Scrapping Principle #3

Yesterday I talked about breaking down scrap blocks into smaller components, starting with 2-patches…..or “couplets” as I called them.

The next step was to turn those 2-patches into 4-patches.

When I first started, I had all of the 2-patches in a pile by my sewing machine. I would pick up one and then try to figure out which one I wanted to attach it to.

And then when I made a decision, often the seam allowances wouldn’t be nesting…..

….which meant that I either had to fix the seam allowances or change to a different combination of 2-patches.

YIKES…..this was taking forever!!!

So I decided to try something else.

Instead, I stacked up two sets of couplets, one with the seam allowance facing one direction and the other facing the other way…..something like this…..

So now it was super easy for me to make a 4-patch.

Just pick up one couplet from one pile and one from the other and sew them together.

The seams magically nested…..

….making piecing and pressing a breeze.

And, unless the same two fabrics ended up together, I never even thought about which ones to put together. If they were next in the pile, they were sewn together.

This brings me to Scrapping Principle #3. And yes I know that I haven’t talked about #2 yet but I will on Tuesday…..

So now I have 4-patches to work with…..

I took 9 of these pieced portions and turn them into a 6-inch block, starting by sewing three 4-patches together….

….and then sewing the three strips together to make the blocks…..

I was trying to make at least 8 blocks from the green squares so needed to add some other patches to make them big enough. I pulled out my 2.5-inch scraps and laid out a set of green ones….

Next, I mixed the 4-patches and the 2.5-inch squares to make more blocks in a 9-patch format….

And before I knew it, I had all of the green squares sewn into 6-inch blocks…..

I also pieced the purple squares into 6-inch blocks and finally, the few yellow squares together to form 4 blocks.

NOW…..it is finally time to figure out a layout.

Come back on Thursday and we will get the top finished!!!

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