Beginner Quilting Tip: Ditch Quilting

Ditch quilting or stitch in the ditch is a great way for beginners to tackle the daunting task of quilting their own quilts. What is ditch quilting? It involves quilting that uses stitching in the seams or the “ditches” of the quilt. Like every other technique there are advantages and disadvantages.

In this post, I talk about the pros and cons and go over a spin on this technique that you might like. I also threw in a few tips that might help you if you’re struggling with free motion quilting. These tips were actually game changer for me, and they may help you too. At the very least, they are worth a try.

Pros

This is a form of straight line quilting. If you aren’t ready to jump into free motion quilting, this is a good technique to try. From my experience, I always found straight line quilting easier to manage back when I had a smaller sewing machine. It’s just easier to deal with shoving big quilts in a small throat if you use straight line quilting than it would be to accomplish moving in all directions like you do with free motion quiltng. So, if your machine doesn’t have a large throat, this would be a good technique for you.

Since you’re quilting in the seams, you’ll have them as guidelines and won’t have to mark your stitch lines.

Straight line quilting allows you to use your walking foot. This gives you better control over uncooperative fabrics. It’s also an advantage with tension control. Some people struggle with getting their tension right with free motion quilting. Getting your tension set correctly is much easier with the walking foot. I do have some free motion quilting tips for you after I go over the “Cons”.

Cons

Years ago, I read an article that said stitch in the ditch quilting wouldn’t secure your quilt top to the batting if you press your seams open. According to the article it would secure the batting to the backing but not the top to the batting and backing because you’re technically stitching in between the fabric/in between the seam lines. In theory I guess this makes sense. BUT (there’s always a but), the chances of missing every one of the stitches that’s holding that seam together are pretty low. So, you’d at least have that holding the top down. Also, I personally have never achieved ditch quiliting so perfectly in between the seams that it didn’t catch some of the fabric from time to time. However, if this is something that worries you, just press your seams to the sides. If you press to the sides, even the most perfect, final word stitches in the ditches will catch the fabric on one side of the seam and secure the quilt top to the batting and backing.

Stitch in the ditch is a slow process, at least for me… I can’t floor it with this technique like I typically do with free motion quilting. To be able to keep the stitches neatly in the ditches, I have to go really slow. Slow quilting isn’t really my thing. There are special foots to help you with this if stitch in the ditch is something you want to do, but you will still need to take your time to be neat with it.

It may not be enough quilting to secure your batting and keep it from wadding up on you over time when you wash your quilt. Depening on how far apart your seams are, ditch quilting may have your quilting too far apart for your batting. The specs on your batting should tell you how far apart you can quilt without having to worry about this. So, if you have a lot of large pieces, you may need to add extra quilting in addition to the quilting in the ditches.

Side note: free motion quilting tips

Are you struggling with tension control with free motion quilting, just can’t seem to get it right no matter how many adjustments you make? Here are a few things that helped me and might help you.

Try leaving your feed dogs up. If you’re worried about them pulling, set the stitch length to 0. This way they won’t really being doing much, just bobbing up and down without pulling on the fabric. Some folks even like to cover them. Some machines aren’t even capable of dropping the feed dogs and come with a darning plate to go over them. You can also cover your dogs by taping a small card over them. I personally don’t find either of these things necessary, but if they help YOU go for it!

Does your machine come with a needle plate specifically for quilting? Mine does. I was afraid to use it for a while. Check out the two pictures below as explanation for why I was afraid to use it.

The picture above shows the typical needle plate. This is not the one specifically for free motion quilting. I have the foot off of the needle plate so that you can see the hole that the needle will go through. If your machine only has one plate, that needle hole will probably be shaped similar to that one. The picture below shows the needle plate that is recommended for free motion quilitng.

