Rosi Quilts Hopefully - For A Week
Would you like to see what I got up to over the course of a week in my sewing room?
My quilt group have started a new challenge – a shoebox challenge for 2019.
Everyone puts fabrics and instructions into a box. The boxes get passed around the group over the course of a year, so that everyone gets a chance to make one or two blocks for everyone else’s boxes. At the end of a year, we each get our boxes back, filled with blocks made by everyone else.
Here is the block I made for one of the boxes. This friend wanted a sewing themed block for a quilt that will hang in their sewing room in the house they are just about to move into.
I am trying to broaden my sewing horizons with a little machine embroidery, and I downloaded these sweet wild flower designs from Etsy:
I have a lot to learn about stabilizer, but I think these blocks look OK. I made 2 of these wall hangings as gifts for friends.
Over in Brünhilda’s room I was desperately trying to finish a quilt for a client. Isn’t it nice? The kit for the quilt top had nativity themed fabric for the block centers, and the E2E quilting design chosen by the client was perfect – it’s called “Sea of Stars.”
The problem was spring thunderstorms. I cannot leave my machine plugged in to an outlet during a thunderstorm and risk loosing it altogether to weather. So every time I hear thunder I have to stop the machine in its tracks, shut it down and unplug it. Spring in North Carolina involves a lot of thunderstorms. It took a loooong time to finish this quilt!
Next project – some homework blocks for “Kaleidoscope Twist” a mystery quilt program I am running at the quilt shop where I work. If you have never signed up for a mystery quilt, maybe think about it. You are bound to have fun and learn some new techniques along the way. Participants in this program have already learnt to paper piece and make wonky stars.
Here are all the blocks they will have made by the end of April. My fabrics are pictured, but everyone who signs up chooses their own fabrics. They will not know until November what the quilt layout will be.
On to another project – another mystery program. This one is call “Into The Woods,” and all of the blocks in this quilt will be paper pieced. This is what participants have had to make so far.
Again, they won’t find out until the end of the year, what the final quilt layout is.
And the final project I worked on this week – “I’m Seeing Stars” – my own quilt design. This time I made the lap quilt size for a customer requested Quilt-Along at the shop.
And there you have it – quite a busy sewing week for me!
Rosi Quilts - Hopefully 1/4" Seams!
If you ever hang around quilters long enough, you will hear talk of ¼ inch seams, scant ¼ inch seams and even generous ¼ inch seams.
Quilting relies on cutting each piece of fabric accurately, and sewing each of those pieces of fabric together accurately. If any of your cuts or seams are inaccurate you risk ending up with a finished quilt that could be inches too short or narrow, or, too long or wide. Think about it, if your pattern stipulates that you use an accurate ¼ inch seam for all piecing, and you actually use a slightly wider seam, say an extra one sixteenth of an inch, then in a quilt with 100 seams across the length could end up being over 6 inches shorter than desired.
“Is that really a huge problem?” you ask. Well think about it – do you like cold feet or warm feet?
I have 3 sewing machine feet that claim to give me the perfect quilter’s ¼ “ seam. Two of them do not – probably because of the way I use them, rather than any design flaw.
That one on the bottom left is the only one I have found that works for me. It works and I am sticking with it!
I have found that there is only one method to ensure that your seams are a perfect ¼ inch, and it’s pretty easy – but it takes practice:
1. Cut your fabric accurately.
2. Find the seam allowance that gives you the desired result.
3. Use it consistently!
There you are – easy, eh? What to you mean, “no!” OK, let’s look into it further.
CUT YOUR FABRIC ACCURATELY
Use the correct tools, correctly. Use a good quality cutting mat, a rotary cutter with a SHARP blade, and a good quality quilter’s ruler with sharp edges.
If you haven’t yet tried it, try pressing your fabric BEFORE you cut it with a product like Best Press. I love this product; it makes cutting accurately easier, and sewing too. You will love it!
When you cut, apply HARD downward pressure to the ruler to stop it from slipping. Imagine you are pressing it directly towards the floor. Don’t be afraid to press down firmly on your rotary cutter also. And always cut away from your body!
Square off the edge of your fabric, and align the marks on your ruler carefully with your freshly cut edge. Remember, if you are cutting squares or rectangles, the edges should always align with the weave of the fabric. That way you will not have to deal with bias edges which can stretch.
So now we have some 2” x 3” rectangles to play with. And we are going to sew them together along the 3” edge.
