Tag: 60-degree diamonds

More Exploding Star Piecing…..

Yesterday I left you with the quilt top at this point…..

It was interesting to figure out what needed to be added to fill in the inset areas…..

At this point, I had to figure out how to add the pieces that were NOT diamond shaped!!

Fortunately, the Deb Tucker ruler is well designed and it was easy to decide what size to cut!!

Then it was just a matter of sewing the piece in…..

….and performing the “inset seam” procedure on each end.

I got the entire area filled in…..

…..and promptly ran out of cream fabric!!!

I am now waiting for the next 3 yards to be delivered so that I can continue with the design.

The real question is….”What am I doing on the next round??”

I feel like I need to bring those two “duller” inner fabrics into the outside but I am not sure exactly how.

Piecing the Exploding Star

Now that I had the technique down (see Tuesday’s post), it was time to start piecing the top.

I started in with the center star……

….and then realized that I should have added more bits to the star points BEFORE I put them together. SO….a little ripping ensued……

I added the bits to the orange diamonds…..

Doesn’t this look good……

As I worked on various sections, I struggled with keeping the pieces in the correct order so there was a lot of referring to a picture……

It was enjoyable to see how the bits came together…..

Come back tomorrow and I will take it up to where it stands right now……

Cutting 60-degree diamonds

Yesterday I was talking about getting organized to make my “Diamond Explosion” quilt and was pleased to find that I could piece the 60-degree diamonds easily.

Now it was time to cut the real fabrics and get started!!

I knew that I could cut the diamonds just using my regular straight ruler….I had done it back in May…..

….but it wouldn’t be as easy since I needed to cut the fabrics one at a time, rather than having them stitched together.

I really like Deb Tucker Rulers and decided to purchase her 60-degree wedge tool…..

Using this tool, I can cut out strips of fabric and then cut the diamonds easily from the strips!!

I settled on a 3-inch finished diamond which meant that my strip was cut 3.5-inches.

The first step was to make the initial cut to start the diamond shape. To do this, I placed the ruler on the strip, being sure that the lines were parallel to the cut edge of the strip…..

A quick slice, and we were ready to go…..

Next, I placed the ruler so that the 6.5-inch mark was at the point I had just created (6.5….because it was 2 times the 3-inch finished size, plus 1/2 inch for the seam allowance)….

Another slice…..

…..and I had a diamond……

As I pieced, I ended up needing some half diamonds and went back to the ruler for those.

In this case, the ruler was placed on the 3.5-inch line……

…..which meant that the top point was missing…..

And, NO….that was not a mistake!!

Having the point clipped off meant that it was SUPER easy to line the piece up when I was ready to sew it in place…..

Once I had a bunch of diamonds cut, I immediately started piecing……

…and then realized that I had other pieces that should have been added BEFORE I sewed these!!!

So, I will leave it here……with seam ripper in hand!!

Come back next week for more of the diamond piecing odyssey!!!

Diamond Explosion

Last week I posted about my work to design a quilt using 60-degree diamonds and left the design process here…..

But, EXACTLY how would I piece this??

I started out working with paper and pen and trying to design piecing diagrams but I kept working myself into corners.

Then, I switched to my iPad and used Procreate to play with it further.

It was then that it HIT me…..

Work it in ROUNDS!!!

Now I have to figure out if I can actually piece using these diamonds!!

Instead of starting with my fabric, I grabbed some scraps and played until I was convinced that I could do it.

I pulled out Gyleen Fitzgerald’s book…..

…and spent some time studying the process that she used.

I first practiced sewing them into a straight line…..

….and then using inset seams…..

AND THEY WORKED!!!

This was a great way to feel a bit more comfortable with the process before I started working on the quilt itself!!

So, with fear and trembling, I started cutting the fabrics…..

……come back tomorrow to learn about the ruler and cutting process!!