Tonya's Alphabet!
~Free-Style Letters Primer Page 6~
This
is my quilt Hugs and Kisses, made just with Xs and Os.
I actually hadn't intended it to look like this - I'd also made the
words "I love you" and was planning on saying something else as well. I
think. But when I put some of the Xs and Os together I was amazed at
how graphic and pow they looked, so changed the direction I was going.
I
made loads of them of varying sizes before starting to sew them
together - and all of them didn't make it into the quilt. For this
quilt I didn't add any extra background fabric to make any letter fit,
I just whacked off anything that stuck out. I quilted fans around the
border in black perle cotton and outlined each of the letters in
varying colors of perle or floss. I shouldn't say outlined the letters.
I quilted a bit in from the edge - through all the layers. I could do
that using a huge needle - wouldn't want to try it with a baby quilting
between needle.
Capitals
D and K
Here we come to a couple of letters that I've
made harder than I needed to. Both the capital D and K
can be made by making a large V with a wide mouth and then
adding a strip of background where you need it to complete the letter.
That's not how I made my D. I also could have made an O
and maybe added small background triangles on the right side. Did I?
Noooo, too easy. Instead, I cut out a rectangle of background and
lopped off the upper and lower right corners. Then I added five strips
of letter fabric going around the front of it. This is what it looked
like
with the first two additions.
The first four strips were narrow, the fifth one on the bottom
was a
medium. Looking back at it, I probably should have started the mediums
sooner. Not the prettiest letter ever is it.
And here's the K. I started with a
background fabric rectangle and sliced it where the legs go.
Then
I inserted angled strips. If I'd used straight ones this wouldn't look
quite so wonky. Wish I'd used wider strips, more angled, but oh well.
Take a look at this upside down and you'll notice a small y
peeking out, tho if I were making the y, I'd have angled my
very first slice thru the background differently.
Capital
X
Okay, X
is actually really easy so there is no good reason for saving it until
so close to the end. Except that it's a nice segue into the stupid Q. X is inserts and trims - you've done it
before.
Capital Q
Q can be dead easy.
Make an O
and then add the little tail to the side. And there are probably easier
ways than I've done it, but sometimes I just want to have a bit of fun.
Stupid Q starts with an x. I made mine too small
the
first time (there are lots of seam allowances coming out of this) and
had to start over. I then added an oversized bit of background attached
to the same-size strip of letter fabric. Oversized gives me more room
to adjust the strip to exactly where I want to attach it. And I did
want it in a specific spot. I can't describe it well, but you can see
how the strip was attached. Finished off with a two more additions of
the letter fabric on the top and left side. And there's the stupid Q.
Sampler
Layout
What do you think of
the letters all together? Boy,
my Y and Z certainly trailed off didn't they. Very
wee. K looks sickly as well. I could always make them over
again, but I refuse to give in to that perfectionist impulse.
I
decided to keep the sampler quilt small. I could make it grow by adding
the small letters, the numbers, a saying, my whole name, some pieced
house blocks. It's very easy to keep going, but I'm not going to.
Instead I'll demonstrate how to put it together.
The
first step
is to decide on a layout.
After
playing with borders and layout, I made all the letters 2 7/8" high.
Some got cut down and others had background fabric added to their top,
bottom or both and then got cut down. You do not have to work this
precisely. You could get them all vaguely to the height you want and
after you join them together lop off any extra.
The
letters are obviously going to have a hard time fitting on that
bottom row if I include six of them, esp when the W is so
wide, so how about if I slip the Z
down onto the bottom row? Oh, and I decided to make my initials and the
last two digits of the year as well. Now it's really crowded on the
bottom row again, but I could prune down the b, r, and zero.
Here's
another option, to have X Y Z
on the bottom row. I could also jam those over to the left and start
making numbers until I hit the end of the line. You'll notice in this
example I've now got six letters per row instead of the five above.
Finished
Sampler Quilt
Top
Since you saw the sampler
last, I sewed a 7/8" background strip to the
right side of almost all the letters, then cut and trimmed. Some
letters didn't need this, such as the A, V, X
(that row was going to be too long and I decided this was the place to
scrimp) , t and all the letters down the right
side.
[NOTE:
If I'd had letters with a slant on the left side that I'd wanted to
keep slanty, I'd have joined the background inbetween bit to that left
side of that letter, rather than to the right side of the previous
letter.]
At this point all the
letters had to have their sides
straightened. They were already the same height, but didn't need to be
the same width. But to make them join up properly, they had to have
straight sides. There was an exception to this rule on the bottom row.
I liked the slant on the little t and wanted to keep it and the little
b had a wide bit of letter fabric that I could cut into. So I placed
the t overlapping the b, and sliced, following the edge of the t, so
that I had matching angles.
I joined all the letters in
a row
together. A couple of times I did a bad job with my quarter inch seam
allowance and ended up with rows that had a V-shape. Easy enough to
remedy - I just resewed to get a straight seam. Now I'm not saying the
row has to have a perfect straight edge - it doesn't. But Vs aren't
good either.
After the letters were
joined, I sewed a 2"
background to the first and last letter of each row. The next step was
to sew a 7/8" strip between each of the rows, but not the top and
bottom cuz I was going to sew wider strips there. I sewed with all the
seams on top so that I could make sure they were sewn down the way I
wanted them to lay. Whenever I hit seams that run sort of parallel to
the edge (I get those a lot), they have a tendency to pull away from
the presser foot. So I have to go a bit slow and get them back where
they belong.
You'll notice that the rows
tend to bend down in a
bit of an arc. Don't worry about it - that will go away or at least
decrease as soon as there is a seam on the other side of the row. Also,
at least when I do this, I get a bit of a wavy edge where my seam
allowance hasn't been consistent, where there have been bunches of
fabric in the seam. This also isn't a big deal, at least if you're
using skinny in between row strips like I am - it all comes out in the
wash.
In this first photo, the top
two rows are joined together,
the next three have their inbetween strip sewn on, and the bottom row
is all by itself.
Next
is a photo of all the rows joined together. By the way, you'll notice
that I didn't decide on a set length for these rows and precut them.
Instead I folded each row over, matching the beginning and end of the letters,
and marked the "middle" that way with a pin. I joined "middle" to
"middle" and didn't worry about the actual length of the row.
The
next step was to even up the sides of this piece. I wasn't measuring,
just trying to get it straight, and all lined up with the shortest row
on each side.
I did end up having to
whack a bit off the bottom
row, where the '05 was sticking way down. I wouldn't have minded if
there was a straight, angled line across the bottom, but that was a
bubble. I then sewed 2" strips of background fabric to the top and
bottom.
So
that's that, the middle bit is done, now all that is left is the
border. I consider adding a tiny red accent border, followed by the
wider green border. No. I decide on a 3" finished green border, since
3" is more or less the size of the letters along with a bit of the
background. I cut out the border strips and lay them down surrounding
the letters.
Ugh. I was hoping for a
cute small quilt and that
is just not what I am getting. So after all that sewing on of extra
background fabric, I decide I don't like it and whack down all the
sides so that I'll end up with roughly 1/4" worth of background after I
sew on the border. That did the trick. I hated all that extra white,
but removing it makes the quilt look cute again. The top is 20" by 23".
So here it is, the
finished sampler quilt top. If you
double click on the photo, you'll get a really good large picture of it.
This
quilt has a very specific Christmasy name. Look at the top carefully
and then tell me what it is. You''ll get extra credit points. (Look Ma! No "L"!! Noel.....get it? :cD)
Finished sampler Quilt!
Quilting Detail with perle
cotton and free hand fans!
©
Tonya B Ricucci 2006-2008 All
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