Staging Your Patchwork

By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador

I noticed something the other day about the way I was staging my patchwork. Do you know what I mean by staging?

Staging is what you do to get ready. When there’s a parade, for instance, there’s a staging area. All the bands and floats and animals line up and get ready for the parade in the staging area.

It makes sense that the staging area is somewhere off to the side, but not too far off, right? If the bands and floats and animals have to travel too far to get to the parade site, things are bound to come unglued.

Staging your patchwork is the same in many ways. I had never thought much about this until recently when I was sewing some tricky units (not the easy ones shown here). I’ve been sewing for decades but this just occurred to me, so maybe it will help someone else, too.

I had been staging my patchwork—getting the patches lined up precisely so that I was ready to sew—way off to the side of the machine. Suddenly it hit me that were I to move everything closer in, the tricky units would be more likely to stay put.

You might be wondering if pinning might accomplish the same thing, and yes, it probably would. But if you’re making 800 of these units, pinning takes up a lot of extra time.

I have generally learned to piece accurately without pinning so I’m always looking for ways to help me do that, and in this case I found one.

It’s this simple: move your staging area closer to the machine. It sounds too easy, right? I agree. I was surprised, though, at how much difference it made. Everything stayed exactly as I had lined it up, because the distance I traveled to the needle was so short.

As a bonus, it saves time. You line up the patches and boom, you’re right where you need to be to begin sewing. Fast and accurate: that’s hard to beat!

And while we’re on the subject, let’s talk about air staging.

Air staging is when you line up your patchwork by holding it up directly in front of you. It gives you a really great view. And I think it’s a fine way to handle simple patchwork if that’s what works for you.

For more complex tasks, stage on the bed of the machine, very close to the needle. Give it a try and see what a nice difference it makes. Happy stitching!