To SID or Not to SID?

Okay, so I've never been a fan of Stitch in the Ditch. The dreaded SID is painfully slow to do, and you only need to be off by a hair for it to fall out of the ditch, or up onto the higher fabric side. And, I'm picky enough that when that happens, I have to stop, pull the offending stitches out and sew them again. Ugh, what a time waster! And, I can't tell you how many times I've heard a quilt show judge say “Stitch in the Ditch should stay in the ditch” as a negative to a quilt's review.

This customer quilt is a simple One Patch for most of the quilt's surface, with an machine applique section. I figured to place my leaf stencil in the middle of each green patch, changing it's orientation with each patch. Wow, was I surprised after the first two rows of leaves were done and I took tension off the quilt to advance it on the roller. Suddenly, the areas between the leaves look all bumpy and almost ruffly.

The only option at that point was to SID around all the green patches. What a difference that made! Each leaf is now framed with a neat seam down the ditch. The lack of contrast between the green fabrics was both a benefit and a curse to the process. At first, it was great not to be able to see if the stitch was not exactly in the ditch. But, then, it was pretty hard to see where the ditch actually was!

I wished I'd tried to get a picture before I SID, but I figured it was too subtle to show in a photo. But, you can totally see now how flat and smooth each patch junction now is.

Okay, I'll try to anticipate this in advance next time!