SewHappyGeek – Sew Bittersweet Designs

March Finish – A Lovely Year of Finishes

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

This month I paid the price for my zeal and need to finish my goal. Truly I paid the price for all the handwork. All that aside, I am bursting with pride to show you my finish for March!

I know it is bright and obnoxious, but I just don’t care, I’m IN LOVE!

Here is a close up of how I quilted the Dresden (you can see even more detail on the back pictures below).

This was quilted on my home machine and I think this is truly the largest size I could handle in my machine for this particular type of quilt – 60×60 (before washing). With the shadow (or echo) quilting the quilt needs to be constantly worked through the throat of the machine and turned at every angle. The overall effect though is pretty cool if you ask me. Check out the back:

I used the same color threads on the front and on the back. My goal was to mimic the quilt design from the front on the back. A very simple but effective design element. I used 90″ wide, high thread count muslin for the backing. It is soft and yet not so dense that it is hard to quilt like using sheets can sometimes be.

Here is a picture of the dresden from the back. (Sorry for the crap lighting I had a little trouble with lighting on the back photographs. I’m not used to shooting an all white cloth surface.)

I don’t know why but I loved the way the corners looked on the back, so here is one last close up for you:

Quilt Details:

Design: Sew Intertwined Quilt, by Jenna Excell and Melissa Dunworth
Quilted: By Melissa Dunworth, on a Janome Horizon 7700
Thread: Masterpiece and King Tut by Superior Threads
Measures: 60″ x 60″ (unwashed)

So, I finished mine, have you finished yours? Link up your Lovely Finish for March over here!

Connections

11 Comments / Fiber of All Sorts, quilt, Quilt Inspiration, Quilting Bees, SewHappyGeek / By Melissa Dunworth

I have been part of this wonderful online community for a little less than 2 years and actively on Twitter for about a year now. Through this community I have made so many wonderful friends and connections. These friends have brought such joy to my life, and this past week I was blessed enough to work with 2 friends to bring some joy to another friend’s life.

I met 3 wonderful ladies on Twitter, @h2ogirl76 (aka. fiberofallsorts) – real name Shanna, @sewhappygeek – real name Jenna, and @HQSuz – real name Susan. Earlier this year, Susan wrote a heartfelt blogpost about losing her father. It is never easy to lose someone you love and Shanna, Jenna and I teamed up in the hopes of doing something that would honor her father and show her how much she is loved and supported. Thus a quilt was born.

: Photo courtesy of The History Quilter (Susan)

The ever talented Jenna from Sew Happy Geek, took the Navy Star block and enlarged it giving Shanna and I this amazing pattern to work with. Shanna was the guiding force behind the colors and figuring out how to assemble the extra large blocks, and let me tell you that lady has an eye for color! My role was to stitch a couple of the blocks and quilt it. I also needed to figure out how to send it and keep it a surprise, and in walks another wonderfully talented lady, Jaye from Artquiltmaker. She was the essential link in getting this quilt mailed and keeping it a surprise. She is friends with Susan and was willing to package and ship our quilt for us, putting the wonderful final touch on this quilt of love.

Susan has since named this quilt “The Navy Quilt” and I have first hand knowledge that she has already spent some quality time snuggling underneath it. Being part of something like this just solidified the importance of this community and the connections we make in my mind. Sometimes it is about stepping outside yourself and doing something for someone else in need. Thank you Jenna, Shanna and Jaye for letting me be a part of this, and Susan, I truly hope you enjoy your quilt.

If you would like to read Susan’s blog post about the quilt, please go to History Quilter and read all about it. If you would like to read Shanna’s post, please go to Fiber of All Sorts and read all about it there.

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.

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!!!