It’s a phase every quilter goes through, learning how to sew curves.

It’s basically a rite of passage to try it at one point or another.

And what most times starts off as a goal, ends up staying a goal because what looks beautiful, also sounds tricky. 

But once you get the hang of it, you’ll be cranking out quilts with curved piecing in no time. 

Two of my favorite curved piecing quilt patterns are double wedding ring and orange peel quilts, and if you love them as much as I do and are determined to learn how to sew curves so you can finally make one, you’re in luck. 

Today I’m excited to show you my favorite (and super easy) method for getting perfectly curvy quilt blocks every time. 

How to sew opposing curved seams

Depending on the type of application you are using the fabric in, you’ll need different curved piecing techniques. 

When you are making quilt blocks, you’ll need to sew a seam between two pieces with opposing curves in order to get a flat block. 

What does this mean? It mean’s the two pieces of your quilt block will be opposite sides of the curve, a convex and a concave piece. 

Cut the curved pieces of a pattern

Depending on how often you quilt, the easiest and quickest way to cut curved quilt pieces accurately is by using a quilt piece cutting machine like an Accuquilt. 

However, if you are like me and prefer the old fashion way, a template of your quilt piece will also do just fine. 

Trace your quilt piece on to your fabric using as fine a tip marker or pen as you can get. 

Accuracy is key to getting the curves to match up nicely, so the thinner pen/marker line you can make when tracing your pieces, the less variability you’ll have in your curved pieces. 

Tracing seams like such a simple step to cruise through, however a little extra attention during this step will save you a lot of time matching edges and working bulk in later. 

Be sure to make your tracing lines as thin as possible and cut them out with a rotary cutter as closely to the line as you can for best results. 

Aligning fabric pieces

This next part is going to feel a little wonky and against everything you know as a quilter. 

Take both block pieces and file them in half to find the center point of your curves. You can either finger press them or use a pin to mark the centers. 

Place the to fabric pieces right sides together so the center point of both curves matches up with the concave piece on top. 

I promise its supposed to look wrong. 

Why your pieces look so different when you sew opposing curves

The weirdness of the shapes is due to the fact that the quilt pieces need to make both the curve and the negative space of the curve. 

If you had two identical pieces and sewed them together, all you would have is a double layer of a single curve that has to fold 360 degrees around to fit. 

This is typically useful when sewing clothing, necklines, things like that, where air is simply the other half of the curve. 

However in quilting, we need to make both the curve and the negative space that makes the other half of the curve that compensates for where the curve rounds off. 

This will give you two pieces, one that looks like a hill (the convex piece) and one that looks like a cup (the concave piece). 

Basting a seam using fabric glue

The goal of what we trying to accomplish is to match the edges of these two pieces all the way around the curve. 

Since the pieces definitely don’t want to match up on their own, we’ll have to force them to a little bit and using fabric glue is the ultimate secret to accomplishing this easy.

This requires us to gently bend one piece to match the other and keep it in place while we sew it. 

Of the two pieces, the concave piece is going to have the most amount of stretch to it so this is the one we want to work with. 

Using fabric glue, secure the center points together to get started. 

Note: Never used fabric glue? This is the kind that I use, I’m not super into the wet Elmers clue style so I go for a much cleaner glue stick kind. 

Once your middles are secured, it’s time to do some bending. 

Taking one end of the ends of the concave piece, gently bend it backwards so the corner of the concave pieces matches up perfectly with the edge of the convex piece and glue it in place. 

It will feel a little bit awkward having the open space between the two but I promise it’s okay. 

Now the the center and the end are secured its time to close up the gap. Work your way from the end to the center, or vis versa, laying out a bit of glue and gently matching up the edges of the two pieces. 

You’ll have to gently bend the concave piece to meet up with the convex piece. 

Keep working along to close the gap, and when you finish the one side, just repeat the process with the opposite side. 

Once you are all glued together, your convex piece will look a little crazy with a few waves, and definitely too much fabric. 

That’s what we want. You’re officially ready to start sewing. 

Tips for Sewing the Curve

Stitch Length

This seam will have more reason to fall apart than the typical seam because of how much tension the curve places on the stitches. 

The fabric is folded back in ways it doesn’t naturally lay and the stitches are what will eventually fail first because of it. 

To give the seam the longest life possible, a shorter stitch length, around 2-2.5 is ideal. 

The more stitches you have, the less tension any one stitch will see, so going a bit shorter will help your beautiful curved piecing to stay around for a long time. 

