My Biggest Problem (at present)

Twila, my first thought is that your 1/4" seam isn't consistent. When you sew two together, you should end up with a rectangle that is 5-1/2"x

10-1/2". What are yours coming out at? Once we get that figured out, we can go from there in helping you get them together into a quilt top!

Louise > I squared up a bunch of 5 1/2" squares and sewed two of them together,

Den 18-06-2012 02:55, Twila P skrev:

Twila,

Welcome back! You've done a few quilts, personally, I think that tackling that rescue projects sounds like a huge thing, although I hear you that it maybe could not get much worse.

To your question about matching sizes: I'd look in two places. If this is too much detail, and you are already doing all this, I apologies, just wanted to give lots of info right off :-) For sure, others will be along to give advice too!

(1) your seam allowance - when sewing the pieces together you need to have the same seam allowance everywhere. Actually for squares like you are doing here, the size does not matter much, but generally (think more complicated patterns or those where the final size matters more) quilters use 1/4 inch seam allowance. This means that you should set up to sew with a little less (like a couple of threads less) than that on the seam allowance, since a little is taken up once you press the block afterwards. To help keep a steady seam allowance you might want some kind of guide, see fx here:

You place the block of tape on the sewing machine to the right of the needle (check the distance), then butt the side of the fabric up to it as you sew.

(2) pressing the block - once you have sewn two pieces together, press them (actually sew a whole pile, then press them all) like this: With the fabrics right side together (as you sewed them) press the seam (iron down onto them, but don't push back and forth a whole lot, as you might stretch your fabric) then open up the piece, iron carefully from the piece on the bottom (face up) towards th seam, making sure that you pull the top piece straight and fully away from the seam, but again, don't pull and push too much, to avoid stretching pieces out of shape.

If you follow this with 2 pieces 5-and-a-half inches, the new piece should be 10-and-a-half by 5-and-a-half. If it is consistently smaller, your seam allowance is a little too big, and you move the tape to the left just a tiny bit and try again, opposite if the piece is too big.

Also, if you already sewed the pieces into 4s, and don't want to undo, you can square them up to the smaller size of all of them. It sounded like you tried that but had some problems - can you elaborate a little on that?

Hanne in DK

I'm thinking Hanne's gotcha!. You will be surprised at how much ironing back and forth can stretch and destroy a measurement. With some fabrics more than others. And how well I remember the denim quilt from Hell. Made 3 of them for our grands one Christmas. It's been long enough ago that I might do one or two sometime from now. We've not mentioned the 'fudge' factor. If you're only off a wee little bit, you can sneak the excess into square as you stitch. I don't know how to explain 'fudge' without using my hands. Anyone? Polly

I pin well to fudge! Pins are my friend! In fact I always pin anything over about 2" well when joining (Long pins at right angles to the seam, not along it. This way you don't get to the end of a seam and find the ends don't meet.

Sally at the Seaside ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~uk

>

Also, pin well BOTH SIDES of intersections. For the 4-patch Twila is doing, I'd pin the ends, the intersection (both sides of the intersection) and once or twice between the end and the intersection. Twice if I was trying to fudge :-)

Hanne in DK

Den 18-06-2012 11:44, Sally Swindells skrev:

>>

Twila, you've had some excellent advice, so I'll just reiterate that the seam allowance, pressing (*not* ironing! ), and pinning should all help to solve your problem, since you had been so careful in the cutting. Best of luck! :)

If you are a visual learner - here's a link to some basic quilting youtube videos which you might find useful.

There is a basic cutting video also on this page as well as a multi-part session on a plain square baby quilt...barnyowl

i know about sewing 4 patches together with a nice neat intersection. i dont pin those, just get'em right by snuggling the seams into one another so your fingers can feel it. then when sewing, keep the upper seam allowance facing away from you aka toward the machine. seems counter-intuitive but it works cuz of the feed dogs pulling the bottom 2 patch into the top one as you sew. yes its a bit fiddly needing a wee pointy thing to push the seam under the presser foot but it works.

doing it the other way that 'appears' the logical way with the upper seam facing towards you aka away from the machine and just nicely follows under the presser foot means the bottom seam pushes under the presser foot and there is no way to feed that in with the pointy thing cuz its underneath, messy....while the feed dogs are pulling the seams apart. """trust me on this. joining two 2-patches to make a 4 patch, you must have the top seam allowance facing the machine and you use a pointy thing to guide it under the presser foot."""" :) j. :/

"Twila P" wrote ... I squared up a bunch of 5 1/2" squares and sewed two of them together, then two more together, etc. When I went to sew them into a 4 square block I find that they are not all the same size. Why? I tried so hard to get them all squared. Is there anything I can do to make all these into a plain patchwork quilt? ~~~ There are about 6 to 8 of us that meet up at the Community Center each Tuesday from 10 to 4. Come if and when you want. Leave when you want. There is no teacher/leader we just quilt together. If you need help there is usually someone that knows more than you and is willing to help. But these squares! They showed me how to square them up but . . . it didn't turn out right. I've made 3 laptop quilts, a denium quilt (the quilt from hell) and I just finished a quilt that I bought at a garage sale 27 years ago. Whoever made it just sewed pieces of fabric together into hexagon like shapes. If a piece was too large she'd just pleat it until it fit and sew it in. Some selvages were sewn in the middle of a hexagon. If there wasn't enough fabric for the entire hexagon she'd just sew in one (or two) different pieces until it fit. Seam allowences were practically non-existent in places. I'm sure you get the picture. Anyway I was able to fix it up and make it usable. I tied it as I think that was probably the intent of the maker and it fit in better with the overall old country type quilt that it was. It was fun doing mostly because there was NO WAY I could have messed it up! Now the one quilt that I did and really am proud of is a jelly roll/applique quilt. It turned out so nicebut I had a lot of advice and help. So I have never done a "simple" quilt of just squares. I thought it would be so easy! Sorry this is so long.