Lessons
Every Quilt Has a Story
10:14 2Suitable Textiles for Quilting
05:59 3Cleaning and Preparing Textiles for Quilting
06:51 4Gear You Need to Make a Quilt
15:29 5Cutting into Clothes to Make Quilts
16:26 6Cutting the Squares
14:40 7Planning Your Quilt Design
06:17 8Sewing Squares into Rows
17:59Lesson Info
Sewing Squares into Rows
So the beauty of these is that you can change piece and by chain piecing, I will show you what that means, but when you're sewing together, quote, squares chain piecing means you don't have to stop, cut the thread and start again at each, you can feed, continue to feed them through, and you wouldn't think that would make a huge difference on something like this, but he used so much less thread overall, and it really does it keeps thread from being through I tend to throw threatened like, you know, I don't have like a little thread catcher, so it helps just keep everything a little bit cleaner. So what I'm going to do let me show you this really quickly, so taking this off of the design wall and I've got it, this is how it was on the design wall, and now I'm going to sew these together, going to sew this one to this one and this one to this one, and we're going to right sides together, so I'm gonna flip that over that I'm gonna flip that over that and then lining this up with the edge o...
f my patchwork foot quarter inch, and I'm just going to so straight down that seem and just kind of keep them lined up, you can pin this if it would make you feel more comfortable I pen longer seems but I don't really pin fees but you certainly could just remove them before your needle gets to him you don't want to end up in the emergency room making quote so stitch that scene instead of pulling that out I'm gonna take the next one and just go right in and do the same thing and then I'm going to cut it some people even keep these two connected I don't really do that so just training threads and then for the same allowances and quote some people are pretty resolute you press them to one side or you preston open for this particular project I press find open because it allows me to join these individual for patch squares without worrying about some scenes or this way and some seems for that way so I'll show you what I mean by that so I've got this face down right side down and I just with my fingers sort of coke's the's same allowances apart and then I press them open and when you're pressing in quote making you're not you're not pressing a shirt per se you're putting light pressure on it because you know one of torque the fabric or do anything weird and then I always turn it back over and press the front until show you get on this one this is the only thing I used my iron for I don't iron anything else and don't skip this step in my baby quote I didn't press I was not even aware that you were supposed to press every single seem so don't but it makes such a huge difference so don't skip the steps and now we've got these look like this and we're going to want to sew them together so we're going to put thes right sides together and where the seams me you're gonna wanna kind you wantto gonna want to line these up so that they need because we're goingto make perfect points and you can pin these if you want when I'm trying to line up points I usually do put one little pin there but you could pin you know all the way down if you wanted to but now we're going to sew a quarter inch scene although in him so those first seems that we sowed get crossed so that's why they stay secure and I just probably three that pen again do as I say not as I d'oh and then you're going to press the seat open just like we did the other ones he's kind of coax it open and then press it and I turned over points look good so this center area here that's the part where you wanted to meet up if it doesn't meet up a month from now you will never know the difference I promise you if you look at my baby quilt I did not know that they were sister made up I thought what would it be cool if they met up that they did not meet up? So I tied the were they on that so you can't even really tell but this is your basic for patch block you're going to do this fifty more time but that is essentially how we do it's going to make another one so you guys can see we'll do it with my favorite paint color so you start with you're going to pull him off I pulled him off and force like in little groups of four so we're going to so right sides together the top two squares and the bottom two squares and the other thing about like, sewing in general I always thought because I worked in the apparel industry and I saw sample sewers so like just attack I mean, they just so so I always associate id a good soldier with fast sewing it's not necessarily true slowdown is I mean, I've had to walk scenes to get them straight, but I I didn't realize that was a thing when I was making that baby quote a strong goes fast like hood because I wouldn't be all hot shot and to slow it down slow is you need to go on and if you really had your design planned out on the wall, you could keep selling these pears and then go back and so the pairs together I do that sometimes sometimes if I just need to get up and move around a lot I won't do that but it's it's perfectly fine to dio press thes does happen when you don't do this step so you could certainly so the blocks together and not to step in between but it's sort of building anything from the components on up to the