This is one of six blocks I have made up for my Bee circle in the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild. We are meeting tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon here at my store ... along with other things, we are to exchange our blocks. The way this particular Bee worked, each person in the bee (six people, including me, in my bee) chose a set of colors to have their blocks made from - and a block design that they were making for everyone else.
I chose red and white for my colors (pretty broadly defined:) and dithered over what block to make. At first, I thought I'd do this one:
This is the test block I made, using my colors. I found it really hard to keep my attention on the print layout (I leave it as an exercise for the sharp of eye to find my mistake:). So, after some thinking, I decided to do a different design:
This is my test block using red and white ... originally I thought I'd do some applique or stitchery in the center of the blocks ... but then I realized that not everyone would want flowers or snowflakes or whatever in their quilt. Also, four lines was more than enough to make for each block (you can see that I stopped with six although I originally thought I'd do eight - just got too busy and too fussy).
So as I was sewing the last block up, it occurred to me that I should take photos as I went along to show the process. Just had my iPhone for the picture taking so apologies if they aren't as 'up to snuff' as one might like. :)
First off, here are the other four finished blocks - I am thinking of this as a kind of Jacob's Ladder or maybe Stairway to Heaven arrangment - not the traditional patchwork Jacob's Ladder but the literal one from the Bible story (even though I am most definitely not a church-going Christian, I did receive a thorough education in religion as a child and, yes, I have actually read the entire Bible:).
Now for the process part. :) The sample I'm using for the photos is for Amy whose colors are white, yellow and apple green (I got a chuckle out of that - apples, like skin, come in a wild variety of colors ... I'm not at all sure what 'apple' green IS, but I hope this one works:).
Understand, what I am describing to you here is what I have arrived at after making a number of these blocks ... I'm sure you will see my 'mistakes' if you look carefully - but I really don't think there _are_ any mistakes, really, as long as the final block is the correct size and lies flat. :)
First of all, from the colors you are working with (in this case, white, apple green and yellow), choose which one will be the 'background' of your block. I chose white. Tear a square at least 13.5" - 14" to end up with a 12" (finished) block (the extra size allows you to trim the block in the end, as you will see).
Cut one strip of the background fabric for every strip of 'color' you will use - if you use three different yellow prints, cut one background strip for each. As you cut these first strips, they don't have to all be the same width - I cut anywhere from one inch to one-and-a-quarter inch wide strips, myself. You don't need a huge work area to do this - you can see that my space is kinda small (beside my sewing machine).
Then, after cutting all the background and color strips that you want (I mostly cut one or two strips of each fabric, except more for the backgrounds), sew the strips together in pairs:
The bright circle of light you see beside the needle is from my Itty Bitty Bright Lite ... and I'm using my walking foot to do the sewing rather than my patchwork foot. The wf keeps the strips and bits from puckering even more.
I generally do not pin my strips just sew them with a stop now and then to check and realign the raw edges. I sew 'chain' style, following one pair of strips with another until I've pushed them all under the needle. Then put the pairs together and sew them.
Now, you could carry the pairs to an ironing area and press them ... I was much too lazy for that (have to go into another room). :) You have to be sure to pull them open, both with the top and the bottom pairs, so only the two fabrics you _want_ to join are sewn together. :)
Again, join the sets-of-four together until all your strips are sewn into one strata. I found that the best arrangements did NOT start and end with the same print. Once all the strips I cut have been sewn together, then I carry the unit to the ironing board to press. I use lots of steam and take my time - I press all the seam allowances in the same direction and take care not to end up with pleats in the strips along the seams. Sometimes this means pressing front and back a couple of times to check.
Then I sit back down at my machine and cutting space to cross cut this strata section into columns of color - here you DO have to cut the strips the same width. I mostly used 1.25" wide strips, although once I did only 1" wide. If you are a good precision sewer, you can cut these strips as narrow as 3/4" (you need 1/2" for seam allowances and a minimum of 1/8" to 1/4" for the final color dot).
