Piecing – Page 29 – Artquiltmaker Blog

Food Quilt, part 2

As I mentioned in a previous post, back in July, this quilt is all about the fabric. I got down to it over Labor Day weekend and made the top. I still need to add borders, but the top is basically done.

You can see that the Disappearing 9 patch block means that there is an automatic border on two sides of the quilt. I don’t want a border on two sides of the quilt. I want the border (a border in this case) to be symmetrical, so I added a row of rectangles and squares.

These blocks actually are quite large. Each square in the block is 6.5″. Once you cut them into quarters they become a manageable size.

I was consistent about placement of red and black, so that the red would end up as cornerstones and the black would be the sashing. I fiddled around with the arrangement quite a bit, as I am wont to do. I wanted to vary the food prints that were next to each other as well as the location of the blacks.

This is what you get once you cut a 9 patch block into quarters and rearrange them. In fairness and honesty, the above are quarters from 4 different 9 patches. You would see the same red, if they were from the same 9 patch, but you get the point. Even if this was from the same 9 patch, there would be variety, because of the different blacks and the different focus fabrics.

Per TFQ’s instructions, I did chunk this quilt together. That method of putting together quilts works so much better for me than sewing blocks together in rows. I also find it easier to keep my blocks placed where I want them placed.

Sampler Class: Making a Dresden Plate

The next block is the Dresden Plate, which we are making using templates. If you would like to see a wide variety of Dresden Plates, you can do a Flickr search to see what others are doing.

Supply list:

pen
heat resistant template plastic
Glue stick
paper scissors
Pilot SCUF black thin point pen or Pigma Micron or Sewline pencil
magazine subscription postcard or small piece of scrap card stock
pins
12.5″x12.5″ or larger square rotary cutting ruler
fabric
Mary Ellen’s Best Press (or similar)
stiletto or similar (popsicle stick might work)
sharp fabric scissors
thread for piecing
sewing machine
basic sewing kit

1. Select your petal fabrics. You can use 2 or many. You want to be able to see the work you have put into this block. Above are all of my options. I didn’t end up using all of them.

2. Print 3 copies of Dresden Plate Templates pattern. Two you will cut out and one you will keep for future reference.

Rough cut templates out of pattern sheet

3. From one pattern sheet rough cut around the petal and the circle including the seam allowance.

4. From one pattern sheet rough cut around the circle template and the petal template excluding the seam allowance. On the petal, cut off the thick black line. For the circle, leave the thick black line on the template.

Optional: Write ‘Dresden Plate” on each piece (or some way of identifying why you made these templates for later). Make a notation on the circle with no seam allowance so you don’t it mixed up with the other circle.

5. Glue circle and petal templates to template plastic

6. Carefully cut templates out of template plastic just outside of thin outside line.

7. Extend the straight line into the seam allowance with a ruler and a very sharp pencil or pen.

8. Right where the curve starts to move away from the straight line of the template, draw a line between those two points.

9. At the intersection, poke the corner of the petals to mark sewing start and stop points. I used a pin and then enlarged the holes with a seam ripper.

Optional: Spray rectangles of petal fabric with Mary Ellen’s Best Press to control the bias.

10. Trace around the petal template face down on the wrong side of the fabric. Hold the template tight down on the fabric with your fingers near where your pencil or pen is moving around the template.

Note: test to make sure that your quarter inch seam line covers the mark you made. If it doesn’t use a pencil.

11. Use at least 2 different fabrics to trace 16 petals. You can use many more. You want to be able to see the work you have put into this block. If you use two, alternate them.

12. Trace a circle using the template with the seam allowance. Cut out the fabric circle with a generous seam allowance (more than 1/4″).

13. Cut fabrics using very sharp fabric scissors OR cut straight lines with rotary cutter and curved seams with fabric scissors.

14. Choose your background fabric by laying the petals on the possible background fabrics, approximating the shape of the Dresden plate.

15. Cut a 13.5″x13.5″ background piece. Your Dresden Plate will be appliqued to this piece. Make sure it is square by using a 15″x15″or larger square ruler. You want to cut a larger block, because the sewing of the block may make it shrink up. You will trim the background piece once your block has been completed. Set this aside for now.

