Quilt Blocks

Accurate Patchwork Piecing #1 Research

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Sit back, relax, this is NOT the Quilt Police knocking on your device’s screen!

I’m on a gentle mission to reassess my piecing techniques and figure out where inaccuracies have crept into my process. My mission is NOT to create a perfect quilt but to increase the sense of satisfaction I gain from the piecing of quilt blocks and quilt tops. In this mini series I’m going to share what I’ve learned about accurate piecing, share how I apply the knowledge and, of course, share the results 🙂

Take this 10½ block for instance:

The block isn’t quite square…
The centre seams don’t meet; the strips should be 1″ across but measure slightly less…
… Not surprisingly the block edges are uneven.

I’m not not ripping into myself – or the patchwork block for that matter – just of a mind to consider why these inaccuracies creep into my patchworking and to (re)discover techniques to reduce their occurrence.

Here’s what I knew already and what I’ve added to my knowledge through research using dear old wwwdotsearch.

Accurate Patchwork Piecing requires well maintained equipment:

  • Rotary cutting kit – sharp blade, smooth mat, ruler with anti-slip markings/grips.
  • Sewing machine – new needle (sharps size 75/11 or 80/12) , good quality 50wt thread in top and bobbin, tension correctly balanced.
  • Before starting a new project- clean out lint from the bobbin race and under the stitch plate.

Accurate Patchwork Piecing requires careful stitching:

  • Consistent scant ¼” seams. There are various methods to test for accurate seams and a choice of tools to use.
  • Use of ‘thread savers’/scrap chargers.
  • Short stitch length.

Accurate Patchwork Piecing requires careful pressing:

  • Careful pressing of fabrics, before rotary cutting, and during piecing.
  • Pressing tools that may help include wool pressing mat and a tailor’s clapper.

I’ve searched for and read/watched quite a selection of posts and tutorials that deal with the multi-faceted issue of accurate patchwork piecing. Listed below are the ones I found most helpful – of course some of the advice will be contradictory but that just gives us options if one method doesn’t work for our machine, fabrics or ‘sewing style’:

Phew! That’s a lot to take on board. I’m going to apply a selection of the tips given in those tutorials to my latest patchwork project. I will post the results shortly and share any further tips and recommendations I find along the way 🙂

Allison

 

Saturday Quilting Bring and Share (271)

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Welcome to Saturday Quilting Bring & Share. This week fashionably late on a sunny Sunday afternoon 😁 Bring along your project(s) and take part in the generous sharing of tips, ideas and encouragements that our Worldwide Quilting Community is just so good at doing! Do add to the community by leaving a message in the comments box of any blog sites you visit using the links below 🙂

I’ve been busy creating an I-Spy quilt using my I-Spy Shadow Quilt pattern. The top came together really easy. When it came to finding

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Using up the blue scraps

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Ha! When I declare, ‘I’m using up the blue scraps’ patchwork quilters reading this will understand my bin of blue scraps is no where near being emptied! In fact after all my rummaging the bin appeared to be overflowing even more than when I’d started! 😀

Left: Blocks of the Santa Fe Sew Along and Right: Blocks for the Dashing Stars quilt.

Anyhoo! The design wall is looking blue! And after a few hours of rummaging, playing with options and rotary cutting I have been able to clear my cutting table.

I have the pieces cut to make 10 more of the square-in-a-square blocks for the Dashing Stars beginners course quilt. I used the calculator from the Quilter’s Paradise website to give the cutting measurements for an 8″ finished block. After making a test block I’ve decided to keep the centre piece at 6-1/8th inches but to increase slightly the size of squares to cut into the outer triangles to 5″ square. This adjustment allows me to square-up the blocks to 8½” unfinished whilst ensuring there is a generous ¼” seam allowance at each of the points. I also selected and cut out the pieces for the other blocks I need to piece to complete the Dashing Stars quilt top. So I’ve pretty much prepared the materials for the second session I’ll be teaching this coming Saturday. (Always supposing tomorrow’s PCR test comes back negative – I received a ‘close contact’ ping today – *sigh*).

As the contents of the blue scrap bin were spread across my cutting table I took the opportunity to rummage some more in order to find pieces for the ninth block of the Pieces of Santa Fe Trail Sew Along.

I checked back through Melva’s blog posts and found a photo of the completed quilt top. Altogether there are twelve 12″ blocks in a 3 x 4 layout with sashing, cornerstones and three simple borders. I’m thinking I may add a ginger coloured fabric to the sashing or borders just to add a bit of warmth amongst all the cool blues….

