HST Question
 

Hi there. I've been away from quilting for some time due to a full-time job, and am glad to say I'm back! I'm having an issue that I'm hoping someone can help me with...

I took an idea on Pinterest and made it my own. It is a table runner made up of 4.5" squares, and triangles - think a chevron, but only one row of them. My problem is now that I'm ready to put the binding on, I'm going to lose the points on the sides. What should I have done/do differently in the future to prevent losing the points? I think that I probably should have made the triangles 1/4" larger so they overlapped the points of the squares, but I'm not positive if that would work.

I have The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt book and I notice looking at some of the squares in that, some of the ones with triangles on the edges have crisp points, others do not. I want the crisp points.

Does this make any sense or did I totally lose you?? Hoping someone can understand what I'm asking! I'm about to start my daughter's quilt and I want to make sure that I can get the center 8- point star right for her.

Could you post a picture of what you've done?

The problem probably occurred when you sewed your seams. You should be sewing a scant quarter inch seam, and if the two pieces are lined up correctly, the points will not fall at the edges of the fabric, but a quarter inch in from the edge. That way when the next quarter inch seam is taken, the point will fall right at the edge of the seam and not get sewn/lost into the seam allowance. If yours did not come out correctly, it is also possible that you did not line up the two pieces correctly. Often with triangles and angled pieces, a quarter inch point of one fabric has to hang over the edge of the other fabric when you line them up. Sometimes there needs to be a quarter inch point of fabric hanging over at both ends of the seamed edge---on one end it's the top fabric hanging over, and on the other end it's the bottom fabric hanging over. The problem you had was most likely lining up the fabrics incorrectly or not sewing an accurate scant quarter inch seam. There are lots of internet videos you can watch to see how to line up various triangle pieces to each other.

if i read this correctly, you are saying that you have the points now but will lose them once the binding goes on.

were you planning to sew the binding to the back and then flip it to the front to stitch down?
if so, do it the other way around.

When you sew anything that ends with a point at the edge of the block, you should have a quarter inch of the "background" of the block between the point and the raw edge of the block. In other words, there should be a seam allowance at the end of the point. How did you lose that seam allowance - did you trim the block or was it that way when you finished sewing it?

I agree, a picture would help. If you don't know how to post a picture, there are 2 threads in the "Help" section of the forum, and they're permanently attached to the top of the page.

I've lost you, Patrice. How would that make any difference?

If you only have the quarter inch seam allowance add a "border" of about an inch or 3/4 of an inch. When you add the binding it would not destroy your point and it would look like a flange that was done intentionally.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]602404[/ATTACH]Ok, here's what I did. I think the problem is that I didn't cut the cream triangles big enough. I think I need to cut them larger in order not to lose the points. Lesson learned, I suppose.

Here's how to determine how large to cut side triangles.

I agree. I did that with a quilt I made for myself. The next time I will look up what size I need on Bonnie Hunter's site.