running in circles tutorial

Thanks so much for all the kind comments on my running in circles quilt. I had so much fun making it! It was great to start and finish a quilt in one fell swoop. It's been quite awhile since I did that. I took photos along the way so I could share a tutorial. This is June's free stash buster quilt pattern. I hope you enjoy it!

Materials Needed:

40 pieces of fabric at least 9" x 19"-a total of 5 yards (I used 36 different fabrics)

60" x 74" batting

3 1/2 yards backing fabric

1/2 yard binding fabric

Special Tools:

Elisa's Backporch 7" crazy curve acrylic templates A and B. (they are sold as a set) Avaliable here or here. (Or else you can google it.)
28 mm rotary cutter-this is a must! It really helps you cut the inner curves with ease.

Optional: rotating cutting mat

Cutting:

Fold each piece of fabric in half, so you can cut 2 layers of fabric at once. I wouldn't recommend cutting more than 2 layers at once, for accuracy sake. Layout your templates on the fabric and cut carefully!

After cutting, you should have 2 pieces of the outside curve and 2 pieces of the inside curve.

Cut a total of 80 pieces of each.

Assembly:
All seam allowances are 1/4" throughout.

Take a piece of fabric from each pile and pair up ALL your fabrics before you sew. You don't have to do this, but it will help you avoid ending up with 2 pieces of the same fabric at the end. It will also help you avoid ending up with some unpleasant fabric combo in the end. I did a fair amount of matching and rematching before I sewed anything. I'm so glad I did!

Take one pair of fabrics and fold each piece in half. Cut a very small notch in the inner center of each piece. This will show you where to pin.

Match up the notches. Pin in the center. Put the smile piece on the top. :)

Pin at the top and the bottom of the block. All you need is 3 pins per block.

When pinning the top and the bottom, go up and down through the fabric twice. This helps keep the fabric in place much better than if you only put the pin through the fabric once. It's a little tip that yields great results. Try it!

This is what it looks like when it is pinned. It looks pretty funky. But it WILL come together!

Put the piece in your machine and sew slowly. Try to maintain an accurate 1/4" seam allowance.

Pull any bulk up and away from you as you sew slowly. This little tip is key! This will help ease the curves together.

Continue sewing slowly while matching up the edges of the curve as you go.

Remove from your machine and check your work. It looks pretty good! It is a bit off on the bottom, but not too much. Definitely nothing to worry about.
Don't iron anything yet!

 Sew all 80 pairs together first.

Layout all the blocks and take a photo (or several), arranging the blocks until the colors are evenly distributed.

Now it's time to iron! I started assembling the quilt from the bottom, so I took the two left blocks from the bottom row. For the block on the left, iron the seam toward the center.

For the block on the right, iron the seam toward the outside.

A few pressing tips:

Do a quick press with the block upside down first. This allows you to see where you are ironing. This is helpful because sometimes the curve wants to flip in the middle of the seam. Then, flip the block over, so it's right side up. I found it very helpful at this point to do a quick spritz with some spray starch. Press again.

Place the two blocks together and pin. Again, only 3 pins are needed. One at the top, one where the seams meet, and one at the bottom. Pin the one where the curved seams meet FIRST! The seams should be pressed in opposite directions, so they should nest together neatly. Starting to pin at the middle pin will help you get accurately pieced circles. If the ends are a bit off, don't worry. Those will be hidden in the seam allowances. If your ends are way off, you may consider doing some stitch ripping.

Sew the two together, and press the seam to the right. Sew the remaining blocks in the bottom row in pairs, then sew the pairs together, until all the blocks in the row are joined. Press all seams to the right. The bottom row should be complete!

For the next row up, press the seams in the opposite directions.

So, for the first two blocks in this row:

The first block's curved seam will be pressed toward the outside of the block. The second block's curved seam will be pressed toward the center. After joining those two blocks, the seams will be pressed to the left.

The diagram below will help explain what I mean. The goal is to get all the seams in the two rows pressed in opposite directions so the seams will nest and lay flat when sewn together and pressed.

It looks complicated, but really, it's not so bad!

Now that the bottom two rows are assembled, it's time to pin. Again.

Pin at each seam intersection, for accuracy sake.

I had a little bubble in this block, so I pinned in the middle of the curved piece. It will help me ease the bulk evenly in the space. If there aren't any bubbles, pinning in the middle isn't really necessary.

Sew and press. Then admire your work! It's so fun to see the circles come together.

Repeat these steps for the remaining rows. Once the pairs of rows are together (there are 5), sew together and the quilt top is complete!

The quilt top measures 56" x 70".

Baste, quilt, bind and snuggle!

