justflyingin

My friend (not a native English speaker) has been commissioned to make this quilt, only with 6" stripes of color and 12" stripes of white.

How do you do it in blocks? Would it be better to just sew the strips together, tilt them and chop off the ends? Help? It seems so simple, but maybe not quite as much as I had thought. What I'm doing isn't working. I thought 12" blocks would work, but obviously not...maybe I need 24" blocks...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]522598[/ATTACH]

Actually, after she is done with this, she is supposed to put a heart on top so the end result is this:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]522599[/ATTACH]

It needs to be a large size...about queen size.

How would you do it?

justflyingin

I refigured these blocks at 18" and the strips seem to be close to 6" wide but this is how it appears when finished at 92"x92"
[ATTACH=CONFIG]522600[/ATTACH]

But is there a good way to make this?

RN-Quilter

I will use tubular triangle stripsets and applique the heart

dunster

Can you describe the problem you're having with the blocks? Is it a matter of cutting the right size, or sewing, or ???

If you approach it as sewing strips rather than blocks, what is the problem there?

justflyingin

How would you do it, dunster? Would you just sew strips of colors together and then chop off the ends?

That definitely seems the easiest way, but later, how do you square up the corners?

justflyingin

My problem seemed to be making the colored strips 6" wide (as blocks), but it appears that if she makes 18" blocks, then the colors are 6" wide. But, it seems like it would be a lot easier just sewing strips of fabric, turning them on point and trimming. But how would you do that so it doesn't get all wonky?

JenniePenny

I would just sew them as strips, then cut at the 45 degree angle. I wouldn't bother making blocks.

dunster

To eliminate wonkiness, I would try using a walking foot. Also be sure the machine tension is good. I would try sewing the whole thing in strips, but since I've never tried something quite like that I might run into issues like you did. It's harder to work with bigger pieces of fabric and longer seams when you're used to making blocks!

If you want to make blocks with the resulting colored strips being 6" wide, the block's diagonal will be 24". The pythagorean theorem says the block's finished side is then 16.97".

To make blocks, I would still start with a strip set, so I'm not sure of the purpose of cutting it into pieces and putting it back together, but that is what quilters do!

justflyingin

But how would you do it, dunster? I mean, would you sew a bunch of strips sets with the two browns and white and then what?

Cut a corner white triangle and sew a strip set to that white triangle--just use the 45 degree angle cut on your ruler and trim that way?

justflyingin

OK. I think I can figure it out. It's the trimming so things are straight across the top and sides that concerns me.