SEW YOUR FABRIC ACCURATELY
First, let’s do some math! Each piece of fabric is 2” wide – 2 pieces, that 4” altogether. But once you have sewn them together, you will lose ¼ “ from each piece in your seam. 2 pieces, so you will loose a total of ½ “ – so the joined piece should be exactly 3 ½ “ wide.
Now let’s sew! I will sew a generous ¼ “ seam, and exact ¼ “ seam and a scant ¼ “ seam.
I always chain piece where I can – it’s faster and you waste less thread, cutting and restarting. Notice my “leader” – that little bit of white fabric I put through the machine to start the chain? If I’m going to get a little knot of threads at the beginning of the seam, it’s going to be under the leader, not under my first seam.
Here we go!
I finish off with a “Finisher” which can stay in the machine, ready for my next sewing session, at which point it magically becomes a “Leader!”
So here are the three units sewn – I have left them attached with a leader at the top, so I know which one is which – and pressed. Look how flat the seams are – that’s the Best Press!
Let’s measure the results. Now, I promise that the ruler is aligned with the top and right edges of the fabric in each case – because of the thickness of the ruler, there is a little trick of the light when I photograph it, and it may not seem to be aligned, but it is.
The generous ¼ “ – wow, what a difference! Look how much I am off – almost an 1/8“. Imagine if every seam I sewed over the width of a quilt was that much off – 100 seams, and the quilt would be almost 12 ½ “ shorter than I wanted it!
Now the exact ¼ “. It is still off by a small amount. Not as bad as the previous unit, but still not accurate.
Why is that? Well, when you press your seam to one side, there is a roll of fabric to one side of the stitching. That roll, no matter how small, takes up space, and reduces the size of the unit you have sewn. The dotted line below shows where the seam is located. You are looking end on at the black and red fabrics.
Let’s take a look at the SCANT ¼ “ seam – the result is perfect! So that is what quilter’s mean when they talk about a scant ¼ “ seam. The seam is sewn just a tiny bit less than ¼ “ (we are only talking about the width of a thread or two) and it makes all the difference to the outcome.
So remember, it doesn’t matter what type of foot you use on your sewing machine, just find the one that works best for you. But remember, the most important thing is to test it, just like I did here, and find the stitching location that gives you the desired result– the correct dimensions for your finished unit.
Happy Sewing!
Rosi Quilts - Hopefully - March 25th 2019
I love to quilt! I really love to design quilts, I love to piece quilts, I am not great at quilting the quilts (more about that later), and I actually like binding the quilts. Sometimes, other people like my quilt designs - that makes me so happy.
I have 2 dedicated sewing spaces - Destiny’s room and Brünhilda’s room.
Here is Destiny’s room:
Destiny’s Room
It’s alway slightly dis-organized chaos! Destiny is sitting on the desk right in the middle of the photo. She is my Baby Lock. I got her last November and I love her. She comes loaded with functions that I have not yet learned to use. I have basically used her for straight stitching, satin stitch (I love appliqué) and to do a little embroidery. I hope to keep learning and to put her to good use.
Here is Brünhilda’s room:
Brünhilda’s room
It used to be our living room. I have a very supportive husband!
Brünhilda is a big girl and she needed a big name! So now you know, I was so bad at the actual quilting bit, that I decided to buy a longarm machine. Within a month of adopting Brünhilda, all of my unfinished quilt tops, some years old, had been quilted and bound. A finished quilt is a happy quilt and a quilter with a finished quilt is a very happy person!
In the picture, Brünhilda is busy quilting a Christmas Quilt for a client.
Isn’t it sweet?!
I have 2 friends who help to make my days fun. Lola and Rosco are my constant companions. They let me know when it is time to go out, time to come back in, time for a meal, time for a snack, or time to check the front door because a dangerous squirrel is in the front yard.
That’s Lola on the right. She is our pit bull / hound mix. We got her in 2008 as a one year old rescue dog. She wasn’t so white then, and she was a little thinner! She is the sweetest, most gentle dog, but she is always all action. She likes to be in the middle of whatever is happening. She is our singer - especially when my husband comes home from work - then she sings at the top of her voice.
Rosco is on the left. He is a raggle - a beagle / rat terrier mix. We got him in 2017. He cannot get those teeth inside his mouth, so he always looks a bit goofy. He is an enthusiastic sweetheart though, who loves to snuggle. I think he would like Lola to be a snuggler too, but she is having none of it. He is our dancer - especially when my husband gets home - then he dances around the kitchen table.
And finally, here I am. I hope you enjoyed meeting me. Next time, I’ll tell you a little about what I am working on at the moment.
Rosi Hanley - March 25th 2019