Sew Intertwined QAL – Page 2 – Sew Bittersweet Designs

How I Quilt My Dresdens

19 Comments / A Lovely Year of Finishes, Sew Intertwined QAL / By Melissa Dunworth

I have been working diligently the last 3 days on my Sew Intertwined Quilt as part of A Lovely Year of Finishes – it is my goal for March. I have so far finished the center Dresden and I have been working on the middle section of the quilt – I couldn’t do the outside section if I wanted to because…I have no idea how I am going to quilt it yet! I thought I would show you all how I quilted my Dresden, this is by no means the only way, just how I do it.

Here is what my Dresden looks like from the front – you probably can’t tell in this picture but the center I did some pebbling on – the first time I have done that in a quilt.

I am using the same color for the bobbin that I am for the front. I wanted my quilting to echo the Dresden without actually sewing on the Dresden. I anchored that with my pebbles in the center.

As you can see my echo stitching is fairly even and my points are centered. Here is how I manage that. First I have a 1/4″ walking foot – it is not a must have but it is helpful. If you have a standard quilting foot with a guide, you can also use that to help you achieve the even look that I have here.

You are going to start with a quilting ruler and a removable marker – I used a water soluble pencil by Clover – these remind me of the grease pencils I used to use in the dark room – they are super easy to remove when you are done with your quilting.

Next you will want to extend the lines of the points and the valleys of your Dresden Fans. As you can see in the picture the ruler is lined up to extend the point on the green fan.

You will start your first round of quilting with your foot lined up on the edge of the Dresden, as you reach one of your lines, make sure your needle is in the DOWN position, lift your foot and pivot on the line. Readjust to line up with the edge of the Dresden and quilt to the next drawn line.

As you can see from the pictures above the overall effect is worth all the work. It almost looks like a sunburst from the back. This is also how I achieved the look in the Dresden pillow I made back made in January and blogged about in February.

One last trick about how I quilt. When I am using multiple colored threads I pre-wind all my bobbins and store the thread with bobbin on top underneath my quilting table so that each one is ready and available when I am ready to quilt. It keeps me from having to slow down and search for a bobbin or wind one!

So that’s what I’ve been up to, plugging away on my finish for March. What have you all been up to?

Sew Intertwined Pillow

19 Comments / A Lovely Year of Finishes, Sew Intertwined QAL, Stripper Quilt / By Melissa Dunworth

Ok, so I know that I finished my Sew Intertwined quilt top forever ago, like this summer and I still haven’t gotten around to quilting it, but I did finish the pillow to go with the quilt last week! And if I’m being perfectly honest, and really, why shouldn’t I be, I do actually still plan to add a solid gray border around the outside, so I guess the top isn’t 100% finished.

I’m hoping that my new pillow will inspire me to finish this quilt – do I see my goal for March A Lovely Year of Finishes…just maybe!

I decided to quilt this pillow exactly as I plan to quilt the Dresden in the center of the quilt, with radiating 1/4″ lines in the colors of the quilt: white, green, pink, and orange. I love the overall effect.

Here’s a bit more of a close up on the quilting.

For the back I decided to do a 3 button closure, a first for me. I am really happy with the results (I didn’t follow a tutorial, just did what looked and felt right). The reason the buttons look like they are pulling so much is the pillow form is just a touch too big. I need to order a custom sized one, the ones at JoAnns were all either a touch big or a touch small. I suppose I could make my own…but then that would require even more work and it might never get done! LOL!

This week my goal is to finish the 3 more blocks for my stripper row, I finished 2 last week. I also have 3 bee blocks I need to make. I’m hoping I can get it all done. I’ve been a touch distracted from my sewing with my hubby back home 🙂

Oh yes, and there is a fantastic giveaway that I want to share with you, it’s Monday after all and giveaways are a great way to start the week! My friend Shirley from SimpleSew is celebrating her Blogaversary this week and is having a little party. Make sure you head on over and check it out!!! And don’t forget that my welcome home giveaway from Contemporary Cloth is open until February 13th, still lots of time to enter and join in our homecoming celebration!

Sew Intertwined QAL Winners!

9 Comments / Sew Intertwined QAL / By Melissa Dunworth

Wow, we can't believe it's the end! We had 87 group members and a ton of beautiful finishes. It was such a fun Quilt Along, and we're so proud of everyone who participated, and the level of creativity in the group just blew us away. Some of those ladies had never made a quilt before, and they pulled it off beautifully. *sniff, sniff* We decided the fairest way to draw for prizes was to use a random number generator. Melissa took that job, and here are the results:

Prize 1 – Superior Threads - $30.00 Gift Cert - #12 – Shimmyblister

Prize 2 – Intrepid Thread - $50.00 Gift Cert - #2 – Quilting Lodge


Prize 3 – Stitches N’ Giggles – Riley Blake Chevron Bundle - #9 – Nanners1222


Prize 4 – Contemporary Cloth – Fat Quarter Bundle - #4 – Marjorie68



Prize 5 – Eclectic Maker – 5 Fat Quarter Bundle - #3 – Jennie’s Threads

Prize 6 – Quilting Lodge – Layer Cake – #13 – Piecestolove If you've won, please email jennaexcell(at)gmail.com and I'll sort out the prizes. Thank you SO much for participating in our Quilt Along!

