block tutorials

Hello! And welcome to #QuiltNon2016 – for those of us who are not able to go to QuiltCon in sunny Southern California, we are getting together and making the best of things! Julie from The Intrepid Thread has pulled together some awesome bloggers and shops for this fun event! I have a quick 6″ finished block tutorial for you. This block would make a great pillow sewn with 4 of them and a nice border. I’m 100% certain that I’m not the first to come up with this block but I since I have no idea what it was originally named I’m going with “Stacked HSTs”.

For this block you need:

12 squares – 2″ x 2″

4 rectangles – 1.5″ x 4.5″
4 rectangles – 1.5″ x 2.5″

Make 12 HSTs:

Pair up your fabrics and draw a diagonal line across your fabrics:

Sew 1/4″ from either side of the line.

Cut them apart on the drawn line, then press open and trim to 1.5″ x 1.5″

Layout the block as pictured below:

Piece the center first:

Next piece the first two white rectangles:

Then piece the middle HSTs to either side of the two remaining 1.5″ x 2.5″ rectangles:

Piece these to the center block, making a 4.5″ x 4.5″ square:

Piece the middle section rectangles next:

Piece the 4 remaining HSTs to the 2 remaining rectangles as pictured below:

Piece the top and bottom sections on and your block is complete!

I hope you enjoyed this quickie block tutorial, using some super time pieces, but hey, precision piecing can be very rewarding! If you want to jazz this block up a little try some low volume prints in place of the white and go with high contrast for your HSTs.

Make sure to check out all of block tutorials, if you make all six you will be eligible to win a fabulous fabric prize!  Be sure to visit Julie’s blog for full details!

Happy Quilt-Non 2016!

In light of several patterns I have coming out in the near future, I thought it would be a good time to put up a very simple paper pieced pattern with a picture tutorial.  These techniques can be used on virtually all foundation paper pieced patterns (they do not work with English paper piecing as that is a different ball of wax entirely).  So without further ado, print off the templates. Make sure your printer is set to print actual size and we will get going. Please note, there are many 5 point stars floating around on the internet, I drew this one in EQ7 because I did not feel it was appropriate to host anyone else’s templates on my site other than my own.

Materials:

Paper Piecing Templates
White Scraps for Star
Blue Scraps for background
Fabric Glue
Basic Quilting Supplies

Preparation and Cutting:

Print pattern pieces and cut apart.

Paper Piecing:

Start with any section you like. The sections are labeled A, B, C and D

Before sewing lower your stitch length to 1.5 – this makes tearing the paper at the end easier.

Lay your template on top of your fabric, cut the fabric to be slightly larger than the template. Use a small amount of glue to secure the fabric to the paper. Note the back side of the template is secured to the back side of the fabric.

Next fold the template back along the first sewing line and trim the fabric 1/4″ from the sewing line.

Next lay your second piece of fabric, right sides together on your first piece of fabric. Arrow is pointing to the edge where the first piece of fabric and second piece of fabric meet.

Flip pieces so that the paper is right side up and sew along the line on the pattern. It is important to start sewing 1/4″ before the solid line and end sewing 1/4″ after the end of the solid line. This is your seam allowance.

Press the towards the mostly recently sewn piece.

Next fold the paper along the next seam to be sewn and trim to 1/4″ away from the sewing line. The dashed line is the trim line.

Place next piece right sides together, lining up the trimmed edge. Sew along solid line as in the previous step.

After all sections are pieced, trim each section. It is important to trim pieces 1/4″ bigger than the solid outer edge, please cut on the dashed line only.

 

Remove papers, crease along the stitching and gently tear away.

Piece section C and D together first. Match up the seam allowance and piece with a 1/4″ seam.

Next attach section B as pictured below. Don’t worry if the pieces appear a little wonky, there will be a final trim.

Finally attach section A.

Trim block to 6.5″ and you are done!

There are lots of ways to paper piece. This was the first way I learned and it is the easiest of all of them. Remember when paper piecing there will be a certain amount of waste, you just need to come to terms with that and be ok with it. It is just fabric after all!  Other methods of paper piecing include the use of freezer paper, or a simple seam folding technique – which will perhaps become a tutorial at a later date. In the meantime, don’t let paper piecing scare you. Once you master this technique it opens a whole new world of quilting to you!