Fun Quilts You Can Do Too
This project sure covered a lot of bases, and my daughter has scored herself a new decorative pillow to match her newest quilt. Would you like to see how I put it together?
And let me know what you think of the organza for the dragonfly appliqué wings!
This month I am very excited to be participating for the first time in OMG at Elm Street Quilts. I work so much better with deadlines to keep me focussed. Otherwise I have too many fun ideas…..
In July I started a tumbling blocks quilt in solids
. This is a little unusual for me. I tend to work in batiks, but I was unsure whether I would take to sewing Y-seams or not. And I had a particular plan to recreate a quilt idea that had occurred to me during a Colour Inspiration Tuesday. So I stocked up on some relatively cheap solid fabrics and cut a stack of diamonds with my AccuQuilt GO! cutter.
I got it mostly sewn, and two tutorials on the process written (about Y-seams and about tumbling blocks quilt construction) before life interfered and things stalled on this project. Now it’s time to get it done.
That is where my goal ends. However, I reserve the right to completely finish the quilting on this one, but it is not part of my official goal this month! We have to be realistic! 🙂
Do you have a quilt goal for September? If you do, share it with us here in the comments below. And consider joining us at Elm Street Quilts for some accountability (and be in the running for a prize as well!).
I hope you will share what you would like your September 2017 chapter of your Quilt Story to be!
P.S. Also linking up with Main Crush Monday at Cooking up Quilts and Free-motion by the River. Come on over and find out what other people are working on this week.
Over the last few weeks I have been working on a new project stemming from Colour Inspiration Tuesday. It all started with the Jewel Tone Triangles colour scheme. What was supposed to be a quick example of how to use this colour scheme has turned into a significant part of my recent quilt story! My daughter has convinced me to actually make her a Jewel Tone Triangles-derived quilt. This quilt is my first effort at tumbling blocks and is now called Jewel Tone Diamonds.
Firstly, my daughter and I redesigned the quilt idea to fit her bed and the fabrics available locally. Together we cut the diamond pieces and did a trial layout. Then I set about finding out how to sew the Y-Seams of the tumbling blocks. I wrote you a tutorial about that process here.
Now I am in the process of constructing the Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt top. Some people have asked how to put the tumbling block units together. The short answer is…. You don’t. While the illusion of this quilt is of lots of three-unit pieces stacked together, this is not the simplest way to construct the patchwork. Let me tell you how……
The method I use is a divide and conquer process – breaking the patchwork up into pieces that will sew together most easily. This process will work for any tumbling block design. This is because it ignores the pictorial design and only relies on the grid-work of diamonds that underlies the tumbling blocks design.
Here is a basic diagram of the tumbling blocks design carved up into sew-able pieces.
So, what I am sewing as my basic patchwork unit is actually a six-pointed star within a hexagon. Not a three-diamond unit tumbling block. Let me step you through what this looks like in real life.
The very first thing to do is to lay out your diamonds for the section of quilt you are working on and separate them into the units that need to be sewn. This makes it easier to see what has to be sewn to what next. Unless you have a cat or small child to keep disturbing them for you…..
Anyway, pets and small children aside, this is what you are aiming for:
Make sure each diamond is in it’s correct relative position in the quilt, but otherwise ignore the tumbling blocks design. Right now we are trying to see stars and hexagons!
Let’s use a methodical way to sew the hexagon-star units together.
Start on the left side of your hexagon unit and sew the three leftmost diamonds together in order from the top down. First sew the top two diamonds together, leaving the seam open one quarter of an inch at the broad angle end.
If you are not sure how to stop at the quarter seam allowance without marking it, I have covered this in detail in my post on how to sew great Y-seams.
Open it up and press the seams open.
Now add the third diamond in this group in the same way. Sew from the pointy end to the the broad end and leave the seam allowance un-sewn. Press with seams open.
Now we need to do two Y-seams. We want to add in these two diamonds next:
I usually sew the bottom one in first, as it causes the seam allowances to nest better later and reduce bulk in the middle of the hexagon star unit. But don’t get too uptight about this if you accidentally start with the top one instead. It will be fine.
If you need help sewing the Y-seams, I step you through this in the previous post about sewing the Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt.
Once you are done, flat press with seams open and you will have a piece of patchwork that looks like this.
The next step is simply to repeat steps 2 and 3 with the other half of the hexagon star diamond set that you laid out in step 1.
