Meeting 2 - Piecing Your Quilt Top, Part 1

Did you have fun cutting all your fabric up into little pieces?  Great - now let's sew them together!

First, stand back and admire your pile of 5" squares.  Aren't they fun?  I'm so excited!

Separate them into two piles; one pile of background and one pile of prints.  We're going to start by making half of our four-patches.

Set your stitch length to 2.0-ish, or about 14 stitches per inch.  There is no need to backstitch or 'tie off' when piecing a quilt; all of the seams will intersect with other seams somehow and won't unravel.  Promise. 

You will want to use a 1/4" seam allowance for all of your stitching, so either attach a 1/4" presser foot, or mark your 1/4" guide line, or something, so you can stay consistent.  This is really a big deal - if your seams are all different widths, it's not going to work well when you go to put everything together.  Here's the 1/4" presser foot that goes on my machine.  See the little metal piece on the right-hand side?  When the foot is the whole way down, I can just butt the fabric up against it and I get a 1/4" seam every time.

Take one background piece and one print piece and align them with right sides together.  Yeah, that's sort of important, so I'll say it again.  Put your pieces with the right sides together.  Unless, of course, you have some sort of fascination with your seam ripper, in which case, do what you like.  ;)

Put your first two pieces under your presser foot, a few stitches shy of the needle, and start sewing.  You only have 5" to sew, so this won't take long.

When you get to the end of your pieces, DON'T cut the threads!  We're going to chain-piece these together.  You're going to love it.  It makes the whole process so fast and easy.

As you approach the end of your fabric pieces, you'll want to set up another set of squares for sewing.  I usually stop with my needle down, slap two together, line 'em up, and go.  Sometimes I'll stack up a bunch of pieces, but they tend to get out of alignment, so I usually just do them as I go.

Got your first set mostly sewn?  Got your next set ready to go?  Okay - watch this!  As you finish the first set, put the second set at the front of the presser foot and let the feed dogs pick it up.  You should have a bit of thread between the two pieces (three to five stitches is usually good).  That's the "chain" in chain-piecing.  Saves thread, saves time, saves lifting your presser foot over and over and over.  It's awesome.

The feed dogs on my machine are going to take a few 'steps' before they're
going to pick up that second set, so I'll get 3-5 stitches between them.
Your results may vary.  ;)

Keep doing that until you've made all of your sets.  Now you'll have a great big line of stuff.

Clip the threads in between, and the tails on either end of your chain.  Try to leave a bit of thread on either side of your snip; if you cut it TOO close, you will have some unraveling.  Still not a huge deal, but can cause some funkiness when you press.

And voila!  You've got a nice stack of two-piece sets all sewn up and ready to press!


Speaking of pressing, let's chat about that.  I press my seams open.  Most quilting instructions tell you to press them to one side.  To be honest, I hate pressing.  With a passion.  But it's one of those things that really, really, really pays off in the end, so I spend a LOT of time on it.  If you want to know about pressing seams to the side, Google it.  I don't like the way they turn out, so I don't do it, and I'm not going to encourage you to either.  :p

First, you need to set your seam.  Using a hot iron, press the sewn seam just as it is  This helps flatten everything out, and sort of helps 'bond' the thread to the fibers of your fabric.

Set your seams - every time!

Next, spread your sets apart with the right sides down and the seam up.  Try not to pull or stretch anything while you do this.  Finger press the seam open, then use your iron to press from one side to the other, opening and flattening the seam as you go.  Now, remember, quilters don't iron.  We press.  That means lifting the iron and putting it back down again.  No sliding!

Finger pressed - just enough to keep it open

Pressing the seam open.  Remember, no sliding!

Looking good, huh?  Let's flip it over and press this seam from the right side - same way, lifting the iron up and putting it back down.  One more flip, one more press from the wrong side, and we're good to go.  Make a whole stack of these.

Flip over and press from the right side

Final press - from the wrong side

All nice and flat

Way to go, Mama!

Whee!!!  This is so much fun!  Get some encouragement from your helper - they're really happy for you, too!  Well, mine is, anyway.







Now we're going to make our four-patches.  You've probably already figured out that all we have to do is take two of our two-piece sets and sew them together, right?  I knew you would.  You're so clever.  Well, let's get on with it then!

You're going to need to make some design decisions now.  If you're looking to do a scrappy quilt, then you'll want to mix up your two-piece sets as you make the four-patches.  If you're planning some sort of continuity or pattern to your layout, then you'll want to construct your four-patches appropriately.  In the original quilt I made, I knew I wanted to do diagonal lines of each color, so making my four-patches with the same colors made sense.  You can do whatever you want to do - and it will be fabulous!  I've decided to do four-patches with two of the same print - I may or may not mix them up later when we put the whole thing together.  We'll see.

