Marsha and Astrid Complete Their RWB On-point Four-patch Quilts

We have been busy quilting girls!  Astrid and I have completed our red, white, and blue quilts.  They are both the same design.  We each made our four-patch layouts with color differences.  Mine has two whites, and one red, and one blue.  Astrid made her four-patch squares with two blues and two reds.  It makes for totally different color and design-look outcomes.

When I cut the pieces for my quilt, I made the squares a little larger than Astrid did hers.  That has caused my quilt to be a little bigger than hers.  I think they both look awesome.  I particularly like the traditional sorts of fabrics that Astrid used.  Mine are a little brighter for a more contemporary look.  Be sure to try cutting out some squares and sewing them together; it may amaze you!

Red, White, and Blue Four-patch Quilts

Marsha here.  Astrid and I are making on-point four-patch quilts.  We decided to use our red, white, and blue stashes.  This quilt type of construction is great for string-piecing.  That means you feed the blocks, to be sewed together, through your sewing machine one immediately after another.  It saves a lot of thread and time.

This is Astrid and I holding up some of her blocks.  She has the cutest sewing room with a big design wall.

It was a great day for staying in and piecing quilt blocks, because it snowed today!  Now, we just have to snip the threads between each block and press them.  Then we can sew the rest of the white triangles to the other two sides of each block.  We are movin' and shakin'!

Kirsten's Scrappy Wonky Crosses Quilt

The weather has been weird, and it is winter, so I have been quilting with some of my fun fabrics.  These wonky cross blocks are pretty easy to make.  I only had one extra when I was finished, so I gave it to C, so she can put it in her personal flannel-backed snuggly quilt.

Jane took this photo of me and my quilt.  I think the next one I make will be a bit longer.  I guess I could have added another row.  Oh, well.  As long as it is chilly outside and there is no firewood to be cut, I am staying in and making fun quilts.

Jane's January Tutorial

This tutorial will teach you how to make a Kawandi quilt.  An important part of Kawandi quilting is using what you have on hand.  Use fabrics, thread, and batting that you have on hand, if at all possible.  You can cut up old clothing, if you do not have any fabric scraps.  Go to the thrift store.  If you have a sewing machine, use it.  If not, sew it by hand.  

The odd thing is, in 2023, I did my tutorial on "quilt-as-you-go".  It turns out that Kawandi quilting is just another way of quilting-as-you-go.  The great thing about Kawandi quilting is:  you finish the binding first!

This is a great way to use scraps.  If you have scraps, use them.  If you don't, ask for a bag of scraps from a quilting friend.  If you have no quilting or sewing friends, what a great opportunity to make some!  Trust me, there are tons of quilters out there, who would love to give you some of their scraps.  Ask on Nextdoor or the local quilt guild.

1) Cut a piece of batting the size of the quilt you want to make. (you can use good quality flannel, if you don't have batting)

2)Cut some backing fabric that is a half-inch larger, in each direction, than the batting.

3)Lay your backing fabric face-down.  Place the batting on your backing fabric so equal amounts of fabric stick out on all four sides.  You can either pin, stitch-baste, or spray baste the batting to the backing.

4) Turn and press the edges of the backing over, to the top side of the batting.  When this is done, you are ready to add your fabric scrap patches to the top.

5) Start with a full bobbin that matches the color of your backing fabric.

I recommend using a walking foot to make this quilt, particularly the first time around the outer edge.  Sew a 1/8 inch from the edge.  You will see how close I get (to the edge) in about six photos down.

6)  Decide which few fabric pieces you want to start with, then press under two sides of each fabric patch.  One will go on the edge of the quilt, and one will cover the raw edge of the previous placed piece.

This is my starting piece.  Flip it to match the corner, as in the next photo.

Making a Kawandi quilt is like putting together a puzzle: you start with all the edge pieces first!

I placed my first piece at the bottom left of the quilt.  I am always directional, and that is my hang-up.  You can start at any corner you want.

7) start sewing at the corner. See the photo, above.  It looks like I am about to run out of fabric . . .so I will add another piece.

8)  Place the next piece of fabric with one turned edge overlapping the raw edge of the prior piece, and the other turned edge along the edge of the quilt.  Then continue sewing along the edge of the quilt.

9)  Just keep going, in this same fashion.  When you come up to the next corner, you will need to turn under three sides of your patch, so you can effectively go around the corner.  After you have turned all the corners and are making the last patch to join up to the first patch, the last patch will have to have three turned under sides, so the last piece edge can lay over the raw edge of the first piece you sewed down.   nb:  you can always do it the other way round, as long as one of the pieces has a turned edge to cover a raw edge. 

Let’s pause here.  Back stitch and snip your threads.  Have a look at what you have so far. 

It should look something like this.  You can celebrate because the binding is all done!

This photo shows how close I got to the edge of the quilt.  Since the quilt was placed on my design wall, to photograph, it is hard to realize the fabric on the left is not part of the quilt.  It is my design wall.

I flipped up the edge of the quilt, so you can see what it looks like on the back, at this stage.  See how close the stitching is, to the edge.

10)  Use the width of your presser foot to create more quilting that runs straight and parallel to the previous seam you put down.  You can adjust your needle more to the right, if you wish to make it ¼ inch between stitch lines.  *I left mine a little wider, but next time I will not.