You can see the completed quilt here.

I really, really hope that I've taken the fear out of piecing curves, because it's not that hard. I hope you try it and have fun with it! A huge thank you to my neighbor Marcia, for letting me use her templates AND for taking the time to teach me this method. Plus, she was kind enough to let me share all her handy dandy tips with all of you. Thanks Marcia!

Disclaimer: I realize that there are special curved piecing feet for your sewing machine. (Haven't tried them.) I also realize that there are no pinning methods. (I tried one method and hated it.) This is simply one way to piece curves, but it's worked for me beautifully. So, while this isn't the ONLY way to do it, it is the method that I would recommend. At least at this point in time. :)

If you use this tutorial to make a quilt, I'd love to see it!

Happy Monday to you!

what I did this week

sewing for my sister

My sister came to visit yesterday and she mentioned that she was thinking of getting some new pillows for her couch. I'm sure she had NO idea that I would whip out some upholstery samples and pillow forms before she could even finish her sentence. It was merely a passing comment. Well, she should have known better. Ha!

I immediately started picking out suitable fabrics from my stash of sample squares that have been sitting in my closet for years. (thanks to my dear friend Amy.) Within about 30 minutes or less, I would say, she had 2 new couch pillows. Aren't they lovely???

For each pillow, I used 3 upholstery squares. No two squares are the same, but I love how well they coordinate and how much interest that adds! I made them with an envelope back so they could easily be washed. (She has 2 little boys, so this is a necessity!) And the icing on the cake? I had a few extra IKEA pillow forms on hand that are soooooo soft and smooshy and good. And they fit per-fect-ly. Sweet!

they can't all be my favorite

I made this quilt top, and it is soooooooo not my favorite. So much so that I even thought about not blogging about it. There is nothing wrong with it, but it's just not my style. However, I'm happy that the top is finally finished. I'm happier still that Margaret's Hope Chest accepts donations of quilt tops! (Isn't that fantastic???) It did give me a chance to work on my curved piecing (smaller curves are not nearly as fun as bigger ones), and it was a good exercise in perseverance. (I thought about throwing everything away at one point, but I just couldn't.) My daughter loved it, so I'm hoping that some other little girl out there will, too.

Thank you SO MUCH for all your sweet and kind comments about rescuing fabric. You all made me feel so much better!

rescuing fabric

In my post yesterday, I mentioned that I have this thing for rescuing fabric. I really do. Boy, was I glad to hear that a few of you do, too! Well, the situation is getting dire. Maybe after my admission here, I'll be on my way to recovery.

These little blocks are a good example. I cut a bunch of my less than appealing fabrics (nothing wrong with any of these, just not my cup of tea) with my Go! Cutter. I sewed them together, randomly, and it looked HORRIBLE. The problem? I didn't add enough pretties to dilute the uglies. So what did I do? Ripped the blocks apart and set them aside for another day, until I have time to start over. Why couldn't I just toss them or pass them along to someone who could use them? They really aren't worth my time and effort.

Especially when I have so many piles....

VERY pretty piles...

of fabric just waiting for my attention.

Each of the piles in the above photo represent a project that Cheryl and I dreamed up/pulled fabrics for back in March when she came to visit. Now, these are what I should be working on!

So, I don't know why I have this need to rescue fabric. Maybe because I like the challenge of making something "meh" into something great? Because I'm frugal? Because it seems like the quilty thing to do? Because I find great satisfaction in using it all, just like our Grandmas would? Because that's just the way I'm wired? Probably a little bit of each...I don't know. But the more I think about it, the more it bugs me! I wonder if there is a 12 step program that I can admit myself to? Or maybe I need to write one. Ha!

a happy accident

I'm trying to resist the urge to start a new project, and it is becoming harder by the day! I did pretty well last week finishing up some quilts, but there is still so much to do. I really let my WIP's get away from me this past winter, but I'm stubborn to the core and I'm not giving up yet.

So, today I pulled out my string scrap bin and tried to divert my attention from all the new projects calling my name. I made a few more of these free formed coin blocks. I have about 20 ideas of how I could use them. And I just stumbled upon a new one.

I received these blocks, shown above, along with a passel of scraps from someone a few years ago. They really aren't my style, but I have this thing where I feel the need to rescue fabric (I could write a whole post or two on that subject!) and apparently quilt blocks, too. I held on to the blocks because figured I would come up with a way to use them somehow, someday.

Well, it finally all clicked. I don't know what prompted me to pair them with my pieced string blocks, but wow-whee! I am smitten!!! What a difference scraps can make! I love stumbling upon happy accidents like this. The only down side is, I'm going to have to make a bazillion more blocks for my other 20 ideas. :)

One more thing! I'm featured over on Cindy's blog today. If you want to read how crazy mom quilts got it's name, click on over.