Seam Allowance

Although I usually think a little play in seam allowance isn’t a HUGE deal, when working with curves you really want to stay as close to 1/4” inch as possible. 

Curved piecing is notorious for resulting in weird shapes because of the smallest issues, and having a wavy seam allowance will end up giving you a wonky shaped block. 

Keeping a consistent 1/4” seam allowance is actually much easier than it sounds. 

There are many cheap notions you can use to automate it so you don’t even have to think twice about it when you are sewing. 

Check out my favorite fool proof way to keep a perfect seam allowance here. 

Grab a chopstick

Or a pencil, or even a seam ripper will do. Any thing that is long with a tapered edge, a purple thing is ideal if you have a large project you are working on and want something made for the job. 

As you work your way sewing around the curve, use your utensil right up next to the presser foot to gently push away bulk from folding underneath the presser foot as you sew. 

Sometimes a chopstick is not always enough and you’ll have to stop and readjust the fabric bulk before continuing on with the next few steps, but having a utensil on hand will make things go much quicker. 

Just make sure that whatever is under the presser foot is flat with no folds as you go and you’re golden.

Press, don’t Iron

And definitely avoid using steam if you can.

The steam combined with the back and forth motion of physical ironing will commonly stretch your blocks corners that you just took all that time to attach perfectly. 

After you finish sewing the curve, gently open the seam and avoid touching the edges that you’ll be tempted to pull. 

Just gently hold the piece flat and press with an iron to open the seam. 

You’ll be left with a beautiful curved quilt block. 

Common curved sewing problems & how to fix them

Why is my curve pleating?

Curves can get pleats in them for a couple of reasons: 

• One of the pieces may have been cut a little too big causing extra bulk
• Not enough glue was used when basting the seam together so it pulled apart and folded under
• The sewing machine may have been run too quickly
• The bulk was not pushed out of the way before the needle got there

Most of these issues can be solved by simply basting your seam well so the edges of the pieces are lined up nicely, and taking care to sew slowly pushing bulk out of the way as you make your way around the curve. 

This is not the time to sew like your driving a race car. Slow and steady wins this race with the least seam ripping and frustration.

How to fix pleating in your curved piecing

Unfortunately, the only option is to rip it out, however you don’t necessarily have to rip out the entire seam. 

Just rip a few stitches around the pleat until it releases, baste the edge again with your glue, and re-sew the section of seam being sure to reinforce at the start and stop. 

If you find there is too much fabric bulk to avoid another pleat, rip a few more stitches until you can make it work. If necessary, just barely stretching the piece that doesn’t quite have enough fabric can get you through. 

Why is my seam puckering?

Puckering gives some wavy texture right up next to the seam and is potentially caused by one of two things:

• The tension of your thread is a bit tight so it basically cinches up the seam causing puckering along one length
• It can also be caused by simple wrinkling of the fabric while it is under the presser foot. 

Puckering from thread tension does not necessarily have to be ripped, it all just depends on how much it bothers you. 

If your block ends up the correct size, and there is just a little bit of wavy-ness, you may be able to hide it with quilting.

If it bothers you significantly, your only real option is to rip it and start the seam again. 

Personally if its not broke or unraveling, I’m more likely to leave it and call it a learning opportunity, but there is something to be said about a beautifully smooth curve as well so to each their own. 

Why does my block have this weird dip? 

This is one that I battle often with whenever I’m working on a double wedding ring. 

You think you’ve got everything right, you’ve managed all the bulk and the seam opens beautifully, and then you see this weird divot on the outside edge of the piece.

Your pieces were cut perfectly, it definitely wasn’t there before. 

What gives?

If you are seeing this, it’s more often than not that the very corners of your two pieces were not lined up correctly and the concave piece may have not have reached the tip of the convex piece when you basted. 

Being offset just a little bit means that extra fabric needs to go somewhere so the weave of the fiber compresses to compensate for the extra fabric in that area and causes that divot. 

If you are seeing this issue, try rebasting the seam and take care to make sure the two curved edges end at the same point. 

This may require a little bit of finagling but it’ll be worth it in the end to see those beautiful curves in that finished quilt. 

Want more quilting tips and tricks right to your inbox? Be sure to sign up below to get access to the Quilting Wemple newsletter and get updates whenever new articles (and patterns!) come out as well as immediate access to our FREE baby quilt pattern vault with lots of great patterns for your next project. 

Stay Quilty!