Then your layout assembly should look like this. Two sewn half-units and two loose diamonds. We are going to get this done before those kids and cats mess this up after all……
As an aside, you might notice if you compare this photo to the last, that I have changed my mind about the position of several diamond colours. It’s called designing on the fly…. or quilting your own story! I tend to do this quite a bit. In all likelihood, it won’t be the last deviation from the “pattern” that my daughter and I settled on. She won’t mind…. the original layout was a bit arbitrary anyway.
Now we need to get those two half-units sewn together. Basically this is just a straight seam. But there are two things we need to achieve in this seam, and therefore to keep in mind.
The first thing is that we need to remember is to keep the seam allowances open on both ends of this seam. If you forget this, you will be grumpy! Both ends of this middle seam are going to eventually be Y-seams. To get those last two diamonds in we will be returning to our set-in seam strategy.
The second thing is: you need to get those points lined up as best you can in the middle of the six-pointed star. Everyone’s tolerance of how well points need to match is different. I’m pretty fussy, and I wish I could be more relaxed about it. Some care here is advised though, as points that are too sloppy are going to make your tumbling blocks look like they are not well stacked! I will aim to write a tutorial about how I match tricky points another day soon, but in the meantime you will need to use your favourite method to get your points matched to your satisfaction.
Sew in the last two diamonds with your amazing Y-seam skills (revisit the method here if you need to, but you should be a pro by now!). You will now have a completed hexagon star unit to add to your tumbling blocks quilt.
Continue dividing and sewing your tumbling blocks quilt into manageable units like this. At the edges of the quilt you will have partial units. Remember this original diagram? These part-units are fine. They are supposed to be incomplete.
Here is my stack of units finished ready to complete the Jewel Tone Diamonds tumbling blocks quilt top.
Once you are ready to start assembling the tumbling blocks quilt from your hexagon star units, the process is relatively simple. Start with the top row of units and simply sew them together down the straight seams. Remember, leave the seam allowances open!! Add in the loose diamonds that go in between the large units, to complete the very top of the patchwork.
Also at this point I sew the 3-diamond units on the lefthand side of the quilt to their neighbouring hexagon star unit. Your pieces will now look like this. One completed row, plus some fish-shaped units down the lefthand side.
Then add one unit at a time to the next row. Sew the seams in the order shown in the next diagram. Sew the first straight seam and press. Then sew the second straight seam that makes up the first Y-seam. Don’t forget to always sew from the middle of a Y-seam outwards to the free end. That way you not push any excess fabric into the Y-seam and everything will sit flat. Sew the third seam, also from the middle out. Great! First piece in.
Sew the next piece in, in the same way, etc., etc. until you are all done!
I’ll leave you with a photo of my Jewel Tone diamonds quilt progress to date. I like it. So pretty!
Finishing upOne final comment. I can hear some of you wondering why I didn’t just sew it together as a series of tumbling blocks. Well you could. But I didn’t fancy trying to line up the points at the junctions at the same time as pulling off a Y-seam.
Remember, until I started this quilt, I had never sewn Y-seams before. But even now, I don’t think that this would be fun. And quilting should definitely be fun! If you do your tumbling blocks this way, I’d love to hear how you manage it, and how hard it is! Maybe it is easier than I expect?….. Perhaps it gives you more control over how the points line up? Please let me know.
PS. These hexagon star blocks also work to make other designs based on diamonds. Just rearrange the colours differently and you have a star quilt instead. (Or is it circles of tumbling blocks?) Designs abound!
The Chameleon turns rainbow with pleasure when he hears from you. I am more reserved, so I will respond in gratitude by email instead. Now that it’s your turn…. Scroll right to the end, leave me a comment and tell me, what do you think? Thanks for connecting!
From the Sewing Room – Sewing the Jewel Tone Diamonds Tumbling Blocks Quilt (Part I)Over the last few weeks I have been working on a new project stemming from Colour Inspiration Tuesday. It all started with the Jewel Tone Triangles colour scheme.
The Jewel Tones Triangles colour palette sparked an idea that immediately appealed to my daughter. It was a small tumbling blocks quilt design with drifting colour transitions between the blue-greens and the pink-purples. I chose tumbling blocks for the design because this photo cries out for some sort of 3D design. And now my daughter wants it for her bed. ASAP. She loves the colours and is fascinated by the 3D effect. But the design was never really intended to be made, let alone in bed-size!
Anyway, fast forward a week or two, and by the time Jewel Tone Triangles went to press, my daughter had convinced me to do it. She has grown out of her Disney Frozen themed quilt (fair enough) and she feels entitled to a quilt upgrade! You can read about the evolution of the Jewel Tones Diamonds quilt design in this post.
