2012 – Page 18 – Sew Bittersweet Designs

Sew Intertwined QAL – Dresden Progress

6 Comments / Sew Intertwined QAL, SewHappyGeek / By Melissa Dunworth

Hi Everyone! If you missed it – I posted the second tutorial for the Sew Intertwined QAL yesterday – you can get the tutorial here.

I thought today I would share some of the amazing progress of the wonderful quilters who are sewing along with us!

This is by Ella, she blogs at Throw a Wrench in the Works

This bright cheerful one is by Debbe from Pieces to Love

This calming color palette is from Jennie at Jennie’s Threads

This one is from Revkez – Her colors all just POP!

These are just a few of the finished Dresdens, if I posted them all this post would have gone on for ages!), don’t they just all look so stunning! I can’t wait to see more. What amazes me most about this group is I posted the outer block tutorial 25 hours ago and there are already finished blocks in the group! You people are FAST!!!

Sew Intertwined QAL: Outside Blocks Tutorial

7 Comments / Contemporary Cloth, Sew Intertwined QAL, SewHappyGeek, tutorial / By Melissa Dunworth

Hi Everyone! And welcome to the second tutorial for the Sew Intertwined Quilt Along!

If you are just joining us or if you missed the first tutorial, head over and visit Jenna at Sew Happy Geek for the Dresden Center.

Today I will be showing you how to make the outside blocks – these are by far the easiest blocks to make and I will be showing you how to do it with the least amount of fabric waste – because I HATE wasting my fabric. I even double and triple checked the math on the HST method I’m showing just to make sure I was actually saving your fabric.

Based on my colors (shown above) you will need to cut the following: (Note: when I say feature fabric – I am referring to prints I used for my HSTs – both fabrics)

For the HSTS:
Background fabric (white): two strips – 8.5″ by width of fabric
Feature fabric: two strips – 8.5″ by width of fabric

Sub- cut the strips into 8.5″ x 8.5″ squares.

Pair your squares up – right sides together – one background, one feature fabric. You should have 10 Pairs Total

Use your 1/4″ foot and sew along the outside edges of the squares – ALL THE WAY around.

Next you will want to cut diagonally across your Squares. When you open the triangles up you will have made 4 half square triangles. You will have a total of 40 HSTs.

I pressed my HSTs towards the feature fabric because my background is white. You could also press your seams open if you like. You will want to trim your squares down to 5.5″ and then set them aside.

Next you will want to work on your 4 patches. Each block requires two 4 patches for a grand total of 40. I am going to demonstrate the fastest way to make them using strips.

You will want to cut:

6 Strips of Gray – 3″ by width of fabric
3 Strips Each of pink and orange – 3″ by width of fabric

Next you will want to sew the 3 pink strips to 3 of the gray strips, and the 3 orange strips to the remaining 3 gray strips.

Press towards the gray – I recommend this even if you are used to pressing your seams open. When creating a 4 patch, pressing towards the same fabric in both color sets, will allow you to perfectly match your seams.

Cut your strips into 3″ sections. See picture above.

Next you will want to put your pieces right sides together and butt your seams up – this is what gives you the perfect points.

Sew using a 1/4″ seam. You will create 40 four patch blocks. These should measure 5.5″ x 5.5″.

Next layout your blocks and sew them together.

You will make a total of 20 outside blocks and if you follow this tutorial you will conserve as much fabric as possible! The important things to note if you are doing a scrappier version of the quilt: each square in the 4 patch was 3″x3″ – when the 4 patches are sewn together they should measure 5.5″x5.5″. The finished HSTs should also measure 5.5″x5.5″ – in case you decide to use a method that you are more comfortable with. The overall finished block is 10.5″.

Please let me know if you have any questions and I can’t wait to start seeing finished blocks in the Flickr Group!

This post is sponsored by Contemporary Cloth – they provided the fabrics that were used for the tutorial and my quilt.

August 2012 Hopeful Threads Sewing

9 Comments / Hopeful Threads, Quilting For Kids / By Melissa Dunworth

This month Kristy from Hopeful Threads is raising awareness about Children in the United States Foster Care System. I have been racking my brain over the last few days trying to figure out how I can contribute and I realized that in the past I have done some sewing for Foster Children. I have been sewing on and off with a wonderful flickr group called Quilting For Kids. I have helped make 2 quilts in the past and this will be my third time participating.

Sarah from So Sarah Sews organizes Quilting for Kids. Here’s how it works: when Sarah is ready to start a new quilt she puts up a thread in the Flickr group and announces it on her blog. In the announcement she states how many blocks she needs, tells us which block she needs, links to a tutorial, and then tells us the colors and due date. Everyone signs up with the number of blocks they will commit to make and we all get sewing. It is a wonderful group and some really amazing quilts have been created. I will be making 2 blocks for the next quilt and I hope you will join me. We are still in need of another 20 blocks to make the next quilt.

Thank you to Kristy, Sarah and all the other quilters and sewists out there who are doing such wonderful works with their creative skills.

BitterSweet Bundle – Fractured Color

15 Comments / BitterSweet Bundles, Contemporary Cloth / By Melissa Dunworth

Today I wanted to share with you my third BitterSweet Bundle – for Contemporary Cloth – Fractured Time. This one is available for purchase and I am very excited about it. I began to realize just yesterday that my bundles are a little different than what most people out there in the quilting blogging community are putting together. I am not doing gradations of color, I am not sticking to any kind of theme or even any particular designer/manufacturer. I am trying to push the envelope and show you different combinations that you may have never thought of or considered before. With each bundle I create I like to start with a main focus fabric, in this case it is the Hay Wire Blue by Alexander Henry. As I started to pull colors and fabrics from it I discovered the Hay Wire Yellow also by Alexander Henry and realized that – Hello! It was the perfect compliment.

All of these fabrics are available separately for purchase at Contemporary Cloth AND they are also available as a bundle for your sewing enjoyment. Now on my last bundle, Broken Time, there were a couple of questions like what would you do with such a different assortment of colors and prints. Well this time I designed a little mini-quilt/wall hanging for the bundle.

I’m calling this Checkered Stars – because it makes me think of a checkerboard but I also see stars in the design. (Note: Keep in mind that EQ7 does change the scale of the print when you are doing mock-ups.) Just a little something fun to help you visualize what this cool little bundle could do. If you like this…let me know and I can whip it up and do a tutorial. You may be looking at this and saying to yourself “You didn’t use every fabric…” You would be right. When I buy a fat quarter bundle it is for 2 reasons – to build my stash and for specific projects. Half the time I split up the bundles I buy. I do have the oranges pulled into the mock up on a different image:

I think both work nicely and these are color combos you don’t see often but that do work well.

I hope you like thew new bundle, I would love to hear what you think of both the bundle and the new design. I am thinking of using it for a doll quilt I will be making for my Sewing Buddy’s daughter (we are doing a swap!).

New Flickr Group

7 Comments / Flickr Group / By Melissa Dunworth

Happy August Everyone! Today is my dad’s birthday – so I am throwing it out there for everyone to see – Happy Birthday to the best Dad and Baba in the whole world!

In other news…I have finally started a Flickr Group for my blog! I would love to see everything and anything you have made or done using my projects and tutorials for inspiration! It is open to everyone and it will also be a great place to ask questions and what not if you are unsure of my sometimes poorly described instructions.

I would love to see you there!!!