I DITCH, I DITCH, I STITCH IN THE DITCH!!!

That's the song I'm singing lately. Stitch in the ditch, or, commonly known as SID to many quilters. Longarm quilters in particular do a lot of SID. Did you know that SID is one of the most difficult patterns/designs to do on a quilt for a longarmer? Why would that be? Well, you have to use a ruler/straight edge, or a curved edge, or some type of guide next to the hopping foot so that you can actually get 'in the ditch'. And on top of that, the piecer has, hopefully, pressed the seam in only one direction

and not flipped it in the middle.

Heaven forbid they have pressed it open!! because then you have no 'ditch' to stitch in!!

If I were to try to 'ditch' this seam, I would only be stitching over the thread that the piecer used to stitch the fabrics together. The least amount of pressure placed on this seam and it will be open and the batting will be falling out.............sort of like this 'fat roll' I have at my waist when my jeans are to tight.....

Now, don't think for a minute that I am really complaining about Stitch in the Ditch...although it is very tedious and consumes tons of time....it really has a very important place in the quilting world. Just one of those important places would be with 'show quilts'.

Yes, if you intend to enter your quilts in a quilt show and have them do well then this business of 'Stitch in the Ditch' becomes very important. The SID really sets up the 'bones' of the quilt. It offers a lot of definition to the piecing and the applique. It can define where you quilt, what type of quilting is going to occur, the density of the quilting, and it can carry the eye of the viewer around the quilt and they will never know it. But, if not done well, SID can really detract from the quilts overall appearance. As quilt judges say: "Stitch in the ditch must stay in the ditch". Many times too, it requires a different type of thread.

A different thread you say? Yep........... You really want SID to disappear from view. So, you either need to match the background and really stay in the ditch or probably use an 'invisible' thread to do all of this ditching with.

Not all of these 'invisible' threads are created equal. However, they are much better than they were 20+ years ago when I first started quilting. Recently I have been using Superior's Monopoly. However, on the last 2 custom quilts I have used YLI's Whisper Touch .004 thread in the top and my usual Superior Bottom line in the bobbin. I absolutely love the Whisper Touch. I can stitch all day with it and never have a thread break!! It's wonderful!! (no they don't pay me to say that) That said, don't be afraid to try different threads to see what works for you. I still like Monopoly. It's a very good product, but, YLI is a South Carolina Company   and I am a South Carolina native, so, I think I'll stick with them for now.

Back to the 'Stitch in the Ditch'..............this takes a LONG, LONG time to do. Working on a quilt and doing SID can actually take as long as the 'other' quilting. So, your longarmer has to charge you for that. I have to charge for that. I may ditch for 10 hours or more on a top before I ever do the first feather or continuous curve, or loop. So, keep that in mind as you take your quilt tops in for custom or custom show quilting. Please don't ask us to quilt these quilts for the bare minimum custom fee. You wouldn't do it, so why would I?

If you have questions about this topic, feel free to ask them. I actually don't know all of the answers, but, I will gladly share what I do know. However for now, I am going to do some 'ditch' quilting. Stay tuned and we'll talk about some other quilt related topics as we go along.

Have a great day!!