bittersweet quilt designs – Sew Bittersweet Designs

Valentine’s Pinwheel Table Runner Tutorials Day 2

7 Comments / bittersweet quilt designs, block tutorials, Fat Quarter Shop, quilt blocks, SewHappyGeek / By Melissa Dunworth

Here are the tutorials for the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th blocks in my Valentine’s Pinwheel Table Runner. The first block can be found here.

You will want to continue using the two 4.5” strips that you cut yesterday.

2nd Pinwheel Block

Make sure that you cut your left and right B sections correctly – cut your first left sections from the left side of the fabric and your right sections from the right side of the fabric. Meaning when you have your strip laid out in front of you – cut 4 pieces starting on the left (which is probably natural for right handed people) and cut 4 pieces from the right hand side of the fabric (a little less natural for us righties).

Sew your first section together, then place the block right side facing down on your cutting mat and create a new A section (see picture).

Following the photo above sew your sections together and voila – block 2 complete.

3rd Pinwheel Block

This block is what happens when you accidently (ok, when I accidently!) cut your block right side facing up instead of facing down!

The cutting is slightly different:

Sew your first section together and this time you will place the block facing up to create a new A section (see picture).

Attach second B section. Make 4 total – follow photo above to layout your block – voila! Block 3 complete!

4th Pinwheel Block – this one is slightly more complicated, but I really love the way it looks:

This time you will need four A sections and eight B sections:

Sew together first two sections, the placing right side facing up with red triangle at the top – create new A section (see picture):

Attach second B section . Make 4 total – follow photo above to layout your block – voila! Block 4 complete!

Cutting for borders and sashing – you will need 4 strips of the red fabric for your sashing

I used a scrap piece of fabric for the backing and also scraps from a larger project for the batting. I decided to hand quilt this project. I pin basted like crazy.

This was the first time I ever hand quilted anything – my hand issues have always kept me leery of doing it for fear of extra pain and swelling. I decided it was finally the time to give it a go (and yes, I did have extra swelling and pain the next day – but it was short lived and the resulting project was so beautiful that it was WORTH IT!). I asked my friend Jenna from SewHappyGeek for some guidance and she oh so graciously offered to do a video tutorial! If you are even the least bit interested in learning this technique – please go check out her video – it is totally worth the 5.5 minutes of your time. She did a wonderful job with it plus you can finally put a voice to the words on the screen!

Come back tomorrow for a quick tutorial on how to do a machine binding!

If you haven’t already – make sure you enter to win the Lazy Angle Ruler and a Layer Cake from Fat Quarter Shop!

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Whirly Gig Pillow Case Tutorial

15 Comments / bittersweet quilt designs, Me and My Sister, pillow case, whirly gig pillow / By Melissa Dunworth

Do you like squishy packages? I do! Barb and Mary, from Me & My Sister Designs, were kind enough to send me an extra charm pack of Amelia so I could put together a fun tutorial! I decided to create a pillow for Anne. She just moved into a toddler bed and still doesn’t use a pillow at night, but we spend a lot of time reading on her daybed in the play room and she LOVES this pillow! The pillow case fits a queen size pillow and is way easier to make than it looks 🙂

Get the know how after the jump!

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Whirly Gig Pillow Case TutorialRead More »

Cobblestone Roads – A quilting tutorial

30 Comments / bittersweet quilt designs, cobbleston road, Fat Quarter Shop, hometown by sweetwater, quilt, tutorial, tutorial tuesday / By Melissa Dunworth

Two weeks ago I received the most awesome squishy package from my UPS man – this jelly roll of the new Hometown by Sweetwater fabric. Kimberly from Fat Quarter Shop sent it over to me so that I could work on a tutorial to go with the Jelly Roll we are giving away this week – make sure you head on over to the post to enter to win! Look at what I made with it!

You may be wondering who BitterSweet Quilt Designs is…it’s me

Fabric Requirements:
1 Hometown by Sweetwater Jelly Roll
2 Extra Strips of the cream (Sunni got a Jelly Roll two and swapped me for a couple of strips!)
1 yard of Kona Slate for the borders – cut into twelve 3″ strips
3/4 yard of Solid Cream Fabirc (I used Northcott – but didn’t look at the name of the fabric) – cut into six 3″ strips
4 yards backing fabric (42″ wide) or 2 yards backing fabric (108″ wide)

The technique I am using I learned when I made this gorgeous batik Trip to Trinidad quilt (designed by Kathleen Starr) 7 years ago – it now lives in our guest room.

Lay out your strips:

Not pictured are the 2 extra cream strips I got from Sunni!

Layout your groups – lay them out from light to dark so you get a nice gradation of color.

[insert groups]

Sew each group of strips together – you should have 4 groups of 9 strips – there will be extra strips from your Jelly Roll – these will be used later!


The Front

Here’s how you need to iron your seams:

After you have sewn your 4 strips sets together – fold the sets in half – make sure they lay flat and sew them into tubes

Time to start cutting! Cut your sets into 2.5″ strips

Next – cut your strips apart – choosing a different seam each time

Now the fun really begins – you get to lay out your strips and chose your design! (I tried lots of different patterns – below are a few of them)

Now start sewing your strips together (this goes really fast) I did it in vertical rows – I ended up with 3 sections

Sew the three sections together – I pressed my seams open to reduce bulk

Add your borders (these are your Kona Slate and Northcott Cream 3 inch strips from earlier):

This is where my quilt stands today – I have a backing, my threads and my batting all ready to go, but I have not had a chance to quilt it yet. Once things calm down with my baby’s sleep schedule and I can squeeze in some sewing time it will get done!

The finished size of the quilt top is 51″x71″ – it makes a very nice lap size quilt!

I plan on using my left over 2.5″ square strips as my binding and I promise to post pics as soon as this puppy is complete! Will you be making a Cobblestone Road quit? If so, please let me know, this is the 2nd original quilting pattern of mine that I am sharing online and would love the feedback!