16. Line up two petals, right sides together.

17. Pin pieces together by lining up the holes you made when you traced around the template.

18. Sew from point to point, back stitching at each end. DO NOT sew into the seam allowance.

19. Press seams open.

20. Sew petals together in groups of 2, then sew the groups of twos to each other to make groups of 4, etc.

21. Sew between points, back stitching at each end. DO NOT sew into the seam allowance.

22. Sew all petals to each other, back stitching at each end, making a ring.

23. Press all seams open.

24. Trim threads.

25. Lay petal ring face down on your ironing board.

26. Lay the petal template without the seam allowance (which must be made from heat resistant template plastic or cardboard. Don’t use something that will melt) on the back face up.

You probably won’t be able to get the seam allowances flat, but press enough so the fabric knows where the curve is. It will help you when you go to stitch it down.

27. Press the curve into the outer edge of each petal. Use the stiletto to hold down the edge and iron right over the stiletto tip and the template. This is the miserable step, so intersperse some chocolate or some other sewing. Lay aside.

28. Take your cut piece of background fabric. Fold it in half and press lightly.

29. Fold your background fabric in half again (in quarters) and press lightly.

30. Open and you should be able to see the cross you have pressed into your background piece.

31. Take your plate of petals and line up 4 of the seam allowances with the pressed cross on your background fabric. This will center the plate on the background. Make sure you pay attention to the vertical as well as the horizontal.

32. Pin in place

33. Use thread that matches the plate or is neutral for hand applique’ or a blanket stitch to sew plate to background. You can also machine applique’ the plate to the background. We will cover that technique in another lesson, but there are many other tutorials available.

34. Pin curved edges of plate as you move around the plate to applique’.

35.Know the thread so the knot does not pop through the background.

36. Bring the thread up from the back through the fold of the plate (where you pressed the seam allowance).

37. Tug gently and put the needle into the background, just catching it, and pull the needle tight through the fold of the plate again.

38. Go around the entire plate in this manner, using the needle to tuck in the seam allowance so it has a smooth round shape.

39. Trace the circle template without the seam allowance onto the magazine subscription card.

40. Cut out the magazine subscription card circle, being sure to cut off the pencil/pen line.

41. Take the circle fabric you have cut and wrap it around the magazine subscription card circle.

Use a Running Stitch to Draw up the Circle

42. Using any thread, take a running stitch in the seam allowance of the circle fabric and tighten it, keeping the magazine subscription card circle flat. If the magazine subscription card does not have enough body, you can also use the circle template without the seam allowance.

43. Press the drawn up circle well, so it is flat and a perfect circle. You will need to tug on the thread to draw the circle up as you press the first time. Once the fabric knows it needs be pressed you can pull the thread tight and make a knot.

44. Pin the circle to the center of the block, covering the raw edges of the center petals.

45. Applique’ using the same directions you used to applique’ the plate.

46. Trim block to 12.5″x12.5″. You might want to wait until you start assembling the quilt.

The green, turquoise, black and pink sample Dresden Plate was made for the class I taught in 2006/2007. I did this one a little differently. I machine stitched the plate to the background and the circle to the center.

As you can see, I also fussy cut fabrics to take advantage of larger spaces in the quilt block.

In the solid Dresden Plate, I placed like fabrics into groups of two for a slightly different look. The center circle was a good showcase for a bit of hand quilting.

I may add some more photos to illustrate steps better and will link to this tutorial from the Artquiltmaker Info–>AQ Tutorials link under the header (see above).

I store my templates in a ziploc bag with a picture of the block or a label with the name and size of the block on it.

Food Quilt

This quilt is all about the fabric.

I started cutting when I found myself starting to wash and iron food fabrics AND when I started to run short of leaders and enders.

As you know I made an effort to get the Farmer’s Market fabrics put out by RJR. I was able to buy a nice selection in Pennsylvania. I also scrounged a bunch from my mom when she was done with her food quilts.

After that, it was time to do a test. I want to do a Disappearing 9 Patch. I saw Robin doing one at the CQFA 2011 Retreat and she got a lot of bang for her buck. I want something that won’t take forever, but won’t be boring. First, though I wanted to try it out.

I am thinking I will make the real squares 6.5″. I didn’t want to commit that much fabric to a test, so I made the test group much smaller. The squares for each part of the test 9 Patch are 2.5″ cut. The above shows you the look I am thinking of using: food fabrics in the corners, white on black print on the middle outsides and red in the center. The Young Man gave his seal of approval, though wanted to know where the pizza fabric was, so I’ll have to rethink not including pizza fabric (it isn’t part of Farmer’s Market).

