Do you use chain piecing when you are piecing? This quick method can save you a lot of time and make the piecing process a little easier and less monotonous. Let’s take a look at this great time saver.

Chain Piecing: How to Add Efficiency to your Quilting

What is Chain Piecing?

Chain piecing is described by Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter as, “a quilting technique where multiple fabric pieces are sewn together in a continuous chain without cutting the thread between them.”

Using this method will cut down on the amount of time needed to construct quilt blocks and rows.

How to Chain Piece

two pieces of fabric being sewing together on a sewing machine

Before moving to your sewing machine, stack your pinned/clipped pieces right sides together ready to feed into your sewing machine.

Put the first pair under your presser foot and sew together. Prior to ending this seam, move the next pair under the presser foot, so when you sew off of the first pair you will sew onto the next pair, and so on. This creates a connected “chain” of sewn pairs which you will now clip apart and press.

The Advantage of Chain Piecing

The biggest advantage of chain piecing is saving time. Instead of sewing the first pair, pressing it and moving onto the next pair, you sew all pairs at the same time and then press them all. This is a huge time saver in sewing quilt blocks and rows. It may not seem like much, but once you chain piece your blocks, you won’t go back.

You can use chain piecing for any part of block construction. Sewing the same seams into chains will quickly cut down on the amount of time needed to construct your quilt top.

Needle Down Setting

a picture of a computer screen on a red sewing machine. An arrow points to the needle down option

The key to chain piecing is making sure that when you stop sewing and lift the presser foot to place the next pair under the foot, that your needle has stopped in the needle down position. This way, your previous pair will not shift when you add the next pair.

Not all machines come with this feature and if yours doesn’t, you will need to be cognizant and make sure you are in needle down position before adding your next pair.

Thread Cutting Tools

cutting the thread between two sewn quilt blocks with a purple thread cutter

Now that you have a fantastic chain of sewn pairs, how do you cut them apart? Of course, a pair of scissors or snips work fine, but there are tools on the market that make this easier to achieve. I use the Blade Saver Tool which utilizes used rotary blades to cut your pieces apart.

There is also the Gypsy Quilter Thread Cutting Gizmo which is a great option. You might be thinking I will just use scissors, but the advantage of these thread cutters is you can use both hands to hold the chained blocks and cut the thread by pushing down on the blade. In terms of proficiency, using a thread cutter makes the process go much faster.

My Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed Chain Piecing: How to Add Efficiency to your Quilting. As you can see, chain piecing makes the process of piecing blocks and rows a lot faster and more efficient. Instead of going back and forth between your machine and your ironing surface, you can sew all of the pieces for a section at the same time in far less time.

For more helpful quilting tips and tricks, make sure you follow me on YouTube,and Pinterest.