Stripey Scrappy Quilt Part 3: Piecing

Look what I found when I was going through my green scraps! I bunch of faces I had embroidered for Blockheads beanbags and then forgot about!

Update - you can see the finished quilt here.

So far we've talked about. . .

• sorting your scraps by color to assess what you have and pressing them
• cutting scraps and thinking about design

Today I'll give you a couple of quick tips for piecing.

First of all - piecing a quilt that's all straight lines and right angles is really easy. I mean REALLY easy. Sew them all together using the same seam allowance (usually 1/4 inch) and you're done. End of post.

But there are a couple of tips to make things go faster.

You don't have to use 1/4 inch seam allowance for this quilt - though you might want to get in the habit for more advanced quilts. 1/4 inch on almost all machines is with the raw edge lined up with the edge of your presser foot. Easy, see?

Taking the patches out of the machine after every patch will get really old really fast. I recommend something called chain piecing. As soon as you get to the end of one pair of patches, butt the next pair right up to it and keep sewing. See how these run one right after the other?

This will save you an extraordinary amount of time. And tedium.

For this quilt I pick a color. Grab two pieces (of the same width) at random and sew them together. Grab the next two, butt them right up to the first two, and keep sewing. Grab the next pair and keep going like that until you're through the whole pile of scraps. Cut them all apart and then start joining pairs to pairs until you run out of them. Then join sets of four with sets of four, and so on until what you have is one long strip of strips.

Then start measuring those loooong strips and cutting them into lengths 86 inches long (for a twin-sized quilt). Make enough strips so that when they're sewn together the quilt will be 68 inches wide (remember to subtract 1/2 inch from each strip for seam allowance). Sew them together and you're done!

Except for pressing. Remember - in quilting you always want to turn to the Dark Side - no matter what Master Yoda says. :-) That means, unless the instructions specifically tell you otherwise (and some blocks do) you always press your seam allowance toward the darker fabric - like this.

See? Now the darker fabric won't show through the lighter one.

All those little blocks I found don't fit in my 2, 4 and 6 inch strip scheme, so I'm making one strip that's all faces alternating with the solid blocks I had cut for the beanbag backs. It will run the whole length of the quilt.

I think it's going to be really fun!

Happy sewing!

Best,
Wendi