Carolina Christmas! A Quiltville Mystery Part 1

Quiltville Custom Quilting
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Carolina Christmas
~A Quiltville Mystery!~
Part 1
(Click here for printer friendly version)

Ready?! Get Set......SEW!!!!

I am so anxious for us to get a good jump start on this project that I am going to start you off with the easiest unit to begin!

From your background fabric (Mine are scrappy neutrals) and your gold fabric cut the equivalent of (13) 2.5" X 40" width of fabric strips. If you are using scraps, your strips may be shorter. Just cut more to make up the difference. Same with Fat Quarters. Cut twice as many.

At this point...we are going to do a seam test to make sure that your seam allowance is right so that all of your pieces will fall together correctly.

Take a background strip and a gold strip and seam them with your best quarter inch. Press the seam toward the gold fabric. Now, grab your gridded ruler and MEASURE the strip set across the top (front side) to be sure it measures 4.5" across. This is crucial.

If your strip set measures LESS than 4.5", your seam allowance is TOO WIDE. You have to skinny it down.
If your strip set measures MORE than 4.5", your seam allowance is too small!! You are going to want to fatten it up a bit.

It's a simple solution that I have come across time and time again through traveling and teaching the past few years on the national level. We all struggle with it! I have also found that those feet that have that "knife edge" guide on them can give you a false sense of security, and might not really be accurate. If your fabric is pushing up against that guide, it can give you too wide of a seam, so always do a test seam now and again and double check the size of your units as you sew them.

If and when your strip set measures that correct 4.5"...go ahead and sew the rest of your pairs together, matching background strips to gold strips with right sides together. Press toward the gold.

Sub-cut the strip sets every 2.5" to yield (192) 2.5 x 4.5 inch units as shown. Set these "two-sies" aside for later use.
(No, they do not go into four patches! Quit guessing!! ;cD)

And since that step was so easy, and you are still raring to sew...We'll give you a jump start on the next unit! (and an Easy Angle Lesson while we are at it for good measure.)

I love this tool, and I know you will too if you just give it a chance! I love that I can just add 1/2" to the finished measurement instead of that pesky 7/8", so this works perfect with the sizes of scrap strips that I save! In this case, take a light 2.5" strip and match it right sides together with a 2.5" green strip. You can run an iron over the matched pair to get it really nice and flat and straight. The first picture above shows how I lay the top edge of the ruler along the top right edge of the strip set so that I can get a good clean cut on one end.

After squaring up that end, I rotate the strip set so that the squared off end is now at my left as shown in the second picture above.

See the markings on the ruler? The 2.5" line is at the top end of the strip set, and the marked bracket is along the side. This is the marking we are using for cutting this step. The number you use is the size of the strip, and that is the "unfinished" size of the unit before it is sewn into the quilt. Because the units in this quilt are mostly 2" finished, the strips we are using are 2.5", right?

Cutting with this ruler is a 2 step process. Above you see what I call "CUT ONE." CUT ONE will always put a diagonal cut at the end of your strip set.

From this point we rotate the ruler on it's long diagonal side and again line the 2.5" lines at the top of the strip set. See that little black tippy triangle? It will always be "off the edge" whenever you get ready for CUT TWO which is what we are doing now. That little black triangle is essentially the dog ear that you are NOT going to have to trim off after sewing! CUT TWO will always straighten the end of the strip set back to square as in the first picture above. Every strip set that you cut with the Easy Angle saves you 3/8" of fabric on each strip! That's 6/8" in each strip set. I wonder how much fabric I have saved over all by using this as my ruler of choice when it comes to 1/2 square triangles? No drawing grids, no sewing through paper, no cuting larger squares and squaring them down to size. I LOVE THIS RULER!

At this point, after CUT TWO, it is back to CUT ONE just like the first triangle you cut. Cut one, cut two, cut one, cut two...all the way to the end of the strip set. There is no such thing as continuing to roll the ruler for cut three, cut four...because your ruler will get in the way and leave you wondering where you went wrong! Believe me..just repeat to yourself, cut one, cut two and you've got it made!

For lefties...you have to cut a bit differently. Instead of having the strip set side to side....place it veritcally so you can cut toward your midline. You might have to work with it a bit, and you rotate the ruler without flipping it on it's long side..but I have many lefties who have found a way to make it work for them, and vertical cutting instead of horizontal cutting seams to be the key.

Match neutral strips right sides together with green strips and cut 104 triangle pairs.

At this point, I want you to sew just ONE pair. Press it to the dark side, snip off that one lone dog ear and MEASURE. Your unit should be 2.5" SQUARE. If it isn't, same thing with the strip set above, it has to do with your seam.

If your triangle unit measures LESS than 2.5", your seam allowance is TOO WIDE. You have to skinny it down.
If your triangle unit measures MORE than 2.5", your seam allowance is too small!! You are going to want to fatten it up a bit.

The most important thing here is that you do whatever you need to do to your seam allowance to get your units to turn out the right size. You should be able to match this triangle unit up to a plain 2.5" square and have it be the same size. If you look at my picture above you will see that I sew with a seam guide screwed to my machine base. It's pressed right up against my 1/4" foot. It extends way out in front of the foot so I can use it as a fence to feed it up against, but it also angles a bit under the foot so that I don't over shoot that 1/4". I've tried those knife edge feet and they don't work for the way I sew, but this does for me....so you need to find what you need to do to get the results that will make YOU a happy quilter!

BTW...aren't those sample squares just LOVELY!? I threw in some really weird fabrics into this quilt...that is a 1950's or 60's green paisley! It's found a good home in this quilt as one of my neutrals. I dare ANYONE to find that on a bolt!

Once you have passed the test on that one unit, go ahead and sew 103 more. Press them all toward the dark. Marvel at how NICELY those pairs feed against eachother because of that missing dog ear....trim the remaining dog ears and call it a day. You done good!

Click here to get to Step 2!!

Intro