The Spring Sampler QAL-Piecing the Quilt Top

May 9, 2017
Tutorials, Quilt-alongs, Lori Kennedy Quilts

Border and HST Quilt-a-Long, Lori Kennedy

Good Morning, Quilters!

Let’s get started with our Spring Sampler Quilt tops!

REVIEW 

Last week, we choose a color scheme and picked fabrics.

Some of you may have stitched your  40 half square triangles.

And YOU may have made a few designs decisions to make your sampler a different size.

YOUR DESIGN

I will be including all of my design choices for this quilt including cut and finished sizes of each of the blocks and borders, however YOU should be YOUR own designer!

This project is very flexible and is designed to help YOU with YOUR quilts.  The sizes and colors can vary and you will still be able to quilt-a-long.

Don’t hesitate to change the sizes if you have a long table.

Or maybe you have pre-cut fabrics…use them, don’t re-cut them….at least see if they look proportional in your quilt.

The key is:  Use what YOU have and what looks good to YOU!  

Make it easy on yourself.

Then we will modify the machine quilting to fit YOUR quilt!

Spring Quilt-a-long, Lori Kennedy

STEPS

Half Square Triangle Strips

Need 4 strips of half square triangles.   Careful about orientation of each row!  Be sure to orient two rows of HST facing one way and two facing the opposite way…see photos.

Stitch 10 HST in each row.

Your row should now measure 20-1/2 inches (or pretty close).

Sashing Rows

Cut 5 strips.

20-1/2 by 3 inches.

Spring Quilt-a-long, Lori Kennedy

Top and Bottom Borders

The finished size of the borders are 4 inches wide.

Cut the width after you finish piecing.

I used this Kaffe Fasset precut-6-1/2 inches wide.

I decided to not cut to it at all–that gives me flexibility if I decide a deeper border looks better.

Spring Quilt-a-long, Lori Kennedy

Stitch the rows together.

I like to use Aurifil 50 wt cotton in the bobbin and top with a size 80 Universal needle.

BERNINA quilters-I love the BERNINA 37D foot for piecing, but remember any time you use a “D” foot you MUST engage the dual feed!

Also, everyone should use a single hole throat plate when piecing–it helps prevent fabric jams and creates the best possible stitch.

PRESSING

Press the seam allowances away from the HST rows.

Carefully press the entire quilt once all of the rows are finished.

Spring Quilt-a-long, Lori Kennedy

TOMORROW

I will show you my no-measure method for adding borders–I use it all the time, much to my sister’s chagrin!

Create the quilt sandwich.

Speaking of sandwiches…it’s lunch time here…

And I have an avocado…

Here’s one of my favorite cooking websites, What’s Gaby Cooking.

Merrily we row-a-long, quilt-a-long, cook-a-long….

Lori

PS…All tutorials, images and information are the property of Lori Kennedy at The Inbox Jaunt and are intended for personal use only.  Feel free to re-blog, pin or share with attribution to The Inbox Jaunt.  For all other purposes, please contact me at lckennedy@hotmail.com.  Thanks!

 

 

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14 comments

  • Terry Sheldon

    When piecing a quilt top, I IRON the fabric, finger press (using my fingernail) the seams (to the dark unless instructed otherwise), and press/iron as appropriate. In all my years of quilting, I have never stretched fabric from ironing, and I think it’s absolutely essential to use steam. (Unless I’m paper piecing!)

    • WordPress.com Support

      Thank you Terry! Very helpful to know!

  • Linda

    My roll of 6″ strips from Craftsy arrived today, so I’m excited about getting started. I, too, used a combination of ironing and pressing.

  • Good to reinforce the pressing. I too Iron, but mostly that is not the pieced blocks, it is on the whole fabric before cutting. Another quilter/teacher I have read about uses ironing to make the block stretch out uniform for constructing the whole top. It does not seem to make her quilts odd shaped. She does this especially when the block is a bit crooked after piecing and it needs to be straightened. Everyone to their own style of working, but too much stretching can cause the top to be a mess for the machine quilter afterward.

  • Pam Hotle

    I went to the cooking website to check out the avocado toast. They all looked so good! The one with radishes reminded me of “radish toast” which my daughter always makes for us when we visit her in France. You lightly butter your toast, spread on a creamy cheese and top with sliced radishes. Use salt and pepper to your taste preference. You can also substitute cottage cheese. I sometimes make it here but it just seems to taste better in France…..they have so many yummy, creamy cheeses there.

    • WordPress.com Support

      That sounds delicious!! Im going to buy some radishes!

      • Pam Hotle

        Marta, I really don’t know what kind of cheese my daughter uses in France. Maybe we have some creamy cheeses here (gouda, if heated?). Maybe there are others. I live in Wisconsin where most of our cheeses are sliced to use. You could use Philadelphia cream cheese or cottage cheese. I will ask my daughter.

        • Marta

          Husband’s parents retired to WI (Neillsville) for 20+ years before they died. We loved to visit them and visit various cheese places all over. He always smuggled some back on the plane.. LOL….Thanks…

      • Marta

        My mom-in-law ( born in Dresden of Czech parents) taught me what she called….uh, never mind.. . I can’t spell it or say it… In English they are ,.ta da.. Spring Sandwich. Rye bread with caraway seeds, spread with butter, layer with sliced hard cooked eggs, layer top of them with sliced radishes and sprinkle chopped chives for garnish..salt and black pepper to taste.. From Alabama, this girl was flabbergasted! I couldn’t figure out how to get my mouth around it, over it..watched and learned. Love them ever since..50+ years. Pam, what is name of the cheese, would love to try that.?

  • Lori, I absolutely LOVE this quilt along. It will be great in a book. I like how you are giving design choices. I also like how you are showing each week how the quilt will look different with different colors.

  • Marta

    Back when I was a beginning quilter, I attended a workshop. While I was at the ironing board, a lady ( knew her since childhood) yelled across the room, “We don’t IRON ! We press!” I looked around, Yep, that was being directed at me. She came over and showed me what she meant. I did it that way because I didn’t want to get yelled at again in front of everyone and sure enough she watched. Being the rebellious person I was from birth, I have ironed and pressed my way thru 6 years now. I know ironing will stretch a bias edge but I am very very careful (perfectionism)… LOL In reality, I have not been able to tell the difference in the outcome between the 2 methods in my quilts. Anyone have an experience that was bad with ironing? Our beloved teacher Lori is instructing :” Press.” I want to be a good student here.

    • I iron AND press. With steam. I, too, am careful when I iron. First, I press the seam as sewn to set the stitching. Next, I finger-press the seam allowance to the side, then I gently iron in the direction of the lengthwise grain, to make sure the patches lay open flat and smooth with no pleating. (Did that make sense?). Then I press for a couple of seconds to make sure the pieces are as flat as possible. Ironing too forcefully along the crosswise grain or bias is more likely to result in stretching or distortion, but that can usually be corrected by easing the pieces and steam pressing.

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