The blocks look good and I think my idea will work. As I said the real blocks will be on a much larger scale. I think that the rearrangement of the blocks in that kind of infinity pattern will look good as well. Things to which I need to pay attention:

not to many green food fabrics in the same block
cut up lots of reds and blacks, if I really want to get moving

This is another way I could arrange the block parts. It has kind of a self sashing thing going. I don’t think I would want to do this unless I added more sashing to the center, which would be a lot more work. I don’t see any reason to cut up the 9 Patch in the Disappearing 9 Patch manner if I am just going to add more sashing to the middle. I might as well cut squares and sash them.

I really should have put a quarter or a dime next to these blocks so you can get an idea of how large they are, but I didn’t think of it before I took the photos. As a result, I don’t know if you will be able to to tell how large the final cut patches are?

As I iron fabric, I cut these large squares out and set them aside. I was finishing up Stars for San Bruno #2 when I first cut these, so I didn’t cut any black/whites or reds. I’ll get to it.

Stars for San Bruno #2 in progress

The ‘paint was barely dry’ on SfSB #1, but I got busy putting the Stars for San Bruno #2 quilt together on Sunday. I had done a few smaller projects on Friday and Saturday afternoon and decided that Sunday morning was the day for SfSB #2.

Putting all of the blocks on the floor and looking at them worked pretty well last time, so I did that again. I found that they logically divided themselves into 2 groups (generally right and left of the photo). Most of the blocks on the left are Sawtooth Stars and I decided to group them into one quilt. I saved the Stars on the right for the last quilt.

Once I had selected the blocks, I laid them out on some fabric that Sandy sent just to get an idea of what I was facing.

I could see right away that there would be a lot more open space in this quilt, because I didn’t have as many blocks left. This looks more like a starry night sky, I think.

The quilt didn’t really end up like this at all, but it was a starting point.

I could see from the layout above that I needed some of the blocks with the light background in lower corner.

More rearranging…

This is a technique that I call improvisational piecing. TFQ and I have used this process when working together on a quilt called She had to have her Latte, which was kind of a precursor to the Tarts Come to Tea. Isn’t it strange how I can relate all of my quilts to each other?

I kept rearranging disparate sized blocks and adding coping strips, corners and strips until the pieces fit together. This process is not for the faint of heart.

I decide where I am going to start and then march down or across the quilt.In this case, I started from the top and moved towards the bottom. I decided to put almost all of the blocks on point, so I added triangle corners to them. I also filled in the spaces with large pieces of fabric.

I was able to finish the top last night. I wanted to get the parts off of my design floor and I didn’t want to have to remember what went where. There was a lot of partial seaming, so it was important to me to get the pieces together correctly.

As you can see, I added a few pinwheel blocks in different sizes. I was inspired by the very center of TFQ’s block (upper right), though I realized that I didn’t make them exactly like hers.

My first thought after sewing on the last line of blocks (right) and looking at the whole piece was that it needed a border. Sigh.

Pavers

Pavers is ready to quilt. I am not sure the name suits, but that is what it is. It will be a gift.

This pattern is based on a photo I saw on Flickr from Green Couch Designs and related to the Purple quilt I finished a few weeks ago. Both on the Purple Quilt and this quilt I wanted to work with asymmetrical borders. I wasn’t happy with the border on the purple quilt, so I tried again on this one. I think I want to work with the border a little bit more and will make one more quilt in this pattern.

This is an easy quilt to make and I basically finished all of the blocks by using them as leaders and enders.

The photo above has that lovely pink post-it on the top as a direction to the quilter. It just says what I have designated as the top. I do that for the back, too.

Above is a picture of it laying on my ‘design floor’ before I put the borders on. I was amazed at how much better the piece looked sewn together. The duplicate fabrics near each other didn’t seem to matter and the whole thing just came together.

This quilt was made from a group of fabrics I bought from the Fabricworm.

Flying Geese Tutorial

This is a thinking girl’s tutorial to making flying geese.Knowing how to make Flying Geese allows you to make Sawtooth Star blocks, Dutchman’s Puzzle blocks, borders and other parts needed for your quilts.

You are going to have to use the technique with your own measurements to make the geese that fit your project. There are many other ways to make flying geese.

Cut 2 Squares for each Flying Geese Element

This fabric will be used for the ‘wings’.

Draw diagonal line from corner to corner

Turn the squares over and draw a diagonal line from corner to corner. You will need to do this on all of the squares for your Flying Geese.

Cut background, or goose, fabric.

Lay first square that will be a wing on the goose (background) fabric and pin. Make sure the pin is out of the way. You will be sewing on that drawn line, so you will need to pin far enough away so the pin doesn’t interfere with the operation of the machine.

