At Piece With Time -- First Block

Get ready for the adventure to start!  We're going to put together the first block of At Piece with Time in this post, so this will be a longer blog than I normally do.  I have found most people like to be inspired with pretty pictures and fewer words, so I do try to adhere to that with most of my blogs.

But this is going to be more instructional -- and hopefully inspirational, too -- so there will be more words, but there will also be pictures!  Lots of pictures, because piecing is one of those things where you have to see what's going on to make sense of it.  But first, these public service announcements...

1.  If you haven't picked out your main fabrics, now is the time to do so.  You can always add accent fabrics that you're going to use to applique with, but you need to use the five to seven main fabrics you've picked out to piece with in order to have continuity in your blocks.  This helps your quilt to "flow."

2.  If you're planning on appliqueing the setting triangles around the Blazing Star center block, keep working on those as you go along.  I hate getting down to the very end of my quilt and then having to stop while I spend lots of time on one last, lingering step.  That's why I gave you those instructions earlier in my blog.

3.  The Quilters Academy books by Harriet and Carrie Hargrave are wonderful additions to anyone's quilting library.  Please get at least the first book, Freshman Year, even if you don't purchase the additional ones.  The Freshman Year teaches you how to prep your fabric before you put rotary cutter to it.  These are awesome books -- and I'm not getting paid to promote them.  I have bought the first two in the series and will eventually buy all of them.  They are just that good.

Okay bunnies...it's time to start...

 Prep your fabric.  Decide if you're going to prewash or not prewash.  Put on straight of grain, and starch.  These are the fabrics I've picked out for the first block--

  And this is what they look like all cut out.  The instructions in the book are given in pictures, and that can be a bit tricky at first.  But after you get through the first block, it gets easier to understand.

I do recommend, as I do with any quilt pattern, that you completely read through the instructions for the block first before assembling anything.  You will note that the finished size of this block is 10 inches.  That means that when this block is set in the quilt on point with the setting triangles, it will measure 10-inches square.  So when you finish piecing this block, it should measure exactly 10 1/2 - inches square -- the extra half-inch at this point is for the seam allowances.

Now let me address something that may sound like quilt heresy:  The myth of the 1/4-inch seam.  Most quilt patterns instruct us to use a 1/4-inch seam allowance.  And most of the time that works well.  What you should be concerned with is the unfinished size of the block, not necessarily the seam allowance.  In our case, that unfinished size is 10 1/2 inches.  In most cases, the 1/4-inch seam allowance is going to work fine.  But if your block smaller or larger than 10 1/2 inches, then you're going to have to play with your seam allowance to make the block exactly 10 1/2 inches square.

If you have a newer sewing machine that is geared towards quilters, you probably have a "quilting foot"  included with your machine.  This is exactly 1/4-inch.  I have one with my Janome 7700.  It's a great foot.  But there is a foot out there called "Little Foot" that is even better.  It's a scant 1/4-inch foot.  In other words, it's a thread or two smaller than 1/4-inch and through 15 years of quilting with it, I have found this foot works BEST.  My squares continually come out right on the money as far as correct size.  Here's what it looks like from several views:

This foot is not an expensive accessory to purchase.  It's around $20 and you can get it from Clotilde, JWhittle, and sometimes even your local fabric store or quilt shop.  Just be sure you know if your machine is a high shank or low shank before purchasing.  And again, I'm not getting paid by Little Foot to promote these.  This is simply a wonderful foot and one of those items I encourage every quilter to get.

The first step consists of you joining the rectangles to the center square.  The only thing I don't like about the instructions is there is no indication what size this needs to be when it's assembled.  So you don't know until the very end of the piecing process if you need to readjust your seam allowances.

Then you join your accent squares to the remaining two rectangles:

And if you've measured correctly and ironed the seam allowances according to the directions, everything should go smoothly together to form this:

The next steps involve joining the triangles that have been cut out.  Anytime you cut squares in half to form triangles, a bias has been exposed and those triangles need to be handled carefully so as not to stretch the bias.  If you follow the cutting directions given by the Hargraves in their first book and starch your fabric, the bias is stabilized a bit and I think they're just easier to handle.

Make four squares out of your background fabric and an accent fabric like this.  I've already cut the "dog ears" off of mine.

Now comes the tricky steps.  I found it helps to lay this part out beside my sewing machine helps me keep all the triangles going in the right direction.

Add the next triangle like this:

You sew the triangle along the long right-hand side.

The next step is really vital.  I've heard a lot of "chatter" coming from some recent vendor shows  negating the necessity of pressing after each step of piecing.  The logic is that a final press of everything should be okay, as long as you finger-press the seams between steps.  I really, really, strongly, emphatically advise against this.  In order to keep sharp corners, points, and just the over all crisp look, you need to press between steps.  So now take this to your ironing board and press the seam towards the background triangle.

Now flip it over and it should look like this:

Add the next triangle like this:

And again, press towards the background triangle.  When you flip it over, it will look like this:

Notice middle triangle -- the dark one -- kind of "floats."  It needs to -- that extra "float" room is the seam allowances used to join the triangle to the square and then later to the setting triangles.

Now to join these four large, pieced triangles to the square we have previously constructed.

Center the point of the triangle that is pointing downwards so that it's in the exact middle of the center square.  This will line everything else up and give you a healthy "overhang" of the base ends of the triangle off the top of the square.

Now, let me move on to what is probably my primary pet peeve in quilting -- cut off points of triangles.  There's an easy secret to avoid this and I'm about to reveal it.  Study the picture below.

You can see the seams where the triangles were joined.  Where these seams intersect forms an X.  When you join the large triangle to the square, make sure you sew outside the X.  You can see that my seam is ust a thread or two above that X.  As long as your outside that X, I promise your points will never, ever be cut off and will look just like this:

No point cut off....

Put on two of the triangles on opposite ends of the square....

Then sew on the last two triangles....and you're done.  We will talk applique next time.  Meanwhile, cut the "bunny ears" off the back.  Until next time,


Love and Stitches...

Sherri