Once done with rummaging and cutting, I carefully folded all the scraps, laid them flat in the scrap bin and …. Wahoo! The lid clicked shut without too much persuasion. Of course that may have been partly because I sorted out and put to one side the scraps of the scraps I’ve used to make the other eight Pieces of the Trail blocks, reasoning it will be good to use each fabric more than once… This battle of the scraps is definitely becoming a devious mind-game!

Now my cutting table is clear enough for me to begin work on the I-Spy quilt I’ve been itching to make. I’ll be making a slightly smaller version of my own I-Spy Shadow Quilt pattern and using some of the novelty print 5″ squares I’ve been busy cutting to collate into the Novelty Square Packs available from my Folksy and Etsy shops. I’ve chosen blue background fabrics for my quilt so inevitably there will be a few scraps to add to the blue scrap bin, although there’s not much ‘waste’ as it’s an economic strip-piecing pattern.

I’ll be posting regular updates @allisonreid.neweverymorning on Instagram as well as here 🙂

I wonder if you have been working on scrap-busting projects this year? Could you recommend a good quilt-along that is helping you keep going as you seek to make good use of your scraps?

Linking with Judy for Design Wall Monday and Beth for Monday Making. Judy has made a doll quilt with mini Pinwheel Blocks and tiny buttons. Beth is sharing the second block of her Christmas Sampler QAL.

Allison

Writing Patchwork Patterns and Dreaming of Dandelions

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Hey! Ho! I spent Bank Holiday Monday in my sewing room pushing through writers/quilters block to get my latest pattern ‘done’. No surprise that the pattern isn’t DONE but – putting on positivity hat – progress has been made. It took a lot of concentration and what felt like endless rounds of jumping from a printed draft, to the laptop, to my sewing machine and over to the photographic light tent…

You do have permission to copy my meme and use it as many times as you like! Let’s spread the word!

…. Which leads me to this serious aside about patchwork quilt patterns. It takes a lot of time, thought, fabric and false starts to create a pattern. Respect to pattern writers who manage to create original designs, produce patterns and then market them. As patchwork quilters we know the value of a well written pattern – whether a stand alone item or one from a collection in a book. We really shouldn’t be making ‘free’ copies of these patterns to share with friends, to use for workshops, or Guild get togethers. If the pattern writer hasn’t given permission for copying then any copies are in effect stolen – copying without permission is THEFT. Do we really want to be handing out stolen goods to our friends? As well as resisting the temptation to make copies we need to find polite ways of pointing out this issue of theft whilst saying ‘no thank you’ to copied patterns whenever they are offered to us. That may mean having awkward conversations with friends and Guild workshop organisers. I know from experience this is difficult and now I feel guilty when I look through my collection of patterns and find some which were most likely copied without permission. In fact it’s about time I destroyed those dubious copies and looked out for originals to purchase (direct from the designer if possible).

Time to step down from my soap box…

Those who follow this blog will know I’m more of a ‘starter’ than a ‘finisher’ so won’t be surprised to learn that even whilst concentrating hard on writing the pattern there’s been a bit of my mind considering new projects 😀 After a day of working on the pattern I was too tired to continue so the ‘shiny new project’ part of my mind got free-rein. I have a drawer (well! two drawers actually) filled with speciality rulers, some bought with projects in mind, others acquired as magazine freebies. I’ve been toying with the idea of making a row-by-row quilt using each of these rulers in turn. Maybe in doing this I’ll find real treasure in some and be able to part with others that really don’t cut the mustard?

As I’ve recently been seeing quite a few machine pieced hexagon quilts showing up in my social media feeds I was inevitably drawn to the multi-size Hexagon Cutter I’d acquired with an issue of Today’s Quilter magazine. And lo and behold! I found a 60º triangle ruler too! Perfect!

What about fabric? Ah! Ha! Just the job – a Charm Pack I’ve been eyeing for a while now. There’ll be a bit of waste from the 5″ charm squares as I’ll have to cut hexagons measuring 4″ by 4½” but much better to use the squares than have them languishing in my stash! For the triangles I auditioned several solid fabrics before choosing the blue (it is a Kona Solid, maybe ‘Evening’?).

As I was drifting off to sleep I mused about introducing negative space into the design, which led me to think of Dandelion clocks against a blue sky… 😴

This morning I tested out the rulers on a couple of spare charm squares. Hum! Correct angles but sizes not quite compatible, doh!

The triangles were slightly too big. I had to centre them by making a crease in the hexagon block. Once I’d sewn the seams I trimmed down the triangle on the left. Back to the drawing board…

Just as well this shiny new project idea isn’t too straightforward because I really MUST FINISH writing that pattern before I start another project! 😀

Linking with Judy for Design Wall Monday and Beth for Monday Making.

Allison