When Sew Sisters invited me to take the Kona Club Challenge, I jumped at the chance! I was given a number of colour combination options and chose September which consisted of Citrus, Mulberry, Turquoise and Kumquat. Since my tutorial would be published in June, I thought these colours best represented the abundance of flowers blooming in my garden at that time.
Check out my tutorial for a simple quilted basket at Sew Sisters!
Tomorrow my super secret tutorial will be unveiled, all I can tell you is that it involves bright colours, a neutral traditional and modern piecing, free motion quilting and some stitchin’ in the ditch!
I know that there are at least two people who are interested in giving Flower Power a try and I thought I’d post some tips to help match and sew y-seams.
I start creating a flower by sewing the 3″ side of the 4 tumbler sections onto the 3″ x 3″ square, leave a 1/4″ seam allowance on all sides. I draw a 1/4″ seam allowance on the 3″ squares and triangles, this helps when matching points. ** Reduce your stitch length to approximately 1.8mm when sewing bias seams **.
When inserting your diamond piece between the tumblers, your first seam needs to start at the center sewing out toward the edge. I use a pin and drop of Elmer’s School Glue (washable!) then press to secure so it doesn’t shift.
I’m using Elmer’s CLEAR School Glue
Set glue with an iron.
Sew the first seam from the center out to the edge. I always backstitch y-seams!!
Stop your seam 1/4″ from the edge and backstitch. Pivot your diamond piece and start your second y-seam a 1/4″ from the outside edge (no glue necessary).
Sometimes I use a pin to ensure the edges stay in line.
Finished Y-Seam
I press all seams toward the darker fabric. As you can see above, I sewed all four diamonds onto this block, oops! I really didn’t think everything through and have to remove a diamond from each block in order to sew them to each other.
I have all my flowers sewn and am in the process of joining them together, will post an update tomorrow.
When I saw Noodlehead’s divided basket last week, I knew I had to make one for myself so purchased her pattern immediately. After completing it I looked though all the patterns I had downloaded and found Elizabeth Hartman’s Stack & Nest Quilted Blocks tutorial (pdf here) she had created for Sew Mama Sew and thought I’d combine Noodlehead’s basket handles with Elizabeth’s boxes.
Interfacing applied on top of seams.
My process is somewhat different in that I don’t fuse my heavy interfacing or batting onto the project until the basic sewing is done. Even if you cut your interfacing 1/2″ smaller than your fabric, it’s still possible to catch it in the seams. My stiff interfacing crinkles when bent and it has a tendancy to distort the fabric so I used very light interfacing first, then fused the thicker stuff over that. Another benefit of fusing your interfacing after sewing is that you can apply it over your seams to reduce bulk and because my interfacing has glue on both sides, I can fuse the rest of the seams over the interfacing.
Center corners folded inward.
Interfacing applied on top of bottom seams then side seams sewn and fused.
For the outside of the box, I used the same technique — applying the batting after the basic pieces were sewn together, then quilted it in a simple diamond pattern.
Pieces are quilted after initial sewing.
I made the 1″ wide handles by creating a fabric tube, inserting cotton batting inside and top stitching 1/4″ on either side. The handles are sandwiched between the lining and the outer box then top stitched.
And what’s a shot without a little photo bombing by Cookie?
Cookie the photo bomber!
This year I joined my very first quilting bee, my block doesn’t come up till NOVEMBER but I wanted to be prepared and organized. Writing a tutorial or pattern takes a lot of time and thought! My tutorial for this block and be found under my “Tutorials” tab at the top of my blog, if you try it, let me know and be sure to send me pictures! My quilt won’t be completed till the end of 2013, after I receive the blocks from my bee mates.
Here’s an image of what it might look like as a quilt block.
I hope you’re enjoying your weekend!
Tabatha
While I was cutting my Oh Deer! jelly roll strips, I had some happy accidents happen.
As I mentioned yesterday, I’m using water, applied with a paint brush on seams then pressing with a dry iron to make them flatter, it works beautifully!
Now that all my two-piece blocks are sewn and cut I’m sewing 320 4-patch blocks today, I’d love to get them finished but it doesn’t seem likely, too many other things to do today.
Fabricland is having a member’s sale today till Saturday, 50% off everything in store! I hope to purchase cotton canvas to make a pressing surface and velcro leaders for my quilt frame. I noticed in their flyer that they also have wool batting on sale, many professional quilters use it for show pieces, I’d love to try working with it! Have you used wool batting? Did you wash it? How did it turn out??
Check out today’s tutorial at Quilt Story.
At long last it’s finally my turn to blog at Quilt Story‘s Holiday Tutorials! And to celebrate, I’m giving away my little gingerbread man, two charm packs of California Girl by Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree Quilts AND two packages of 10 Schmetz sewing machine needles! To enter just leave a comment on this post and I’ll choose a winner on Monday, November 12th.
This giveaway is open worldwide!
Good luck!!