Sew along line and trim threads. I use a foot that has an arrow on it. I can line that arrow up with the drawn line and sew away.

Trim 1/4″ through the wing and the goose away from the sewn line as shown above. Press the wing so the front of the wing fabric is showing.

Place the second wing on the other side of the background fabric.

Sew and trim as above. Sew so that you cross the previous sewing line.

Press back the 2d wing and, voila’, you have a Flying Geese element.

You need four of these to make a Sawtooth Star or eight of them to make a Dutchman’s Puzzle.

FOTY 2011 Triangles – End of May

Here are so more triangles for FOTY 2011. I am not pressing and cutting them as fast since I am working on other projects, but I am working on them incrementally.

Quilt Class Sampler Blocks

This post is kind of a roundup of the good and the bad. No ugly today, as I use GREAT fabric. 😉

This Sawtooth Star block is one I use to teach Flying Geese. I love the Dutchman’s Puzzle block, but think starting students out with 4 Flying Geese as opposed to 8+ is much kinder.

The larger blocks are weird for me to make, because I like to make 6″ or 8″ blocks mostly. The good thing about making these giant blocks is that there is a lot of potential for fussy cutting and the Big Plain Jane print worked really well in this block. I tried to position the flower a little off center to add a bit of interest while not showcasing the white flower that is near the red flower on the print. I am really pleased with how cheerful this blocks looks. I am glad I am working in a turquoise/aqua and red palette.

The Card Trick block is a great block for practicing triangles. It includes both half and quarter square triangles. If you haven’t tried the Card Trick, it is a great block as long as you pick the right fabrics. I, as you can see, did not build in enough contrast between the background and the light fabrics. There are a lot of seams and triangles in this block and you have to lay it out and piece carefully, because it is easy to get mixed up.

As I work on this project I see these blocks set on point with red cornerstones. We’ll see as the time gets closer.

FOTY 2011 April 2011 Pieces

Here is the first group of triangles that will end up as Fabric of the Year 2011. I am doing something this year in that I am including many fabrics that I am using this year, but aren’t new. The large triangles are the new fabrics for this year and the small triangles are the fabrics that were already in my fabric closet, but were used in a quilt.

I have already realized that I am not going to be able to cut ALL fabrics that I use. I just am not organized enough. I haven’t developed the habit, but I am getting better.

I have the idea in my mind that I will make this more of a scrap quilt rather than arranging the fabrics carefully in a colorwash kind of order. I may not, though.

The other idea I have is to arrange it like Fons & Porter did in their Kalamkari Strippy.
We’ll see how I feel at the end of the year.

On the Design Wall

I have to clear off the design wall so I can create the samples and step outs for the quilt class. Taking a good look at the design wall made me realize that it is kind of being used as another dumping ground and more spring cleaning is required. So, before I clear it off, here is a tour.

Upper left: four patches. I cut scraps up into 2″ squares and sew them together into four patches. I use these patches as ‘Leaders and Enders’ a la Bonnie Hunter. This means that I sew together squares rather than just using scraps to start off my chain piecing. I do this so that I can accomplish something as I am starting and ending chain piecing.

Middle top: FOTY 2011 patches. More about these later.

Upper right: Sampler quilt patterns/red and aqua quilt. I may do something else with red and aqua, but the sampler is a good project for these fabrics since I can’t think of anything else.

Very upper right: Nine patch made by the Young Man when he was a Cub Scout. I want to do something significant with it, but haven’t decided what yet.

Lower left: more four patches in progress.

Middle middle: FOTY 2010 test piece. I would like to use it to test the border treatment I want to use for the Original Bullseye quilt. I think this test project will end up higher on the to do list sooner than I thought, because I need that space on the design wall.

Middle middle towards right: rectangles for another quilt like the purple quilt. Right now these bricks are being used as leaders and enders.

Next to this series of bricks is a Big T block that will be the front of a Teacher Pillow for the Science Teacher. I don’t like the name of that blocks. I don’t have a better name, but I think Big T is uninspired.

Bottom right: hexagon test piece.

Border: all around the border are things that I enjoy looking at. I have won 2 ribbons (right) in the far and distant past, but I like to look at them to remind myself that I am able to win ribbons.

I find that a good way to display ATCs is using those badge holders I get from conferences. It also prevents the badge holders from being thrown out. I like them for ATC display, because I can clip them together.The ATCs are small and this display makes more of an impact.

It is a little quilt art gallery that I can change easily. I can change both the configuration of the badge holders as well as the ATCs displayed very easily.