Session 3, Jane's January Tutorials

Gosh! I am cutting it close.  This third quilt, although made completely of blocks already made, got a little out of control.  Remember those extra 16-patch blocks?  I decided to start with them, in a row down the center.  I may make another quilt with only three in the row down the center.  I used four in this one.  So, get those orphan blocks out! My favorite quilters, Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston call it the "Parts Department".  Go to your Part Dept. and find some of those four patches and whatever else you have and put them up on the design wall with your 16-patch blocks.

Here are my 16-patch blocks on point, on my design wall.  I am making a vertical row quilt.  I have chosen a gray with little red flowers as the background fabric.  I will also be using some left over rail fence blocks, some four-patch blocks, and some of my off-set frames blocks that look like log cabins.  You can use whatever you have that kinda goes with the color scheme of the majority of your blocks.  This quilt may seem to take a little longer, due to you are designing as you go.  I love designing as I go!

Look back at Session 1, to review how to piece these sixteen-patch blocks on point.  I like having a little extra background sticking out, so I can be flexible with my planning.  It turns out four of these on-point is fairly tall, so I will be cutting the top and bottom down a bit. You can see I have plenty underneath the bottom block.

I have put a bunch of blocks, in vertical rows, on the design wall on both sides of my on-point blocks.  I see I will have some not-coming-out-exactly-even rows.  The great thing about this design is it's thirties and forty-ishness.  You can use what I call cheaty blocks to make up the extra length in the rows.  Or you can make a couple of the blocks in the rows, a little taller (longer), but you will have to make fresh blocks to add in for that. 

I have rearranged my rows to see how I like it this way, but it still seams a bit busy.  I think I will cut a couple solid strips of the gray background to break up the busyness.

Okay, I have sewed the blocks in the two rows on the right together.  You can see that they have shrunk up quite a bit.  I think I can add two more to the narrower row and maybe a three-strip section to the bottom of the rail fences row.  I know I will need to do the same on the left side.  I have not sewed them together yet.

I have cut a couple of gray strips to add in, and have rearranged my rows again.  I think this is the most pleasing design. I did sew the cheaty three-strip section on the bottom of the left rail fence row.  Whatever is left hanging off the bottom, I will trim off when I square up the quilt top.

This view shows it all sewed together with the raggedy bottom edge.  Now it is time to square this puppy up!  I laid it on my cutting board and put the top edge on my right.  I squared up the top edge first, then keeping the top lined up straight, I cut the bottom straight.  I did the same to both sides.

Here it is all squared up!  The full view of the finished quilt top.  Kirsten took the photos.  They are a little from the side to get the best light. I think the colors of the fabrics came out well that way.

I am showing off my fabulous new Sixteen Patch Vertical Row Quilt.
It is a little larger than the others, but it will fit better on my big bed!
Thank you for checking out my January tutorials! 

Session 2 of Jane's January QuiltingTutorials

Welcome back!  We are ready to make our second quilt top in this series.

Remember, we sewed some strips of fabric together and then cut them to the size we needed?  We are going to do it again.  This time, however, we are making them into squares, so measure across the strips then cut your strips across at that distance and they will be squares.

I had a few chunks left over from the Session 1 Tutorial, so I cut them into squares.  I decided I needed 5 blocks by 5 blocks to make my quilt top, so I had to sew another set of four strips together and cut them into squares, so I would have enough blocks.  In the photo, above, I am holding one of the new blocks.  Before you get too far along, make sure all your blocks are squared up.  If they are all exactly square and the same size, they will go together easily.

You want to arrange them so the first one goes horizontal, then turn the next one vertical and keep placing them like that until you have them all on your design wall.  Then stand back and have a look to see if the arrangement is pleasing and balanced.  Well-balanced means not two reds right next to each other, you don't want all the blues in one corner. and etc.  You want to spread them out evenly.  It may take bit of tweeking, but it is worth it.  You want it to look like they are random, but you also want it to have a balanced look.  I call it 'planned randomness".

After you have them where you want them, you can start sewing them together; into rows.  The nice thing about this design is when you sew the vertical to the horizontal, you do not have to match any seams!  Above is the photo of all the rows being finished and ready to sew to each other.  Now, you will need to match the seam where the blocks in one row come in contact with the blocks in the next row. 

I have all the rows sewed to each other. It was only four seams, to sew five rows together.    My rail fence quilt top is all finished!  Now, wasn't that easy?

I hope you will give this rail fence quilt top a try.  It is fun and easy.  See you in a few days for Session 3, where we will use some of those left-over sixteen-patch blocks, left-over rail fence blocks, and some other left-overs to make our third quilt top in one month.  I suppose we can call it the "left-over quilt."