Have a great weekend everyone and if you are sewing along with Remember September and Hopeful Threads, check back tomorrow for the mid-month check in and prize information!

Sew Intertwined QAL – Joining the Blocks Tutorial

10 Comments / Contemporary Cloth, quilt along, Sew Intertwined QAL, SewHappyGeek, tutorial / By Melissa Dunworth

Hi Everyone! We are getting down to the last 2 tutorials for the Sew Intertwined QAL. On my blog today I have a tutorial on how to join your blocks together, on Jenna’s blog tomorrow, she has a tutorial on how to do the borders, if you choose to have them. I have border fabric…but I’ve been too lazy to add it to my quilt yet. Hmmmm…maybe that is the universe’s way of telling me the quilt show be borderless?

On to the business of joining. I did not make my dresden first, let’s start with that simple fact. I also did not put the center on my dresden until I had already joined my center rows. That being said. I am going to show you how I pieced my top. For those who have a 20.5″ by 20.5″ center block, do not fear! The tips and tricks I am going to show you will work for your quilt. ALSO, my recommendation is to piece your middle section first – when you see my pictures further down you will see what I mean.

Here are all of my blocks laid out. I have a just barely large enough space in my sewing room to lay this top out on my floor, of course I can’t walk around afterwards, but that’s beside the point!

If you have a large enough space, I highly recommend laying your quilt out completely, even if it means laying it out in a room different from your sewing area. It is important to make sure that all of your blocks are oriented correctly. That being said…I still managed to screw mine up and had to do some ripping out. The picture above is laid out in my bedroom, the picture of it screwed up you are not seeing. Needless to say I spent some quality time with my seam ripper when I realized the mistake 🙁

I started by piecing together my individual rows. Accuracy is important here because of the woven blocks, check that you are sewing with a 1/4″ seam – and I mean it when I say check. Get a couple of scraps out, sew them and measure. If your seams are not accurate, your points will not match!

Here are my rows all laid out:

Now for those who have their dresden already completely together, piece the center section of the quilt together first. I recommend piecing the 4 blocks to the left and the 4 blocks to the right and then attaching them to the dresden. Sorry that I do not have a picture of this – many many apologies!

Now for perfect points you are going to want to alternate your pressing. For the top row, press all your blocks to the left, for the next row press them all to the right, and so on. The reason I recommend this is because it will make it much easier to align your blocks and get your perfect points. I realize some people are huge fans of pressing their seams open, but this will help to ensure that your points match perfectly. I will show you why after the next picture.

When you are ready to sew your blocks I highly recommend pinning like crazy.

When you are matching up your seams, if you pressed your seams to opposite sides as I recommend, they will look like this:

See how they meet up so nicely! Make sure you have a pin for each seam and I recommend a pin in the middle of each block as well.

Here is what those perfect points should hopefully look like:

I sewed my quilt together in sections – Top, Middle, Bottom. Here is what my sections looked like. For those doing the full dresden, the middle section is the one you should piece first!

Sew the final sections together, you can press these open or to the side, your choice. I actually did press the horizontal seams open, but that’s just me. When you are all done you will have a stunning quilt top! Now head over to Jenna’s blog tomorrow and get some borders on that quilt!

This tutorial is sponsored by Contemporary Cloth, they provided me with the gorgeous fabrics to make this quilt.

© Copyright M. Dunworth 2012. You are welcome to use this tutorial for your personal use. Please do not use this tutorial, my words or my pictures without my permission. You are welcome to link to this tutorial, but please do not take my work.

Sew Intertwined QAL – Woven Blocks Tutorial

10 Comments / Contemporary Cloth, Paper Piecing, Sew Intertwined QAL, SewHappyGeek / By Melissa Dunworth

Welcome to the 3rd tutorial for the Sew Intertwined QAL! Warning – there is paper piecing and some planning involved – this is not for the feint of heart but I promise to make it as easy for you as humanly possible! I will pass on all of my tips and tricks! If you are not up for paper piecing – Jenna has a traditionally pieced tutorial for the same block over at Sew Happy Geek – head on over and check it out!

Now for the planning stage! Take your print out from when you were planning your quilt and label the woven blocks as follows – trust me, this will really help you and is a very important step!

