My daughter in law Laura, has a birthday coming up! Her new patio furniture looks so nice and I thought she might enjoy having a quilt to enjoy when the weather is cooler. Her cushions are off white and she has a few throw pillows in red and blue. I thought a red/white and blue quilt might look nice. As luck would have it, I came across a fabric line by Sandy Gervais called Red, White & Free.
Isn't it a beautiful line? It seemed to fit the bill, and so I got out my calculator to figure things out. To get the great variety this quilt line offers and not have a lot of scraps left over, I decided to try using some precuts. I definitely wanted to do something simple and chevrons always seem to be a hit, so why not. I could easily pair up each 10 inch square with a white solid 10 inch square and make eight half square triangles out of each and end up with 336 half square triangles. I need four hst's for each block. Each block would finish at 8 inches. Simple math tells me that is 84 blocks. I love square quilts so why not a 9 X 9 block quilt using 81 blocks? Yeah that works!
If you remember right, I am not the greatest piecer and it isn't that I don't try but somehow things just go wrong. It was time to be honest with myself and reassess why things happen. I get bored after about an hour of piecing. That's a easy fix! Am I cutting accurately? Is my scant quarter inch really spot on? Do I distort when I am pressing? Do I check my block size after I make it? Seems like a lot of work, but rather than be unhappy with my piecing skills I think it is time to do something about it. I have heard all the great tips and steps, now it is time to implement them! Wish me luck!
Isn't it a beautiful line? It seemed to fit the bill, and so I got out my calculator to figure things out. To get the great variety this quilt line offers and not have a lot of scraps left over, I decided to try using some precuts. I definitely wanted to do something simple and chevrons always seem to be a hit, so why not. I could easily pair up each 10 inch square with a white solid 10 inch square and make eight half square triangles out of each and end up with 336 half square triangles. I need four hst's for each block. Each block would finish at 8 inches. Simple math tells me that is 84 blocks. I love square quilts so why not a 9 X 9 block quilt using 81 blocks? Yeah that works!
If you remember right, I am not the greatest piecer and it isn't that I don't try but somehow things just go wrong. It was time to be honest with myself and reassess why things happen. I get bored after about an hour of piecing. That's a easy fix! Am I cutting accurately? Is my scant quarter inch really spot on? Do I distort when I am pressing? Do I check my block size after I make it? Seems like a lot of work, but rather than be unhappy with my piecing skills I think it is time to do something about it. I have heard all the great tips and steps, now it is time to implement them! Wish me luck!
Good luck! I too am unhappy with my piecing and have implemented much of what I've learned. I'm pretty sure that my pressing still needs improvement, but other than that, I'm not sure why my blocks don't end up correctly sized. I hope you'll share your progress toward precise piecing.
ReplyDeleteI think my problem is not following thru! So I am pacing myself before I get sloppy. The last chevron I made for my daughter went togther rather well but I didn't like the bias edges on the sides of the half square triangles I made. We will see if the next method works out better. More to come!
DeleteIt's a pretty line of fabric and ok, wishing you luck :)
ReplyDeleteHow did you make that compass if you are not good at piecing, lol...
Oh the compass was paper pieced. I can sew on a line but without lines things get wonky fast!
DeleteI love that fabric line too--very fun! I'm sure you will do fine on your piecing. I check my quarter inch a lot--something I still struggle with even after years of sewing. Have fun and good luck!!
ReplyDeleteI plan to focus on the scant 1/4 seam allowance and trimming dog ears and checking my progress as I go. I know it is mostly just carelessness on my part!
DeleteThe roads are too icy for me today to drive 20 min. into a stressful day at work so took the day off to relax instead and catch up on blog reading. Love the fabric you will be using. I've never purchased precuts, jellyrolls, etc. As you can probably tell...I like to have scraps! And I wish you luck. After all the gorgeous quilts you have appliqued and hand quilted it's funny to read about your thoughts on piecing.
ReplyDeleteSo glad you pampered yourself today. Hope your having fun stitching. I love doing miniatures and paper piecing but making duplicate blocks for a larger quilt always starts out good and goes down hill. I know it is my own fault, I just need to stay focused on the process instead of getting careless.
DeleteI had been looking online at the Sandy Gervais fabric you chose for the quilt. It is very nice.
ReplyDeleteI have not been piecing as well as I used to. I recently decided to work on being more accurate. I started using a 1/4" foot with a sort of knife edge on the right side. The fabric runs right along side of it. You still have to get edges of two pieces line up correctly and make sure that it starts out running along side of the knife edge and stays along it. I am also pinning a bit more.
I know that most of my problems is just laziness. I probably just rush the process too much. I was very careful with my Baltimore Garden after all the hard work I did on those blocks and it came together quite nicely. That really gave me the encouragement to apply those same principles to my regular piecing. I know I will be so much happier if the blocks come together more accurately.
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