Session 1, Part B, of Jane's January Tutorials

Jane here!  We got the labor intensive bit done last session.  Here is the fun part! 

See how there are four empty square spaces in the middle of this layout?  Measure your finished blocks and cut four blocks, of that same size, to go in between these blocks.

Then cut a strip of fabric from the same background fabric, but make it one inch bigger than the width of the four blocks you just cut.  [For example, if the blocks on your design wall are 4 1/2 inches X 4 1/2 inches, then the strip of background you cut, needs to be 5 1/2 inches wide.  Cut six 5 1/2 X 5 1/1 inch blocks from that.]

Then you need to cut that strip into six blocks, that you will then cut from corner to corner, diagonally, to make the twelve triangles you need for the rest of the quilt top. 

Look at this photo and think about the quilt being sewed in rows, just like any other quilt, except you have to tilt your head to see the rows.  Tilt your head to the left.

You can place all the background blocks on your design wall, to see how it looks.  Then you better get those rows sews into rows!

In this photo you can see I divided the quilt top into rows.  I started at the upper left row and sewed the triangles on both sides of the sixteen patch block, then I pressed the seams away from the sixteen patch.  If you press all the seams "away" from the sixteen patch, then they will line up and snuggle in when you sew the rows to one another.  You only have five rows to get sewed into rows. 

When you get to the part where you want to sew the top left, and bottom right triangles on, lay the triangle with the outer tip face down and centered on the seam in the center of the sixteen patch block, and the edge on the edge of the row.  Now it is centered and you can sew it to the outer corner bit of the quilt top.  One you have all the rows sewed to each other and the two remaining corners sewed on, you can square up the quilt top. 

This looks great! Now all I have to do is add  border.  I think it needs one!  I want one of the reds that is in this quilt top, as a border.  I think I will put the background fabric as corner stones in the border to give it a little more detail . . . . let's have a look . . .

This is the completed quilt top! Tada!

Check back in about a week, and we will begin on the second quilt top.  We will be using the left over sections of sewed-together strips (those sections of four) to make a rail fence quilt top. 

Janes’s January Tutorials: Session 1, Part A

Hi, I’m Jane and I am using strips of fabric to make three totally different quilts.  This is Session 1, where I will cover the preliminaries and how to put together the first quilt. 

First you need to press your fabric and cut strips of equal width from all the fabrics you have chosen to go into the quilt.  Press your sewed-together strips. 

As you can see, I have already sewed several sets of strips together into groups of four.  All the quilts I am going to make will be from four strips sewed together.





Lay your sewed strips on the cutting table and cut them into strips.  The width you want to cut them is the same width you cut your original strips.  Now you will have four square block in each new strip that you cut.   Do not cut your entire piece of sewed strips, so you can have some left for the next projects.

We have our new strips with four blocks in each strip.  Place them on your design wall and mix them up with other strips to get a pleasing variety of fabrics in each group of four strips.  This makes a “sixteen patch” quilt block. 

 

I have made more blocks than I really need for my first quilt, but that is okay, because it allowed me to have plenty of variety in my sixteen patch blocks, and leaves me a few extra for my third quilt.

Before I start sewing these four strips together, I want to make sure that I alternate the pressed seams (on the back), so I can lock those seams together and get crisper looking seam joining on the top.   Let me say it this way:  when you sew two strips together make sure the seam allowances on the back of the one are going one way, while the ones on the back of the other are going the other way.  If you line up the one in the middle first, and pin it, you will see that the others pretty much line up.  This reduces bulk where the seams come together.

I chain pieced my strips together, to save thread and time.  It just seems to go faster when you chain piece.  This is especially true when you are starting to sew together a bunch of sixteen patch blocks.  It may look like a big chore ahead, but it goes much quicker if you 1) get going; and 2) chain piece.

 Press all of your finished blocks and place them on the design wall to view what you have created so far.  You can now feel a great sense of accomplishment, and the most intense part of the projects is complete.

Square up all your sixteen patch blocks with your ruler and rotary cutter.   They all need to be the same size square, so your quilt top will go together with ease.  I have chosen nine blocks to go into my sixteen patch quilt.  The others (I made a lot of extra) will go into the third quilt, so I am sitting them aside for now.

 Now that they are on your design wall, you need to decide if you are making your quilt top with your blocks straight across or on point.  I did my last sixteen patch quilt with the blocks arrange straight across with sashing in between, so this time I am going to do it “on point.”

I have broken Session 1 into two parts, because I want to show you how to sew together “on point” blocks.  That will be next time, so check back later to see the next installment.  Happy quilting!