Tradewinds….the big finish!!

On Thursday, I left you with the quilt at this stage…..

As I looked at it, I felt that it needed some separation between the blocks so decided to add 1-inch sashing.

….and the blue background seemed to be a perfect choice.

Before I started pulling blocks off of the design wall, I added numbered pins to each block which GREATLY helped to keep the blocks in the same place as piecing commenced…..

If you are interested, here is an older video that I made reviewing one of the Numbered Pin brands…..

I quickly had the horizontal sashing added…..

Now came the hard part….. adding the vertical sashing and making sure that the blocks were perfectly lined up!!

I accomplished this by marking registration lines on the sashing piece and pinning every seam so that they matched….

The top was finished, including the 1-inch sashing around the entire top. Now I wanted to add a splash of color to the border. As I searched my stash, my eyes fell on these fabrics…..

After lots of trial and error, I ended up cutting strips from several of these and piecing them together into irregular-sized chunks.

A final blue border and the top was finished…..

And, I LOVE IT!!!

I am not interested in quilting this myself so have sent it off to let Sheila work her magic with thread.

Just because I am not quilting this myself doesn’t mean that I couldn’t quilt it if I had the time…..

Are you in a rut with your machine quilting? Sure, you know HOW to do FMQ and you have 4 or 5 patterns that you do well. BUT, you are bored with those designs and need a push to try some new things. If so, please join “MOVE-IT…. a Free-Motion Quilting Boot Camp”!! I will take you on a FREE 10 week journey to learn new designs and become more comfortable with just MOVING IT!! You can sign up by clicking HERE

Tradewinds – Part 2

Yesterday I posted about making the Strip sets for my newest project….”Tradewinds”!!

Now it was time to sub-cut them into triangles.

The pattern uses a special ruler called the “Strip Tube Ruler”…..

One of the things that I appreciated about the pattern was that they included instructions for how to make the sub-cuts using a different type of ruler and this is what I did.

I used my “Easy Angle” ruler and simply put painter’s tape along the line that I would be following….

I actually put several layers of tape along that line…..

….so that I would have something to butt the fabric up against.

It worked beautifully!!!

For some of the cuts, I actually drew the lines on the ruler using a fine-point sharpie…..

I did try several different cutting lines until I got the size that yielded the proper triangle.

I also added smaller pieces of painter’s tape to help me see which line I was cutting on!!

This wasn’t an ideal way to do the cutting, but it was better than having to wait for another ruler to arrive.

As I started sewing the two triangle sets together, I marked the center of both blocks and used that to line up the pieces…..

It was enjoyable to quickly sew the triangles together to form the blocks……

…although twice I got a little carried away…..

It is SO frustrating to have to stop and rip when you are on a roll!!!

With all of the blocks made, I was excited to throw it up on the design wall and see how it looked…..

I wasn’t exactly sure about the layout but thought that I could go ahead and piece the big blocks together.

It was so exciting to see the corners and points match up …..

Isn’t that a thing of beauty!!!

Since every other block is rotated, I found it easiest to sew all of one type together first. Because I did it this way, I saved two or three blocks that I was about to sew incorrectly. I would notice that I wasn’t having to match up the same lines as before and that would be my “twig” that I was doing it wrong.

On the wall again…..

And, although I love the bright colors, I think that it needs something else…..

Come back Saturday for the big finish!!

Let’s add a skinny border

A few weeks ago I was working on a quick gift and felt that it needed a skinny border to finish out the design and was thinking about making it 1/4-inch in width.

My first thought was to cut a strip that was 3/4-inch but decided that there was too much possibility for the border to be crooked or to vary in width as it went.

What I am trying to say here is that I wouldn’t be able to sew it straight!!!

Instead, I cut the fabric strip at 1-1/4 inches and sewed it onto the two sides…..

After pressing it well, I brought in a square-up ruler and trimmed the new border to 1/2 inch…..

Next, I headed to the machine and sewed the outer border on, using my VERY BEST 1/4-inch seam allowance…..

And….voila….. the skinny border was incorporated into the top…..

I have already shared the finished version of this quilted gift…..

….and you can read about the fabric painting technique in THIS POST.

How do you ensure a tiny border??

Tricks for measuring and adding borders!!

Several weeks ago I shared about this small quilt top for charity…..

As I was applying the borders, I started thinking about the various methods that quilters use to measure and apply their borders and thought that I would share my EASY way.

I love this method because there is NO measuring needed!!

I hope that you enjoy this video that shows my process….

I hope that this helps you the next time you have borders to apply!!

The numbers don’t lie

The other day while I was at the gym…..tell me if you have heard this one!!! HAHA……

Seriously, while I was on the treadmill, I was watching a Youtube video from “OnPoint-TV” as she presented the formulas for calculating the setting triangles for a quilt set on point. Interestingly, I found that I needed those exact calculations less than 24 hours after watching the show!!

So, in case you might need them…..