not overlapping
Q
.com
UILTsocial
| issue 7 53