Next, print out your Sew Intertwined Paper Piecing Templates. You will need to print the file a total of 12 times – which is 48 pieces of paper. Please don’t hate me for having you print so much, I promise you will be tickled with how amazingly easy your blocks will line up when you are ready to piece your top! As far as the printing goes you will probably need to play with the print size – I had to go to 104% to get mine to print to the right size when printing from the PDF. The longest solid line should measure 8 and 3/8 inches.

Now I want you to label each of the 48 pages. Use your template (see first image) of your quilt and write in each of your colors and the block number. It is important to remember that the templates are mirror images of the blocks. If you are extremely well organized in the first two steps the rest of it will truly be a breeze. One thing to note (this will make labeling easier, I swear) you are making 3 blocks a total of 4 times, at least you are if you did your layout similar to mine. If you look closely at my diagram you will notice that blocks 1, 4, 7, and 10 are all the same, just turned a 1/4 turn each time. The same is true of [2, 5, 8, 11] and [3, 6, 9, 12].

Ok, now that you all hate me and are ready to walk away, here is my example:

Now I am going to ask you to print one more of the templates – this time just print one page as the templates are all exactly the same, they just help with the labeling. I want you to cut it apart, use your rotary cutter, you will have to cut a lot of paper with it anyways, may as well start now. Cut each section on the line, for the sections that have the seam allowance leave it there, it will make your life easier.

Now cut your fabrics: I am going to tell you the cutting for my colors, the widths and lengths will be the same for everybody you just need to supplement your colors in.

Background Fabric (white): 1 strip measuring 2 7/8″ by width of fabric – this is for the center square. Sub-cut these into 12 squares measuring 2 7/8″ x 2 7/8″
Background Fabric (white): 7 strips measuring 3 1/8″ by width of fabric. You will also need 12 squares measuring 3″ each – I will show you how to sub-cut these later.
Green Fabric: 2 strips measuring 2.5″
Orange Fabric: 2 strips measuring 2.5″
Pink Fabric: 2 strips measuring 2.5″
Gray Fabric: 3 strips measuring 2.5″
Leaf Fabric: 3 strips measuring 2.5″

Let’s start by sub-cutting the 3″ white squares:

For the rest of the cutting, take the template pieces you cut apart, you will lay them on top of your fabric to cut them out. Remember if working with prints you will want to lay the templates on the fabric with the fabric right side up and the template right side down. For the templates that have seam allowance on them cut those sides 1/8″ larger than the seam allowance, for the sides with no seam allowance cut them 3/8″ larger than the template. This will ensure that you have enough fabric with very little waste. (this is my first tip! It works with every paper piecing project you will ever do!)

Now on to the bigger background section of the paper pieced templates (piece 1). Using the 7 strips measuring 3 1/8″:

For all the rest of the strips you will have 2 different sized pieces depending on whether you are cutting piece 2 or piece 4. Lay your template face down with the fabric face up and cut as described above.

Once you have cut all your pieces, the hard part is over. I suggest moving your templates and all your cut pieces right next to your sewing machine, if you have the room. Lay out the fabric by color and by cut. Have you templates handy and you are ready to start!

(this is my next tip – it will help prevent any shifting!) With printout facing down glue your first piece to the template. Make sure you are covering all of piece 1 on the template.

Press Open

The goal is to make sure that your template will be completely covered each time you press open your fabric. Press Open

Sew and Press Open.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat 47 more times! (ok, can you tell I’ve been sick for a week, I’m getting a little punchy!).

When you have them all sewn, you can trim them up. There is no point trimming them as you sew them, it will just take you more time.

This is just like when we were all in school, use your rotary cutter (ok, that part isn’t like school) and your ruler and cut along the dotted lines! I’m going to repeat that last step…CUT ALONG THE DOTTED LINES. If you cut on the solid ones you are going to be rather upset with yourself.

Ok, it is time to get all that pent up aggression out, I’m sure by now you are super frustrated with me. Tear off all the paper from the templates. Be careful not to pull out your stitches!

Do you all hate me yet? Well, get ready for it, here come the Y-Seams. I swear if you follow my directions and review each picture carefully they will not be so bad! From here on out all seams are 1/4″.

Taking one of your 2 7/8″ background squares, place it on top of piece A like the picture below:

(this is the final piece – Piece D)

Rinse. Lather. Repeat. 11 more times. I swear this is totally worth it, check out how perfectly my points match up!

If you have any questions at ALL leave them here or in the Flickr Group and I will be around to answer them, but have mercy on me if I am not quick this weekend, I take my 2nd dose of my new medication tonight and it is bound to make me feel crappy all weekend. Feel free to print this tutorial as PDF too: Woven Block Tutorial.

This post is sponsored by Contemporary Cloth who provided the beautiful fabrics for my quilt.