finished product like if you if you add a little accuracy and every step than by not pressing these it's not you don't have a super flat scene and so it might you know make the difference of well and you could get a pleat you know it's just it's worth taking the time and just press it flat and then lined them up yeah and if you start to play with little inconsistencies like that then over an entire quilt it builds up so now I'm going to put those two pairs together and I'm lining at my fema allowances and I will put one pin what types of pins do you like? Tio I like thi's flathead pins said these pins there like flower pens but they're flathead pins and I just like them because they're easy to get out in my old sewing machine I had a little groove and the round ted pins would get stuck in the groove and these I can just literally reach in and just pull him out pretty easily and I also recommend a magnetic pin cushion those air amazing could you drop your pens and you just put it upside down and you you pick him up and one one yeah so now we're just going to said this with a quarter inch scene like a seven a go slow when I need tio get those points straight on all lines up a lot of people sometimes press it when it's sound like this to sort of set the scene you can do that too which just means you press it while it's folded then you open it up and do what I've been doing which is just coaxing this open and like I said earlier our pita if we are dealing with thicker fabrics I would go to a slightly bigger seem allowance like a half inch or something and then we'll put this up here there you go so you just keep creating these four pep squares the same way and then when you find placement that you like so when you find a placement that you like, I actually recommend taking a picture of it with your smartphone or something just do that a lot of times I will just sleep on it I'll look at it, I'll sleep on it and sometimes it looks sometimes I have a better idea by the next day and sometimes I'm more solid, I think that's the right way to go so let me pull some of these together that we have so once you get all of your four patches your units sewn together individually and you played with your design, then you're going to want to join them across this way and so I'm going to show you how to do that next here we have two four patch units and we're going to sew them basically the same way right sides together we're going to put these on top of each other and we're gonna line up thes same allowances nice and meet together and pin them I'll show you what it looks like here if you want to pin the whole section I would pin sort of at the beginning but not right at the beginning and then I would pin toward the end too many pins can sometimes be worse than not pending it also so you could pen it like that and then we're going to sell it that same quarter inch scene and they were gonna press these open. And then again I would also press he's from the front so there's that unit all done so let's add another one and if you see little stray threads on your quilt top as your sewing it, go ahead and turn them because sometimes you'll never see them at the end we will add this one to this one the same way right sides together we'll line up the where the seams meat and then we'll sew it so see how you do the cutting the selling, the pressing, the cutting that some impressing it's all kinds of we'll dance routine to come up with when you're cold so this is when you know if this starts to get a little if it doesn't want to stay up, you can add a little pin here in there just try to stick it in which I think will do things get a little bit heavy? So that's what you're going to do, you're going to keep your going to join this one to this one you're going to create your row and then from there you're going to join the rose together the same way you're going to line up your corners or your edges and quarter and seem allowance and you're going to press those seems open and when you finish that you're going to have coal top because having questions just look doable yeah yeah so you can see when you start sewing them together, you can see where it would be important to disperse brighter dominant colors around in the cool top but that's essentially all of the steps that you need to make the quote top and yeah, and then once you do it don't cut the edges you know, trim your threads that don't. If these aren't perfectly straight, don't cut the's. Just leave them for now. And the next step is making a quote sandwich.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
This class is a very basic class on making your first quilt out of square blocks. And on tieing a quilt. It is good on that level. She didn't go into much detail about how to work with different fabrics, advantages and disadvantages and different applications for say using jeans vs. linens vs. cotton. Or how to combine them so it does work. I did like that she wasn't from the quilting police and really encouraged us to try things. And to get stuff from Thrift stores, yards sales, etc.
Janelle Embree
I have been sewing for about 55 years and have made a few quilts. This class was better than I expected, in that it got me thinking about how I can use fabric scraps, fabric from my stash, and designer swatches I got from Fabmo in Sunnyvale!! The teacher had good ideas that you may not find in more traditional quilting classes. So not so perfectionistic and limiting. GO for it!