Okay, back to piecing.  In a perfect world, with perfect cutting and perfect sewing and perfect pressing, these things would all line up perfectly.  Welcome to reality.  They don't always line up perfectly.  There is one thing we do want lined up, though, and that's our intersections in the middle of the four-patch.  'Member how I told you at some point or another that you'd want to have some pins handy?  Now would be the time to break those out...

Two pieces, right sides together, lining up the seams

Take two of your two-piece sets and lay one on top of the other, alternating the background (one on the left, one on the right).  Pick this up and gently, gently wiggle the two pieces until the seams line up.  The ends may not quite match up perfectly, but your seam intersections are more important.  Pin this!  I like to check my match before I put a pin in it, just by folding it down and seeing how they line up.

'Quick-check' on my alignment before I pin

***edit - I got a photo of my pinning***

  I typically pin on either side of the center seam, through the seam allowances.  And I'm lazy, so I pin just over 1/4" from the edge so I don't have to pull my pins while I sew.  Use whatever pinning method works for you and gets you consistent results.

My pins won't interfere with the 1/4" seam I'm going to sew,
but they'll keep everything in place at that point.

Once you have them all pinned, take them back to your sewing machine and chain-piece these into four-patches.  Again, don't cut threads between sets - just keep sewing!  Do your best to line up the edges of your pieces as you sew; the intersections are the main goal here, but you do want to have things well-aligned all over.  Cut the chain apart when you're done.  I like to take a quick peek at my intersections as I do this, so that I can 'unsew' anything that is WAY off.  If it's just a little off, I ignore it - nobody will ever see it anyway.  But sometimes I'm really, really, really off, and it's worth undoing it and sewing it over.  Rip out your stitching, re-press your pieces flat, re-pin, and try again.  No harm, no foul.

Sewn, but unpressed - not a bad match!  Where's that iron?

And, it's time to press again!   You're already a pro at that, so we won't review it.  You've got a 'Page Up' button if you need one.  :)  Don't forget to set your seams first!  I usually give a quick press to all the seams around my new seam, just to keep them good and flat.  It can't hurt, right?

Make a bunch of these!

Four-patch blocks!  Yay!  Didn't I tell you this whole quiltmaking thing was super-easy?  These finished blocks should measure 9.5" square.

If you're making the SMALL quilt, you'll need 16 of these.  The LARGE size will require 24.



Hope you'll be back next week for Meeting 3 - Piecing Your Quilt Top, Part 2.  We'll be talking all about layout and previewing and then assembling those blocks into a quilt top.  It's gonna be fun.  Really.

Happy piecing!
em

Meeting 1 - Supplies, Pattern, and Cutting

Welcome back!  Today's the day we're going to get started on making a quilt!  Aren't you excited?

I've picked out a pretty simple pattern to start.  It's easy cutting, easy piecing, and easy quilting.  But it will give you all the basics of quiltmaking to build on if you decide you like it and want to do more.  You can make one of two sizes - a 36"x36" playmat or snuggle quilt, or a 36"x54" crib quilt that pretty much covers a standard crib mattress.  The only difference between the two, really, is the number of rows you'll put together, so you can change your mind at any time, or make one that's 36"x45" really easily.  You can also expand this pattern as much as you'd like, just by adding additional 4-patch pieces.

The finished quilt looks something like this:

 It's made up of a 4-patch of two colored and two background squares, like this:

See?  That doesn't look so hard, now does it?

The look of the whole quilt can be changed by color choices and layout options.  You could do all solids, if you wanted, or just use one single print and a solid, or even go scrappy and use a different print for each of the colored spots.  Think this part over carefully - the solids (white in the one above) will form a cross-hatch pattern through the top, and the prints (colors above) will form a separate cross-hatch.  You can make 'chains' with the colors, or mix them all up, or...  the possibilities really are endless.  Use some graph paper and colored pencils to goof around with mock-ups before you start so you can get an idea of what you'll end up with.

The first post (Introduction) gave you the list of of the items/supplies you'll need to make a quilt, and some information on all of them.  For this pattern, the fabric requirements are:

SMALL (36"x36") - this is a small playmat, snuggle quilt, or toddler nap quilt size.

• 5/8 yard of background fabric (mine's grey), or thirty-two (32) 5" precut squares
• a total of 5/8 yard of prints (any combination of yardage to get enough squares is fine), or thirty-two (32) 5" precut squares
• 3/8 yard for binding, or five (5) 2.5" precut strips in a complimentary OR contrasting color
• 1.25 - 1.5 yard backing (may be hard to determine for sure until your piecing is done, so if you think you can find a use for the extra, get the 1.5 yard.  If you want to, you can use leftover pieces from your quilt top to jazz up the backing and 1.25 yard should be plenty.)
• batting at least 40"x40"

LARGE (36"x54") - this will completely cover the TOP of a standard crib mattress with very little overhang.