But it is easy to draw up a quilt plan without any thought to the difficulty of construction. Which is, of course, exactly what I did with Jewel Tone Diamonds. I was primarily playing with colour relationships and colour values. Not intentionally designing a quilt to make.
So I am mildly embarrassed to say, that the shear number of Y-seams in this design caught me a little by surprise. Simply through a lack of forward-thinking. So it wasn’t really until my daughter and I had modified the design to fit her bed, bought the fabric, cut the fabric and laid it out, that the Y-seams situation dawned on me. A fact for which I am actually thankful, because it is a skill I am well-overdue to learn and may otherwise have dodged yet again.
Until this project, I had never sewn tumbling blocks before. So I did a bit of internet research. The most useful resource I found was this video by the Fat Quarter Shop.
Fast forward another couple of weeks, and I am about halfway through sewing Jewel Tone Diamonds. I am now quite confident at Y-seams and actually enjoy sewing them! Figure that!! Not what I expected! There is something about opening up the piece and seeing it lie flat that I find intensely satisfying.
I know that I am not alone in my (turns out, unjustified) fear of Y-seams. There are plenty of no-Y-seam tumbling blocks patterns out there to prove it. But it turns out that Y-seams are not that hard! Easier than matching points, actually. So, I have decided to show you how I conquered them. Stick to this formula and you might be as pleasantly surprised as I am.
Take two diamonds and lay them one over the other, right sides together. Starting from one of the pointy ends (30° angles), sew a quarter-inch seam towards one of the wide corners (60° angles).
Stop when you get to a quarter-inch before the end. Reverse sew for a couple of stitches and break thread.
How do you know when you are 1/4 inch from the end?! When you think you are close, stop with the needle in the down position and swivel the diamonds so that the sewing line is now down the next side of the diamonds. If the quarter-inch guide rests on the edge, you are in the right place (see photo below). Swivel the fabrics back to the correct position and secure with backstitch.
If fabric peeks out to the right under the quarter-inch guide (see next photo), swivel the diamonds back to the correct direction, stitch the required number of stitches to cover the gap you observed and re-check your position. Secure with backstitch.
If you swivel your fabrics and find you have gone too far, there is nothing for it but to unpick the overshot stitches. Sorry. Learn to stop too early rather than too late.
Take your diamonds out of the sewing machine. Your first seam should look like this.
Open up the diamonds, lay flat and press the seam open.
Layer your third diamond underneath the two joined pieces, such that one of the narrow points lines up with the top dog-ear of the fabric on the left. The top right edge lies along the edge of the diamond on the right and the large corner lines up with the large corner of the diamond on the right. If you have sewn an accurate quarter inch seam in step one, this should be straight-forward.
Start sewing a new quarter-inch seam from the free narrow corner of the right-hand diamond. In the picture above this is the bottom right corner. You will be sewing towards the end of the first seam that terminated before the seam allowance. When you get about two-thirds of the way along the seam, pause.
Now fold the left hand diamond corner out of the way until it opens up the un-sewn portion of the first seam. Hold the folded corner out of the way as you sew the rest of the seam. Sew to the very edge of the first diamond, including over the seam allowance, but do not stitch into the folded back diamond.
Secure with a couple of backstitches and cut thread. Your work should now look like this photo below.
Open up your sewing, lay the pieces flat and press the seam open.
The final step! Fold the diamond that has two attached sides in half so that the second and third diamonds line up over the top of each other. It will look like the photo below.
Sew a quarter-inch seam from the wide corner at the top middle of the photo above, to the thin corner top right. This direction of sewing is important. Doing it this way prevents any excess fabric being pushed to the centre of your Y-seams. There shouldn’t be excess fabric, but if there is a little, it is harmless on the edge of your tumbling block. If it is in the centre, your block will bubble and not sit flat. Remember, sew from the wide to the pointy end, and it will all be good!
Now you are done with the sewing. Open up your tumbling block and press the last seam open.
Flip your tumbling block over. Press one last time and voila! A beautiful Y-seam.
Once you conquer this method, the Y-seams go together like clockwork. I promise! When I do these steps in this order, Y-seams work every time. It honestly feels a little like magic!
In my next post I will tell you more about how I put the units together to make the quilt top. There is one way I think gets the easiest matching points. And while I am enjoying the Y-seams, I am not celebrating all the matching points! I’ll add the link here once the post is up…. or subscribe to get it delivered straight to your inbox.
Until then, keep Quilting Your Own Story!