Bigger layout options for your sampler quilt

So you want a bigger quilt? I usually don’t recommend that beginners work on very large quilts as they are difficult to quilt on a domestic sewing machine. It’s probably better to make a small project first, to understand what’s involved and to learn all the techniques. Having said that my first quilt was 88” (224cm) so I understand the compulsion to make your first quilt for your own bed!

Every quilt after that was smaller until I found I could get my large quilts machine quilted by a professional. This is always a possibility for special quilts, when you’re in a hurry or if you just don’t like quilting a large quilt. Machine quilting can be expensive however, a quilt 80” x 80” can cost upwards of $180 to have professionally quilted.The cost depends on not only how big the quilt is but also on the style and density of quilting. The most economical is edge to edge quilting where a pattern is repeated across the quilt.

You can contact the NSW Quilter’s Guild for a list of machine quilters or search the internet for machine quilters in your area. You could also check out this Directory of Machine Quilters.

So you still want to make a bigger quilt, here are your options:

1) Make lots more pieced blocks! For a quilt that finishes at 82” you will need 25 pieced 12” blocks. With sashings cut at 3.5” and a border cut 5.5” wide you will get a quilt that looks like this

Lou made one like this but didn’t have enough of the border fabric for a continuous piece. Her solution was to piece the border strips.This a great option if you only have a small piece left and your fabric has a big pattern that makes matching seams difficult.

2) Alternate your pieced blocks with some plain fabric blocks to stretch it out.

Leslie did this with the quilt for her nephew using a vintage toy themed fabric:

thanks to Amy for this photo! http://badskirt.blogspot.com.au/#!/2011/11/yesterday-i-popped-up-to-north-side-of.html 

3) Alternate your pieced blocks with simple pieced blocks that you can whip up quickly. You can find cutting and piecing diagrams to some simple 12” star patterns in the blog post by Piecemeal Quilts.

I used a Variable Star block alternated with pieced and applique blocks in this single bed quilt to give it some uniformity and make it a little bigger.

Next we’ll talk about wadding and backings and how to put the quilt sandwich together.

Sewing with templates

This post has been a long time coming. How to break down and describe the process of designing, fussy cutting and sewing a block using Marti Michelle’s Set H.

I first purchased a set of these in a quilt shop but felt too intimidated to use them. Then I bought the accompanying book but it still wasn't making much sense. It wasn’t till I attended a class with Catherine Butterworth that it all gelled and made sense, she’s a wonderful teacher.  Now I’m enjoying arranging the shapes with different prints and colours to create unique blocks and looking forward to creating more quilts using some of the other template sets.

Prior to this the only way I’ve tackled hexagons and inset seams was using English Paper Piecing. Now that I’ve used the Perfect Patchwork templates it’ll be pretty hard to go back to that method for a large quilt. Sewing hexagons and inset “y seams” with your sewing machine is much faster and almost fool proof. The template set comes with 3 acrylic templates to create 11 shapes.

By taking the focus away from the construction I’ve found I am playing more with the designs and having lots of fun with all the different tessellations that fit inside the finished 6” sided hexagon. (Marti Michelle templates are measured by the length of a hexagon’s side)

So how do you start?

Firstly, pick some fabric you can play with. There are lots of wonderful prints that start to take on a life of their own once you’re armed with a tessellating shape and Marti Michelle’s Magic Mirrors.

Make a cardboard window of the finished size of your diamond by using the markings on the acrylic template. Move the window over your fabric and use the “magic mirrors” to help you find a placement that works.

it’s all done with mirrors! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Once you’ve selected the area you want to use, mark the corners so you can align the acrylic template and cut the precise shape. Cut using a small or medium rotary cutter, make sure you clip the engineered corners off. They really make a difference when you are sewing the seams together!

Use this shape to help you with placing the other 5 diamonds.

A warning: make sure you’ve got enough of the fabric to yield 6 repeats, I’ve been caught out more than once! Generally speaking fabric repeats every 24” so you will need 1.5 yards of fabric to get 6 exact large diamond pieces across the length of the fabric. Be aware that you will need a lot more fabric than if you are cutting shapes from a strip.

 

To piece the diamonds into the star shape you will need to mark the starting and stopping points of the seams on your diamond shapes. Mark them on the back of your diamonds with a pencil. I’ve found chalk rubs off and makes piecing the blocks together difficult.

Align two diamond shapes together, face to face.

Starting at the first dot, tie a knot (or make a couple of “zero stitches”) and stitch along the 1/4” seam till you approach the end dot. Tie off and cut the thread. Repeat with the other diamonds. Join the first and the last diamonds together in exactly the same way. Make sure you keep the seam allowances out of the way.

Start with simple diamond shapes till you’ve mastered the cutting and piecing techniques. Press the seams to face one way and “swirl” the centre seam to reduce the bulk at the middle.

By using 6 more diamonds, we can fill in the spaces between out star “arms” to make a hexagon.

That’s all for today, will put some more information together to post here soon… Please let me know if you have any questions.

have fun xx

Week 5, English Paper Piecing

This image of an antique quilt is from www.snippetsnscraps.blogspot.com/2010/07/peeling-back-layers-2.html
English Paper Piecing is a patchwork technique steeped in history and is still used extensively by modern quilters. It's a particularly useful technique for creating one patch quilts (quilt tops made from one tessellating shape) and blocks with many inset or “y” seams.

This is part of a corner block from the Jane Stickle quilt.

Many quilters like sewing over paper or cardboard templates as the project can be carried along and sewn by hand. Piecing a complex shape with straight sides using the English Paper Piecing method is pretty easy and as long as your templates are cut to the right size, the pieces will always fit together. You don’t really need to worry about accurate ¼ “ seams either.

This block was made using The Sometimes Crafter excellent Tutorial, you can download templates there too.
Rather than reinvent the wheel and try to put everything in my own words I recommend you head over to www.lizardofoz.com.au/Free_Stuff/Pdfs/English_piecing.pdf for a definitive guide on English Paper Piecing. They sell pre made templates from lightweight card. These templates are also available from your local quilt store and online.

You can also print out your own templates by using websites such as http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/trianglehex.html Alternatively you can draft templates using graph paper and trace the shapes onto card. I've uploaded a couple of graph papers here to get you started:

60 degree diamond templates

1” hexagons templates

By fussy cutting the fabric for each shape you can create secondary patterns with just one piece of fabric. Be warned... This can be a lot of fun and very addictive!

The cardboard templates can be reused many times so don’t throw them away. Be sure to sort all your different sizes and label them as a slight change in length of a side means your shape will not tessellate properly. Take care when cutting out your templates too, try and cut in the middle of a printed line and allow for the extra bulk when you are tracing templates.

Once you've made your shape you can either applique it onto a square of your background material or keep adding hexagons, diamonds etc till you have enough to cover the area of your block. It is possible to create a square edge by trimming shapes around the edges, make sure you remember to leave a seam allowance!