Assembling your Quilt Back : Across the Sea QAL

Yay! So we're finishing up our quilt backs today! I know there has been a little extra work in doing this pieced back but I hope that you feel it is worth it!

So, this part is very straightforward. First we are going to piece the blocks into the horizontal rows, and then piece the rows together. One thing to note - I am most definitely not a pinner when it comes to piecing where I can get away with it, but you DO need to pin today - pin your blocks and strips when piecing your rows, and pin your rows when you are piecing them together. In particular you need to pin the bordered cross blocks quite frequently when you are piecing them into rows to stop your fabric stretching.

Lets get started! First job is to piece the cross blocks into the rows, so you need your strips of fabric which were cut 12.5" high by various widths. (You do not need the long strips cut to 9.5" high at this point, they are for the top and bottom of the backing so leave aside. So in the next part when I refer to 9.5" strips I mean the strips cut 9.5" x 12.5".) For people making the lap size backing, please read through the baby size directions so you understand how I am doing the layout instructions as I don't have pictures for you unfortunately.

Baby size:

Take 1 x 33.5" strip and 1 x 9.5" strip and your bordered cross block. Right sides together, create your first row by sewing the 3 pieces together so that the 33.5" piece is to the left of the cross block and the 9.5" piece is to the right. Remember to pin for accurate piecing here!


For the purposes of showing the layout for the rest of the rows in a simple format, the layout summary that I am going to use is as follows. Sew pieces left to right as written:


Row 1: 33.5 strip | bordered cross block | 9.5 strip

I hope this layout format makes sense in light of the pic above. Proceed now to piece the other 3 rows as follows:

Row 2:    9.5 strip | Block 3 | 33.5 strip
Row 3:  33.5 strip | Block 2 | 9.5 strip
Row 4:  21.5 strip | Block 1 | 21.5 strip

Easy peasy, right? Now all that's left is to piece your rows together. You have 6 rows - the 4 rows above plus the two 9.5" x 54.5" strips of background fabric you put aside earlier. I like to piece the top 3, then the bottom 3, then piece the two halves together in the middle but do it however works for you. You will need a flat, clean space to pin - luckily, my kitchen table is just long enough for the baby size. Piece together the 4 rows as indicated above, with a 9.5 x 54.5 strip at the very top (over Row 1, see the top pic for a visual idea), and the other 9.5 x 54.5 at the very bottom under Row 4. Remember to pin these long pieces together!

Lap Size:

As above, set aside your two 9.5" x 66.5" strips until you have finished piecing the rest of the rows.

Piece your cross blocks into the rows as follows:

Row 1:    9.5 strip | bordered cross block | 45.5 strip
Row 2:  33.5 strip | Block 1 | 21.5 strip
Row 3:  45.5 strip | Block 2 | 9.5 strip
Row 4:  21.5 strip | Block 3 | 33.5 strip
Row 5:    9.5 strip | Block 2 | 24.5 strip | bordered cross block | 9.5 strip

Again - as per the baby size, piece your rows together as you wish. You have 7 rows - the 5 rows as per the above instructions plus the two 9.5" x 66.5" strips of background fabric you put aside earlier. I would piece the top 3, then the bottom 4, then piece the two halves together in the middle but do it however works for you. You will need a flat, clean space to pin. Piece together the 5 rows as indicated above, with a 9.5 x 66.5 strip at the very top (over Row 1, see the top pic for a visual idea), and the other 9.5 x 66.5 at the very bottom under Row 5. Remember to pin these long pieces together!


Ok everyone, everyone still breathing? You're done! Yay! Now go make a nice cup of tea and relax :-) Oh, and don't forget to go enter my Kona Solids giveaway if you haven't already - its open until 9pm tonight! As always, let me know any questions.

See you back here on Thursday when we will talk about basting and quilting!

Across the Sea QAL Schedule

I'm super excited at the response to our QAL - thanks so much to everyone who has signed up so far. There's still time, if you are thinking about it, we are not starting to cut fabrics till next week.

For those of you who were having problems grabbing my button for your blogs, here's a working version:

<a href="http://fairyfacedesigns.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img alt="Across the Sea Quilt-Along" src="http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l623/ellisonlanequilts/QAL%20Across%20the%20Sea/QALAcrosstheSeaSquarebutton.jpg"/></a>

Jennifer and I have also set up static pages on both of our blogs (see the page list at the top under the banner header) where all the information including links to each blog post will be available, in case you come to the QAL a little late.

That done, here's the important stuff - the schedule! We will be posting twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays to cover all the instructions. Tutes and blog posts will alternate between mine and Jennifer's blog, so make sure you are signed up to follow us both! I will link to Jennifer's the days she is doing the tutes, and vice versa to make sure you don't miss anything. We will kick off the action with the fabric cutting instructions next week over on Jennifer's blog. Excited yet? I know I am :-)

Schedule:

Week 2 (starts 22nd August) - Cutting fabric for the front

Week 3 (starts 29th August) - Block Piecing tute & Design Layout

Week 4 (starts 5th September) - Border piecing tute & assembling quilt top

Week 5 (starts 12th September) - Cutting & piecing the back including block tutes

Week 6 (starts 19th September) - Basting and Quilting

Week 7 (starts 26th September) Binding and Finishing your Quilt

Week 8 (starts 3rd October) QAL finish - showcase the quilts & announce giveaway winners!