Now that I have a little pile of fabric columns, I pull out the background square I tore previously and start in on the placement of my sewing lines. I used a ruler and a graphite (washout) pencil (a chalk one on the dark backgrounds) to do this marking. I pretty much chose a random-ish placement:
I laid out pieces of my fabric colums along this line to see how many I would need (usually three or four, depending on how long the particular line was that I drew and how many different fabrics were in the column):
I made sure to lay the columns with the seams running away from the end I would be starting to sew - I found out the hard way that keeping the seam allowances correctly placed as I sewed them down was important. :) Once I know how many columns I needed for my drawn line, I sewed them together at each end into one long strip of bits, working _hard_ to keep the seam allowances all going the _same_ way. Then I pinned the strip of bits into place along the drawn line:
I hope you can see the dark line? It runs along the bottom of the strip as you see it in this photo. Notice that I have attached the pins with their heads to the top of the strip, opposite the seam line I will sew - this way I could sew over the pins with reasonable confidence. I'm still using my walking foot which has 1/4" seam marks on it's toes:
I chose to sew on the 'inside' side of the drawn line because I wanted to section to be removed from the background to be as large as possible. I'm sewing along the line rather than cutting the block and then lining up the fabric strip to the raw edge because this process keeps the block from stretching too much.
Once the seam has been sewn, I remove the pins and cut away the background fabric along the drawn line. I tried using a rotary cutter for this at first but it turned out to be just as easy to use scissors:
The next step was to topstitch the seam I just made. You could just press the background fabric back from the strip ... but I like the visual interest the sewn line gives the edge and it does stabilize the seam. I sewed about 1/8" away from the seam line - to goal is to sew the seam allowance on the back to the background fabric to stabilize the seam:
You could use thread colors to enhance this seam ... I mostly just used white. :)
Then I joined the cut-off section of the background fabric back on the other side of the fabric bits strip. The edge of this is bias cut and will 'bloom' as soon as you have cut it off. Take your time and adjust the raw edges together every four or five inches. You could pin this piece on if you want but I did not, with one exception (below):
Again, flip the background fabric corner you just sewed on out flat and top stitch the seam you just made.
Since I wanted to make four of these seams on each block, at first I made two more-or-less parallel (on opposite sides of the block) and then the two crossing ones. I found that if I turned the block one quarter turn to do each one after the next I got flatter results. (shrug) The only real trick to know after the above is how to deal with the crossing seams. When you cut away the outside corner of the block after sewing the next strip of color bits on and top stitching the seam, you have to decide how to align the corner piece. This is just a question of aesthetics.
I wanted my lines of color bits to be more-or-less straight. Here is how the one I failed to pay attention to came out - not a mistake, a choice!
See how it does a little San Andreas Fault imitation where the lines cross? :) I wanted railroad track crossings instead. :) So, I eyeballed where the seam line would be on the opposite side of the bits strip to place my corner in alignment - could have used a ruler (and show one here for you to get the idea):
Where the ruler 'lands' on the as-yet-unsewn seam side of the strip, that's where I want to place the seam of the crossing piece. Your eye will 'forgive' a variance of less than 1/8th inch so you don't have to be too crazed about this ... and, in fact, if you don't care whether the line goes along straight, you don't have to think about it at all. :)
When you flip open the seam and top stitch the background fabric down, you have to be slightly more bossy with the place where the pieced strip of color dots is - just be sure to turn the edge of the background fabric back flat and you'll be fine. :)
When you get done, press the block using steam to ease out the wrinkles. Here is my finished block before trimming:
I concentrated on keeping the edges of the block as closely on grain as I could so that the person receiving it would not have to fight bias edges. :)
When I give these blocks to my Bee buddies tomorrow, I'm planning to include the rest of the fabrics I used, as much as I can. I was working from sets of fat quarters so it isn't too much extra fabric ... and I think it helps to blend blocks together if you can use the prints in other places (border? sashing?) in your quilt. :)
I am excited to see what my buddies will give me for the red and white project - I have not decided how I will set together my blocks but they will go into a bed quilt sized design. I have all the charm squares from the red & white swap to use. :)
Wish me luck! I hope my bee members like their blocks!
:) Linda
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