• 7/8 yard of background fabric (mine's grey), or forty-eight (48) 5" precut squares
• a total of 7/8 yard of prints (any combination of yardage to get enough squares is fine), or forty-eight (48) 5" precut squares
• 3/8 yard for binding, or six (6) 2.5" precut strips in a complimentary OR contrasting color
• 1.75 - 2 yards backing (may be hard to determine for sure until your piecing is done, so if you think you can find a use for the extra, get the 2 yards.  If you want to, you can use leftover pieces from your quilt top to jazz up the backing and 1.75 yard should be plenty.)
• batting at least 40"x58"

That's it!  Collect all that stuff and we'll move on to cutting.  If you've gotten charm squares and jelly rolls, there's not a lot of cutting for you to do right now (as in, NONE), so either read this part for future information or skip it altogether...

If you're using fat quarters, please remember that they are 18" x 21" pieces.  So you will need double the number of strips to equal a cut from straight yardage.

From your background fabric, cut thirty-two (32) or forty-eight (48) 5" squares.  How does one go about this, you might ask?  I shall show you!

Step one:  press your fabric well.  Avoid steam if you can since it can stretch and warp things a bit.  Use spray starch if you'd like; it will only make things easier.

Step two:  hold up your fabric with the selvedges together.  Ignore your cut ends completely and don't attempt to line them up.

Step three:  wiggle or slide the selvedge closest to you from left to right until the fabric is hanging perfectly smoothly with no waves or bubbles.  There's a pretty good tutorial here:  http://www.livingwithpunks.com/2011/10/tutorial-how-to-square-up-fabric-for.html

Step four:  lay this down on your cutting surface and smooth the fold down a bit.

Step five:  carefully lift the folded edge toward the selvedges, creating another fold, and line up the first fold and the selvedges.

Step six:  smooth the new fold down a bit.

You should now have a 4-ply stack with a single folded edge closest to you, and a folded edge and two selvedges away from you.  It will measure about 11" top to bottom.

Step seven:  Using two rulers as pictured, straighten the left-hand side of your fabric to begin cutting.  Lay one ruler down on the folded edge, making sure the ruler is straight for some distance, then butt a second ruler against it, being careful not to shift the first.  Remove the horizontal ruler carefully.

Step eight:  Stabilize the remaining ruler, and make your first cut with your rotary cutter.  Mind your fingers and do NOT allow the ruler to shift.  You should now have a very clean, straight edge to work with.  You can take off as little as 1/4", depending on how your edges lined up - I just took off a large hunk here so you could see.

Step nine:  using your ruler, measure your next cut (5"), stabilize your ruler, and cut.  Lift the ruler, remove the cut piece and check for straightness toward the middle, and repeat until you have the proper number of cuts made (see below).  Re-square your edge as in steps 7-8 every two to three cuts.

SMALL:  cut four (4) 5" strips from the background fabric, and a total of four (4) 5" strips from your prints.
LARGE:  cut six (6) 5" strips from the background fabric, and a total of six (6) 5" strips from your prints.

****If you wish to use more than four prints, then go ahead and cut a 5" strip from each one - you'll just have extra pieces to play with, use for your backing, or make another quilt with!****

If you're using fat quarters for prints, you can simply turn your cutting mat to cut without folding (don't mind the unpressed fabric here - I was in a hurry and just needed to demonstrate).  Be extra careful that your ruler doesn't shift toward the top!

Now you have 5"xWOF (width of fabric) strips.  And you need 5" squares.  We'll subcut the strips to squares:

Line up two or three of your strips, exactly on top of one another.  Using your ruler to line up the top and bottom of the strips, square up the left edge, then continue using your ruler to cut every 5" over the length of your strip.  You should get 8 squares per strip.

SMALL:  cut thirty-two (32) 5" squares from strips for background, and thirty-two (32) for prints
LARGE:  cut forty-eight (48) 5" squares from strips for background, and forty-eight (48) for prints

Wasn't that easy?  I told you it would be!  You should have believed me!

Since you've got the cutting mat, rulers, and rotary blade out already, we may as well go ahead and cut our binding strips.  We're going to set them aside for later though.  The strips for binding need to be 2.5"; follow the procedures above and make this many:

SMALL:  cut at least four (4) strips; if you can, cut five (5)
LARGE:  cut at least five (5) strips; if you can, cut six (6)

We won't do anything with our backing fabric for a while yet, so set that aside with your binding strips.

That's it for this week!  Next week we'll start piecing the quilt top - you'll need to have your thread, your sewing machine complete with a new needle, and your iron at the ready. 

Happy Cutting!
em