I have the photo above zoomed in so that you can see the difference in this needle plate. Instead of one large needle hole, there are three smaller ones. This will allow you to change the needle position for straight stitching, but it wouldn’t go so well if you try to do a decoratice stitch. You’d probably end up breaking a needle since those needle holes aren’t designed for all of the movement involved in decorative stitches. Even if you don’t break your needle you’ll end up stitching your thread to the needle plate. Either way, it won’t work out.

I thought I had my free motion quilting down fairly well, but I regressed for a little while when I got my current machine. The stitches look fine, but the thread was always breaking. For a long time I avoided using the quilting plate due to the fear of forgetting to change out the plates when I need to. Once I got over this fear, my free motion quilting was back to normal. So, in my case it wasn’t that my new machine was bad at free motion quilting, it was just me getting in my own way. I do that from time to time just like most people do. Just be sure to check that you have the correct needle plate in place before you start sewing.

A spin on ditch quilting

Instead of stitching a straight line in between the seams, use a decorative stitch. So, you aren’t really stitching IN the ditch but more like over and around the ditch. Line up your seam with the center of you walking foot as shown in the photo below. Note that my machine has accufeed, so my walking foot may look a little different than yours. But, the same principle applies. Keep the center of your walking foot lined up with the seams as best as you can.

Notice that in this quilt, I do have some more quilting lines besides the ones I’m sewing in the ditches. That quilt had a lot of large pieces, so I needed more than just the ditch quilting to secure the batting. I do have a blog post about the beginner friendly quilting I did in that quilt. You can check it out here.

This little spin on ditch quilting does some nice things for you:

It adds a little movement to your quilting. Maybe you aren’t ready to try free motion quilting. I shied away from it for a long time because I was afraid I would mess it up. I certainly did that, and it does take a lot of practice. Maybe you just don’t have the desire to free motion quilt, and that’s ok too. Even if you don’t free motion quilt, you may want to add a little movement from time to time, and this is an easy way to do it. If you don’t have a lot of decoratice stitches on your machine, a simple zig zag stitch will work too.
If you like to press your seams open, the sitches going over and around the ditches will catch those seam allowances and help secure the quilt top to the batting and backing if that’s something you’re worried about.
If you’re stitches aren’t always perfectly centered in the ditches, this makes it less noticeable. Unless you’re way off, it probably won’t be noticeable at all. This allows me to quilt a lot faster because I’m not as worried about getting ever so slightly off track.
I have to throw it out there that this would be a great way for beginner quilters to quilt my Checker Cakes Quilt. The pieces are small enough that your quilting would be less than three inches apart if you did this over every seam. This is a FREE pattern, and I happen to be having a FREE quilt along going on for it right now. We’re about to start Week 4 in a few days, but you’re still welcome to jump in and join us if you want to. Sign up here. You can also access all of the posts for this quilt along from my quilt alongs page. Even if you’re seeing this post after the quilt along is done, I’d still love to see what you make. Tag me @snugglebugstitching on Instagram and use the #checkercakesquilt.

I have a video on Instagram where I am using this technique in making a pillow sham. I was actually sewing in the seam between the front panel of my sham and the flange, but the same principle applies to quilting.

It’s worth noting that not all decorative stitches are meant for walking foot quilting. Technically you aren’t supposed to stitch backwards with a walking foot. Why not? The walking foot is like four wheel drive for your sewing machine. Just like having your front and back wheels pulling, the walking foot allows you to pull from both the top and the bottom. It has it’s own set of teeth that are similar to the teeth on the feed dogs. So, it basically gives you and extra set of feed dogs on the top of the fabric to help pull the layers of fabric through evenly. When you go in reverse, the machine’s feed dogs will be pulling backwards while the teeth on the walking foot will still be pulling forwards. Some decorative stitches will require the machine to stitch backwards at time. Loops and some of the really fancy stitches are a good example of this. You probably want to avoid these. Stitches that travel sideways like zig zag stitches and the serpentine stitch I used in the quilt pictured in this post are fine for walking foot quilting.