Chain piecing saves a lot of time at the machine. Then you carry the chain to the ironing board, pick up your snips, and spend the next several minutes cutting every unit apart one at a time — which gives a fair bit of that time straight back.
In this tutorial, Heidi demonstrates a quicker way: cutting chain-pieced units apart with chain piecing thread cutters from The Gypsy Quilter, rather than snipping each joining thread individually with scissors.
What you'll learn
- Why separating a chain with scissors is slower than it needs to be
- How chain piecing thread cutters separate units quickly and cleanly
- Why these tools reduce strain on your hands, wrists and shoulders
The strain part is the real argument
Scissors ask your hand to make the same closing motion hundreds of times in a session. On a quilt with a few hundred units that's a lot of repetition in one sitting, and it's a common reason people stop sewing earlier in the evening than they meant to. Anything that removes repeated grip-and-squeeze from a repetitive task is worth considering, particularly if you already notice it in your hands after a long day of piecing.
Keep the chain in order while you cut
One habit worth keeping regardless of the tool: separate the chain over a tray, a mat, or straight onto your pressing surface in layout order. The main advantage of chain piecing is that the units come off the machine in sequence, and it's easy to lose that in the thirty seconds it takes to cut them apart.
Where to go next
If chain piecing itself is new to you, start with our tutorial on what chain piecing is and how it works.
For cutting tools generally, see our fabric scissors and shears guide, and browse scissors and shears, notions and quilting supplies.