Accurate piecing when seams don’t nest!

I believe that every quilter has a desire to be more accurate with their piecing and one of the first things we learn is how to “nest” our seams.

If you haven’t heard that term, it refers to when one seam allowance is pressed one direction and the other seam allowance is pressed to the opposite side……

That means that the two seams NEST together, making it easy to be accurate with piecing.

But, what happens when both seams are going the same direction?

If you are reading on email, you can use this link to go directly to the video…..https://youtu.be/sI2egF9LMKE

Isn’t that an easy solution?

And I LOVE THE RESULTS…..

Try it and see if it works for you!!!

Last of The Piecing – QuiltCon

Well, it has taken four days, but today we will finish up the “Pieced” division at QuiltCon-24. Come walk the aisles with me.

There was SO much going on in this next quilt, from circles to skinny lines….

“Tropic of Capricorn” by Catherine Beemer

Just look at the piecing AND quilting in it…..

Isn’t this wonderful grid quilting….

This next quilt is made from scraps. The maker calls it a “stone soup of leftovers”…..

“Stone Soup” by Jennifer Candon

I was particularly drawn to this one fabric…..

I love the “tweed” appearance!

This quilt was made as a “Pantone Color of the Year” challenge…..

“Sock Hop” by Lee Zuk

….a quilter after my own heart!!

I would love to meet the woman in this next quilt…..

“Represent” by Carrie Stout

I feel sure that she would have some stories to tell!

And the final pieced quilt for QuiltCon 24…..

“Alien Jungle” by Lenny VanEijk

It reminds me that I STILL want to play with curved piecing!!!

Oh if there were more hours in the day!!

There are TONS more quilts to see…..keep coming back!!

Please subscribe so that you don’t miss any of my favorites from QuiltCon…..

Piecing perfection

For the last two days, we have been strolling through the Pieced Division at QuiltCon. Let’s keep going…..

As I have said before, I am enamored with color transparency and this quilt is an amazing example of how it works….

“Color Transparency Study” by Erika Mulvenna

This was based on an exercise from Josef Albers book, “Interaction of Color“…..

It does look interesting!!

My enjoyment was equally high for this next quilt…..

“Intersectionality” by Heather Akerberg

There is just something about the precision of piecing the strips with the slight curve that makes me want to learn to do it!! How about you?

This next quilt was improvisational pieced and the depth obtained was outstanding (probably more so in person than in the photo)…..

“Escape Room” by Hillary Goodwin

The quilting in this next one surprised me…..

“Only In Milan” by Robert Lowe

At first glance, I thought that the quilting mirrored the shape of the buildings but after looking harder, I realized that it is just straight lines flowing from one side of the quilt to the other!

More improvisational piecing in this next one, but what a great rendition of a Coleus…..

“Coleus” by Cathy Calloway

Now, have a look at this next quilt…..

“YMCA T-Shirt Quilt” by Mac Barnes

Did you realize that it was a Tee-Shirt quilt?

This is a MARVELOUS example that Tee shirt quilts don’t have to be boring!!

Come back tomorrow and we will finish the Pieced Division……

Please subscribe so that you don’t miss any of my favorites from QuiltCon…..

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I’m Seeing RED!

And…..No, I am not mad!!

When I posted yesterday about making an optical illusion quilt, I started remembering one that I made as part of a guild challenge back in 2000. We picked color swatches out of a hat and my color was RRRREEEEDDDD!!!

I had wanted to try an optical illusion quilt and found a great pattern in this book that just happened to be on my shelf…..

Sadly, this book is now out of press!

This is the quilt that I made…..

It was amazingly easy to make, but I did have to be EXTREMELY precise in my cutting and piecing.

Since most illusions are made with straight lines they do lend themselves to fun quilt designs.

I did a bit of research for books and found these…..

Now what I REALLY want to do is to design one myself so it may be a while before I get one made.

But I can always dream!!

And, truth be known, my TRUE desire is to make something like this…..

Have you made an optical illusion quilt?? Did you enjoy it??

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One of my favorite things about quilting is motivating others and helping them in their quilting journey. As part of this endeavor, I LOVE to present programs and workshops to groups and guilds around the world. All of my programs work well with Zoom meetings, and I would love to speak to your group.

You can find out more at this link…..

Dresden Variations…..

Yesterday I posted about my initial foray into making Dresden Plates….

And while I enjoyed making them, I didn’t want EVERY plate to look exactly the same…..

Since I want these to look like flowers, my first thought was to round out the corners.

I accomplished this by drawing the rounded version onto lightweight interfacing…

I placed each one of these on top of the “ray”…..

……. and sewed around it…..

Then I turned it, leaving this, slightly uneven, Dresden ray…..

No….it’s not perfect….but neither are flowers!!!

This is the final plate…..

I LIKE IT!!

My other thought was to make a set of plates where the background fabric was used in half of the rays so that it basically disappears.

For this one, I chose to NOT make the points of the rays.

My first step was to cut and sew the pairs of fabrics…..

When pieced it looked like this…..

Now I needed to finish the edges, so I placed a piece of interfacing over the circle and sewed around it……

After a quick turn…..

…..and I have a circular plate….

The question will be whether or not I can quilt it so that the background fabrics basically disappear…..

It looks promising……stay tuned!!!

I will get back to this piece on Thursday, showing you some REALLY fun Grid Quilting, but between now and then, I have a great quote, some inspiration and ideas for a great gift for your quilting friends…….

Stay tuned!!!

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In this blog, I post stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog as it becomes available.

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