11)  Go all the way around, pivoting at the corners. Then start the next stretch of quilting, still using the width of the presser foot as a guide.  This photo makes it look pretty straight.

12)  Sewing up to the narrowest piece . . .  Just add another patch.  Snuggle the new patch around the turned edge of the one you need to extend.  

Just keep sewing around, placing patches as you go.

   

13)    Keep a few things in mind, as you piece/quilt your quilt top:

1) look ahead and see where you might want another piece of your favorite fabric. You can always safety pin it to the location you want it in, so it is there when you get around to that point.  2) be on the lookout for raw edges, make sure they are covered with a turned edge.   3)sometimes you need three turned edges on a piece.  4)  You can place a larger piece of fabric in the middle, like Astrid did on hers (below).  Then you continue to frame the central piece with turned edge pieces. 

Astrid used an interesting piece of fabric for her focal point, a little off-center.  If you choose to do this, just make sure the pieces that overlap the central piece, have turned edges.  You can click on the photos to enlarge them.

Here I just turned a corner, note how I did not put another long piece next to the brown and orange?  I put the pink mottled piece, then a b&w piece.  This is a good way to break up the design a bit.

Just keep going.

I feel like I am about half-way done.  As I add pieces, I think about if I need a light, a bright, or a dark next.  I practice "planned randomness".

I also practice “inventive stitching”, which one can use as an embellishment, if the need arises.  I decided the corners on this black bit of fabric needed to be secured, so I stitched a square here.  I used this maneuver as a reason to make four more, as embellishments, but I needed them.

Here is the end result of my labors.  As soon as I sewed the final piece of fabric on, my quilt was finished!  That last piece was a bit tricky, because I thought I could have one turned edge, and the other three would go beneath the neighboring turned edges, but it was not to be.  My final piece has four turned edges.

 If you look carefully, you can see I used three of the large orange butterfly prints in a random layout.  The one with the angle is my favorite.

Tools I found helpful with this quilting process: purple thang and unicorn tweezers

*Let’s talk about all the stitching we are laying down here.  I see it as having three ways to be handled:

1) just sew the seams straight and if they miss the edge of a piece of fabric, oh well.  That is character.  2) aim to snag as many of those edges as possible so they all lay flat, even if you end up having some not straight lines of stitching.  That is what I did on this one.  It is not that noticeable, and where it is just gives it character.  3) try to only put the next piece of fabric on where it will be “in line” to get that seam right on it’s edge.  I have not done this, but I feel it would remove a ton of character from the quilt.  It is worth a try.  One thing I whole heartedly believe in is “EXPERIMENTATION.”

This shot shows the stitching on the back.  It does not look so bad, even though I jogged a little, one way or the other, to make sure I sewed those turned edges down. 

I really like how this turned out.  I have thought of a couple other ways to vary my outcome, so I am writing them down.  I am excited to make some more.  Experiment! 

It Snowed Today!

We are having a snow day, today.   Jane is busy working on her annual January tutorial.  The rest of us went out and played in the snow.  Willa made a snow fisherman.  I found a stray stocking cap that fit him perfectly.  Now the sun has come out and the temperature has risen to 35 degrees.  We are all back in having hot apple cider and fixing lunch.

I dare say, Jane will have her tutorial, about how to make a Kawandi quilt, finished in a day or so.  I can hardly wait to see the finished product.

What's on the Design Wall in December?

I saw this cool looking quilt somewhere.  It was a simple design of crosses in squares.  I decided I wanted to make one, especially since I have so many lovely fabrics to mix and match with.  I tried to use a nice combination of small prints, large prints, and solids.  It has been a lot of fun messing around with all these colors.

This is the entire bunch of blocks on the design wall.  They have not been sewed together.  I want them to look random and scrappy, so I think I will just stick with this layout.  My eye is happy.   I like them this way so much, I almost don't want to square them up to a bit smaller size, but I have my trusty square ruler already to trim them down to size.  After I trim them down, I will sew them together in rows, then sew the rows to each other.  I am not going to put a border on this one.  It will be perfect without borders.  This is Kirsten, showing you my latest work in progress.

Astrid's Kawandi Quilt

Astrid has been extremely busy these last couple of months.  Astrid really like's making quilts that represent different cultures.  She recently went to a retreat where she met another quilter who had an amazing quilt.  She said it was a Kawandi quilt.  Astrid had taken her big box of scraps, to the retreat, so this quilt was easy to make while she was at the retreat.  

Of course, Jane was over for a visit, and she put on the new outfit that Astrid made for her.  Wow! Those rose-colored overalls and striped shirt fit her perfectly.  Jane love's her new outfit.  Jane was really impressed with Astrid's Kawandi quilt, too.  Astrid said there are lots of websites and blogs about Kawandi quilts, if you are interested.  Apparently, Kawandi is an India quilt style that was brought to India by Africans, who call their style of quilting Siddi.   If you need to write a research paper, this is a great topic, and a great way to learn about another style of quilting!

Now, Jane has a dilemma.  She cannot decide which quilting style to teach in her upcoming January tutorial; Hachi or Kawandi.