ShellyQ

Hi, I hope you enjoy my musings and that they are of some use to you. I don’t have a lot of gears, because a lot of the quilting equipment is very expensive here and I’d rather make do and spend the money on fabric :lol: so some of the ways I do things may be quite helpful if you are starting out and want to make something but don’t yet want to make a large financial commitment in a lot of quilting gears.

Bear in mind that I come from another country and won’t know of all that is available. So if you see us doing some thing and know of tool that could make the job easier for others please feel free to speak out and let us know. You never know I might even plonk down the dosh myself :lol: .

I can only show you the way I do things and what works for me, there are heaps of ways of doing things out there and the right way is the one that works for you :P , that may not necessarily be the way I do something and that’s cool. I guess all I’m trying to do is give people another option and they can pick and choose out of it what works for them and what doesn't.

This month I am going to cover the making of the 9 and 4 patch, some ramblings bout fabric, quarter inch seams and pressing, please feel free to skip the boring bits :lol: . Some uses for the 9 patch and some settings

Fabrics

At this stage I would recommend using 100% cotton fabrics, Not because I’m some kind of fabric snob, I have used allsorts of fabric in my quilts when it’s suited me, but mainly because it behaves itself a bit better than the blends, so is easier to learn with.

I prewash everything, now I know this subject is liable to start an international incident :lol: but that’s my preference, what you choose to do is up to you and what suits you best.

ShellyQ

The Quarter Inch Seam

Actually if you are making a complete quilt out of just the nine patch and are not planning to put it with any other block or use a pieced border, then achieving an accurate 1/4” seam is not so vital for this block. As long as your seams are consistent then you will be able to make a lovely quilt using this block. Your blocks will not finish at 12” but as long as they come out the same size you will be able to assemble them together. The reason for this is that this block has the same number of joins in both directions, so will work no mater what size you seam allowances.

However it is important to work towards achieving as accurate a 1/4” seam as possible, because when we want to start adding in other blocks, making pieced boarders, making blocks that have different numbers of joins in each direction or even making a block for a group quilt or block swap, we are going to run into big problems. Things are just not gonna work together.

A good way to check how accurate your seam allowances are, is to cut three 1 1/2” short strips (Pic 1) , sew these together using what you usually do to make a 1/4” seam, gently press and measure across the three strips. Your measurement should be 3 1/2” (Pic 2).

Woohoo mine came out good (Pic3), no seriously this is great, mine don't always work out this good :lol:

If your joined strips are bigger than this then you cut is too big or your seams are too small.

If your strips measure less than this then your cut is too small or your seams too big.

It is a balance between your cut and your seam allowance, practice adjusting each until you find a balance that gives you the best result. Once you find what works for you. Stick with it and be consistent and this will give you even results across all your piecing.

I’m not keen on trying to achieve a scant 1/4, I’m never quite sure what that means :lol: , so my personal preference is to make what I call a fat cut to compensate for the thread or two that gets used in the fold of the fabric at a join.

I’ll try to explain what I mean. The lines on your ruler have a little bit of width to them an accurate cut is when you place the ruler line exactly on top of the fabric edge. What I call a fat cut is when I can just see the fabric edge below the line. That’s just what works for me, but it’s a matter of balancing the cut and the seam and finding what works best for you.

joy

Hi Shelley, Love your instructions and thanks for them.... how often can I expect to see more please? A great idea.

ShellyQ

Enough of the boring stuff already :lol: , Let’s make a block

You will need to choose 2 fabrics one light and one dark. I have chosen a dark small floral print and then picked out one of the colours in that print to use as the contrast (Pic 4)

This is a 12” finished block so you will need to cut nine 4 1/2 inch squares, five out of your dark fabric and four out of your light Fabric. (Pic 5)

Set aside 2 dark and 1 light square. Sew the remaining 6 squares together in light/dark pairs (Pic 6). For this block press seams towards the dark fabric

ShellyQ

Pressing

It is very important to not use the iron over enthusiastically on our pieces as it is very easy to distort fabric pieces with a too vigorous iron, especially when we start doing triangles as some of their edges are on the bias and much easier to distort.

Here is what I do: It may/maynot be helpful

Lay the pieced unit with the side that I want the seam allowances to go towards upwards
Gently press the seam to relax the seam (Pic 7)
Open out the pieced unit and finger press pieced unit flat (Pic 8 )
Gently press unit with iron (Pic 9)

I know it sounds like a bit of a hassle, but when you think of all the effort you went to getting your seam allowances accurate, careful cutting and stitching of your pieces, it seems a shame to waste all that hard work by being a bit rough with the iron.

ShellyQ

Next sew your remaining squares to the end of your pairs,so that you end up with three strips, two strips with a dark square on each end and one strip with a light square on each end (pic 10) Press

Join a pair of strips together, butting the seams at the join (Pic 11) one of the reasons I like to press seams to one side in this type of block is because it gives an easy way to match the seams at a join.

Hold the butted seam together with your forefinger while feeding you pieces through Machine (Pic 12)

ShellyQ

When my work gets close to the foot, I use the tip of a seam ripper to hold the seam as it goes under the foot (Pic 13)

Join Other strip to work to make the completed block (Pic 14)

ShellyQ

Completed Block measures 12 1/2" (Pic 15) this will give us a finished size of 12" :thumbup:

Now don’t get too worried if your block doesn't come out exactly to size. Mine often don’t and all is not lost. The reason we try to get the accurate block is to make assembling your quilt less stressful and more enjoyable. It kinda defeats the purpose if we get ourselves too tied up in knots about it. In other words, it is a good goal to have, but there are no perfect blocks. The only perfect block is the one in our head. Fabric has a certain amount of give in it and matching “slightly out” blocks is what fudging is for :wink:

ShellyQ

Fabric choices

You can get all kinds of different effects just by using different fabrics. Using solids with a black will give you a nice Amish effect (Block A)

This is great block to make a scrap quilt with, just sort your fabrics into lights and darks and place accordingly (Block B).

Or you could have a monochrome look, where each block is made using light and dark scraps in a particular colour (Block C).

Mix prints with a tone on tone (as in the sample block) or what I sometimes call a semi solid (Block D).

Or go for two colours that are a good contrast to one another ie: Blue/yellow, yellow/Purple, green/Pink Red/Blue, etc (Block E).

Or you could go for the Christmas look (Block F).

These are just some examples, the options are endless. I love to play with my fabrics and it can be quite surprising the different combos you can come up with that way, that you wouldn’t necessarily think of.

ShellyQ

There are losts of ways you can use this blockin a quilt, the following are just a few ideas.

Dissapearing 9 Patch

Our Ruth has recently posted a stunning version of the dissapearing 9 patch, done in three colours, you can find it here http://www.quiltingboard.com/posts/list/6315.page
note also how she has used the contrast between blue and yellow to enhance the new pattern created

This is a great little tutorial describing how to make a dissapearing 9 patch, Done with scraps, different look but equally effective
http://quiltsatcs.blogspot.com/2007/...-tutorial.html

Many Blocks have a 9 patch as their base.

The honey bee block that we did as a BOM last year is a good example, it's basically a 9 Patch with a frame. You can find some nice examples on the thread which is at http://www.quiltingboard.com/posts/list/1181.page

The arrow block is basically a 9 Patch with triangles added around the outside