Bias binding. Sewing it all together. Sewing Hexagons. It's a disease.
Where you just want to sew hexagons. I think a lot of people have it. I don't. At least I didn't until I figured out a way to piece hexagons with my machine as opposed to fiddly little English paper piecing. Hand piecing is just not for me. This is a Bee block for the queen of solids, Latifah, of LAMQG fame. Would you like to try? Number 1, presenting the first ever Lady Harvatine instructional video: I'm sorry that things aren't totally in focus the entire time.
Treat number two is a pdf file of hexagon templates. Download the pdf file here. I hope the video is clear enough. Nifty strip-piecing trick. It happened this week that I needed a large panel (20 by 7) of randomised 1.5" patchwork squares - as you do?!
I read about this great technique in Australian Quilter's Companion #47. Kathy Doughty, of Material Obsession fame, used it to quickly piece her 'The General's Wife' quilt. From fabric scraps (or a jelly roll of 'Etchings' by 3 Sisters in my case), cut twenty-eight 11" x 2" strips. Divide the strips into four sets of seven strips each. For each set, join the seven strips along their long edges. Lay the pieced strips right sides together so that the seventh strip joins the first strip. Place the tube of strips on the cutting mat and cut five circular 2" segments. Unpick one seam of each of the five tubes, choosing a different seam for each. Repeat this process for each of the four sets of fabrics to yield twenty strips. Simple Sashing + Cornerstone. Here is the sashing + cornerstones tutorial for my Simple Squares Quiltalong.
You can find all the other links (fabric requirements for 2 sizes and both block tutorials) here. Feel free to join in at any time; there's no set time frame for this project. If you want to see other variations of this quilt, take a look at our flickr group. Also, please let me know if you have any questions!
Step 1: Lay out your blocks Step 2: Cut your sashing/border: Cut 17, 10 1/2" x 2 1/2" strips Cut 5 strips 2 1/2" x width of fabric Cut 6 cornerstones, 2 1/2" squares Step 3: Sew 10 1/2" x 2 1/2" strips to the right side of 8 of the blocks as shown below (press all seams as you go): Step 4: Sew cornerstones to 6 of the 10 1/2" x 2 1/2" strips; these will be sewn to the bottom of 6 of the blocks as shown below. 10 1/2" x 2 1/2" strips will be sewn to the bottom of the blocks in the right hand column as well, except for the bottom right block.
Step 5: Sew your rows together. Here are the rows all sewn together: Four-patch trick (tutorial) Home » Headline, quilting, sewing, tutorials 30 July 2010 18,620 views 9 Comments Having just pressed a quilt top for one of my bee quilts, I know seam-flattening is a pain and begs for a trick to make it easy.
If you’ve ever sewn a four-patch and always pressed to the dark side in both steps, you know how quickly that seam gets bulky. 5 layers of soft fabric can turn into a hard nub that will break a needle when you try to quilt over it. Thankfully, I have just the trick to make it easy. Surprisingly it isn’t well-known so it seemed perfect for a tutorial. Start with the initial 2 patch seams pressed to one side. Lay the piece open and face down on your pressing surface. Before busting out the iron, gently nudge the center of the seam open. Finger-press the seams in opposite directions. Press these seams with your iron. Behold the magic of the nonbulky seam. Fat Quarter Cutting Diagrams. For those of you that have many fat quarters in your life and are having fun making Nickel Quilts this is how I cut up my fat quarters to make the best use of them.
You are able to get twelve 5″ squares from every fat quarter and a 2 1/2″ strip. And for those of you who might have projects in mind that use more 2 1/2″ strips you can certainly cut more strips than 5″ squares – my feelings won’t be hurt! Don’t forget those layer cake (10″ square) ideas – yes you can do that also. What a great use of fat quarters; 10″ squares, 5″ squares and 2 1/2″ strips in many combinations- I am showing just one below. So tackle that stash – but don’t feel like you have to take it on all at once. Pat Like this: Like Loading...