Happy Monday to you!

movin' on up

Here's my latest finish. More lime and eggplant. I love this color combo! Most of the dots are from Pat Bravo's Oval Elements collection. They are so lovely to work with and so soft. I added a few fabrics from the stash to fill in. The white is Kona cotton.

I so rarely make baby quilts, but I should do it more often. They are so fun to finish up. The quilting is a breeze, because they are so small. But the selfish part of me doesn't like to make baby quilts because I know I will never get to use them. It's silly, I know.

I pieced the back because the fabric I had was just a touch too small. Looking at this photo, I kind of wish I would have added in some white on the back for some contrast. Oh, well.
My daughter was my quilt holder. She was complaining about her tired arms after just a few photos, so I had to settle for a crooked one. ;)

More wavy grid quilting and more lime green binding to finish it off. I'm very pleased with how this quilt ended up.

The quilt measures 35" x 47". There is a tutorial is here. If you make one, I'd love to see it!

gingham

Quilting isn't a good hobby for a perfectionist, so says my sister, and I have to agree. This quilt has a few issues (that I won't outline here), but I have to say, it does look good from a distance. And really, the issues aren't all THAT bad, but I have a strong perfectionist streak, so they bug me! 

I'm not sure why I had to make gingham. I guess once the idea popped into my head, I just had to do it. I'm really glad I did! I could go crazy making this in so many color ways. I debated adding something to the quilt top, as you may remember, but in the end, I decided to keep it plain old gingham. I'm very happy with that choice.

I backed it with aqua (Wendover Aqua Sky from Hancock Fabrics), and did simple straight line quilting echoing the seam lines by 1/4". Well, the lines are supposed to straight.

The lime green solid (I'm pretty sure it's Country Classic Cotton in Lime from JoAnn's) is a little more "electric" than I was hoping for, but in the end I think it works pretty well. I love that this ended up being a gender neutral quilt. My boys both want it, but I'm not sure that they need any more quilts. I also love that this is one quilt that I can cross off my WIP list. Yipee!

The quilt measures 48" x 66".

another guitar strap

This guitar strap was a custom order for a friend. It will be a going away present for her daughter when they move in a few weeks. The plan is for all of her friends in the youth group to sign the guitar strap for her. Isn't that a sweet idea? The solids are from Connecting Threads. I LOVE their solids! And I'm loving the lime and eggplant color combo.

I didn't want to cover the entire strap with stitching, so I kept it simple and did some double stitching on the sides only, to leave room for the signatures.

I used the Ultimate Seam Guide to make the parallel lines. It is slick! I taped the grid to my machine, then used the guide bar (which is adhesive and removable/reusable) to make the outside stitching lines. I moved the guide bar to make a second line of stitching about 1/4" away from the first line. It made things very quick and easy. And amazingly accurate!

There is no way I could do stitching this neatly without the guide. I think it will work well for hemming things, too. Hurray for handy tools! I always say that I'm not a gadget girl, but I think I just may be becoming one.

I wanted to say a big THANK YOU to all of you who have left such kind comments here recently. They are much appreciated!

apple cake quilt top

My daughter inadvertently named this quilt. She confused "applique" with "apple cake". That makes me grin. I love the name, so it's sticking. Only half the quilt is shown in the photo here, as it's draped over the railing. I need to baste it and then work up the courage to start hand quilting it. It's gonna be one of my favorites, I can already tell. I loved making this quilt!

A few details....It's all freezer paper appliqued by hand from my stash. It was inspired by Nanette's blocks. My background blocks are 4 1/2" cut and 4" finished. I simply drew a leaf shape to fit the block size (leaving 1/4" seam allowance, of course) for my pattern. The quilt top measures 56" x 70".

Happy Monday to you!

oh my stars!

I am so enjoying working on this quilt!!! It is definitely all about the process. It is going to take forever! But no worries, I enjoy hand stitching very, very much. There is one thing that I try not to think about while I am stitching, namely, it will be a completely hand pieced quilt top. That seems ludicrous. But then again, why not, right? :)

edited to add: I wrote about the specifics of this quilt in this post, including the link to the video tutorial.
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Is blogger acting weird for anyone besides me? I had a friend tell me that my last post disappeared. She saw it in her reader, but it wasn't on my blog. It later reappeared, but it ate all my comments. :( It's kind of frustrating. So if you left a comment in my last post and it disappeared, don't worry, I didn't delete them. I appreciate each and every comment. I guess blogger must have had a hiccup. Anyone else notice anything funky?