As you can see, there is plenty of time there for all the steps. The Quitalong officially finishes on Monday 3rd October and your finished quilt needs to be posted in the Flickr group by the end of that day to be eligible for the lovely giveaway prizes. By finished, we mean basted, quilted (whatever way you prefer) and bound.

Don't forget to pop over to our QAL sponsors Sew Fresh Fabrics if you need fabric! Remember to enter FAIRYLANE in the Notes to Seller upon checkout to get your free domestic/ half off International Shipping on orders totaling $35.00 or more. They will refund the shipping via paypal upon shipment.

Any finally, a quick reminder to join the Flickr group where people are already posting up their fabric choices.

Any questions? Let me know!

Chunky ZigZag Pillow Tutorial

My Bliss pillow/cushion campaign continues this week with another pretty one to add to my sofa!

Here it is, in all its chunky zig-zaggy lovelieness:

I made this in super fast time using my Accuquilt GO! Baby to cut the pieces. When it arrived earlier in the week, I couldn't wait to try it out, having seen it and coveted it so much on blogs lately. And it didn't disappoint!

I got 3 dies - the Diamond, the Drunkards Path and the Hexagons - all shapes that can be a little bit tricky to cut accurately in the more traditional way and certainly very time consuming. I just loved how quickly I could turn out the pieces on the GO! Baby and had all the diamonds cut for this pillow in probably about 10 minutes, including trimming my scrap pieces for the die. I found it very efficient and the only issue I encountered was threads occasionally getting caught in the corners of the die, which a sharp pair of nail scissors beside me solved with a minimum of fuss! As someone who struggles with cutting the more "complex" shapes accurately, I am totally thrilled with the GO! Baby and can certainly see myself using it quite a bit. It's pretty compact too which is important for me as I have no dedicated sewing space and it needs to fit into my very limited shelving with the rest of my sewing things.

Want to make this pillow? Here's the super easy tutorial!


I used the 4 x 4" diamonds die for my GO! Baby which cuts 2 diamonds in each layer of fabric. You can do up to 6 layers at a time through it which makes for super fast cutting - 12 diamonds at a time in this case once I had my Bliss scraps prepped. I soon had lots and lots of lovely diamonds, precisely cut. See how perfect they look!


Next, I played around with the layout until I was happy with it - the fun part! I used a cream solid to contrast my zig zaggy Bliss rows. It's helpful to take a quick snap with your camera or phone so that you can refer back to it if you get pieces mixed up as you sew. Or if you have pre-school helpers standing by to "assist"!


Then, make a little stack of the diamond pieces for each vertical column in the order you have laid them out.


Take your 1st stack of diamond pieces and using a small square cutting ruler or measuring tape, and a water soluble pen or pencil, make a tiny mark 1/4" in from your top and bottom edges on the side edge.


Do this on all pieces. This will help you line up your seams correctly. You can, of course, eyeball it if you're confident in what you're doing but if you're a little challenged by spatial stuff like I am, its worth taking the minute required to mark each piece before you sew the column.


Sew your first 2 pieces right side together, matching up your dots and your edges. You will end up with little "dog ears" sticking out on either side.


Sew the remaining pieces in the right order and press your seams on the column to one side (all in the same direction).


Then sew the pieces for each remaining column together and press your seams so that they are going in alternating directions on each column to make sewing your column seams together easier.

Next, sew your columns together in pairs, and join the 3 paired columns to make your pillow top. I trimmed off the top and bottom to make quilting it a little easier.


I then grabbed a batting scrap and quilted the pillow top following the zig zags in the pattern. I quilted 1 line inside the seams for each of the colour zig zags, and then quilted lots of zig zag lines 3/8" apart in the cream solid, to make the colours pop even more.


Trim your pillow top and then sew on the back in whatever style you want - you could do an envelope back if you want to keep it simple. I put a zip in the bottom seam of this one. Put in your pillow form (mine was from a tired old ugly pillow in my playroom which I upcycled), place on your sofa and admire!! This pillow will join my other Bliss pillows and quilt on my living room sofa.


So, of course, you know what's coming up next by now......Keep your eyes peeled for the giveaway post coming soon!

Yippee....I was Featured!!

Can I do it? Yes I can!!!!! Ok, well I think I might have been watching too much of President Obama's Irish visit on tv tonight :-) It was great seeing him addressing all those people in Dublin, so close to where I went to college and to hear that famous campaign slogan in Irish (Gaelic) - he got it pretty correct :-)

Anyway, I'm waffling a bit so on to the main point. When I started quilting first, one of the blogs I completely loved was Quilt Story. I loved seeing all the different quilts featured and I adore their Fabric Tuesday linky each week, I have found so many lovely blogs through it. So I was totally thrilled when Heather and Megan contacted me asking to feature one of my quilts, and over the moon to see my PictureBox Quilt posted on Quilt Story yesterday! If you're new to my blog, you'll find a tutorial for this quilt here. If you make it, please let me know and add it to my Flickr group.

In what amounts to super timing, I got emails from two ladies in the last week who have made quilts to my pattern - here they are:

by Lisa Estrada, California

by Beverly Shenold, Oklahoma

Don't they look great? I love how they look so different from mine and to see how each quilt interpreted the pattern. I'll be back tomorrow with a full update...its been a busy week!

P.S.  If you are visiting from Sew, Mama, Sew! for the May Giveaway, you'll find it here