Can anyone tell me how to draft a pattern for this? I have a book which has templates, when I would prefer to foundation piece. I looked in EQ6 and the blocks in the library are such that when you lay them out the circles look slightly squashed where they cross, so they look a little square rather than totally round. I tried drawing them myself in EQ6 and I'm having trouble with the intersections, either I get the same squished effect, or I end up with a thin sliver of background going right to the centre of the four patch like area.
There is a foundation pieced freebie on the McCall's site:
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I have used a traditional pattern and the QFTH templates. (I think the templates are now made by omnigrid) They worked perfectly. I don't enjoy pp'ing so that really wasn't a good option for me though.
I've done two -- once paper piecing (Judy Niemeyer's pattern) the wedding star
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(this is her website -- you can see mine in my webshots album) The other was a traditional wedding ring using the acrylic templates -- both went together pretty well (surprisingly well actually). Although I do think the templates was more work.
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Email me privately if you want more details of my experience.
I think making a double wedding ring is a bit like childbirth... you remember it was really work...in the middle you want to quit.... but the actual pain diminishes over time... and in the end you have something really wonderful to show for your hard work!
Yeah. tell me about it. I have gotten my UFO's down to one last year and you guessed it, the one remaining is a DWR. Have started the hand quilting but..........one day.
I also like the QFTH templates. The set includes one "solid" arc in case you want to do something like that. You could easily draft a pp version from that. Roberta in D
"Taria" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:Hysnj.6091$O9.5728@trnddc01...
I used the QFTH templates to draw up a foundation for the arcs and then used the templates to cut the centres and wedges. But we drew the arcs onto light weight sew in interfacing instead of paper so it did not have to be removed and all the cutting lines and match points for sewing were there during final assembly.
It made the piecing very quick and easy because the arcs were stabilised. All the girls who made these quilts (seven in the class) rotary cut squares of fabrics to piece the arcs. Wastage was minimal and all seven (relatively inexperienced) quilters got excellent results on big quilts in just a few weeks.
Someday when I do not have people "needing my opinion" for supid stuff every 5 minutes, when the phone is not ringng constantly, and when Ash is not bounding through the house makeing more noise than should be possible for even an 8 year old boy, I will write down how I draft the things.
Meantime may I suggest adding tailor's marks (notches or tacks or whatever you usually use) to match up the curved pieces, and pieceing the arcs before cutting them?
Just fit the templates together and mark where the marks go on both pieces at once (color coding is your friend).
To piece the arcs before cutting, just strip piece blocks as wide as your arcs plus seam allowance, and cut the arcs out of the blocks. It is easier than laying the pieces over the template and sewing them together one at a time. You can be more fabric frugal by doing longish rectangles. That way you can place the cutting lines closer together.
If you are going scrappy paper piecing would indeed be easier, but why not just xerox or scan the template? Copy off as many as you need, and then just sew your bits down on the copies. If you want regular seam lines on it just get out your protractor and a ruler and go to it. Much simpler than starting from scratch.
NightMist teachers should get paid more and have their inservice days on weekends, or holidays that are only celebated by banks and the post office.
on patterns, then pick the one you fancy and it takes you to a buy page for that pattern. so many to choose from and all so pretty. have fun. j.
"grammykathy" wrote... Kate the website you gave is just the picture. I want to make this for DH and I can you give us the website to order this. GrammyKathy
What I found particularly helpful-- what I pinned some muslin on my ironing surface... and drew out the outline of my curved pieces. Then when I pressed them... I was VERY CAREFUL to make sure that I pressed them to fit PRECISELY inside the drawn outline.
I buy the Starch in the bottle... and then dilute substantially with water (use a 99 cent spray bottle from the drug store) and very lightly starch it when I am pressing it.
If you don't press with this precision -- I found that you can end up with pieces in a variety of lengths... and you have made your task infinitely more difficult. The wee bit of starch helps stabilize those bias curves... but still allows for a wee bit of give if necessary to ease them into submission.
As someone who NEVER pins if I can get away with it... on those arcs... I pinned like crazy. First the 2 ends and the middle -- then kept doing in "in the middle" of each section until I had a pin about every 1 - 1/2 inches. Then when it was time to sew -- they just fell into place. IMNSHO.... worth every minute of the extra time.
Thanks everyone for the replies, Kate, I love the pictures you posted. Taria, unfortunately when you click through to the last page of the pattern, it's clear those foundations fit together in just the problem I described, but I think I've figured it out, basically, the problem is, that I had thought if you remove half the rings, you have rings butted against each other, but I've now realised that they would overlap very slightly, but because where they cross is usually a four patch, you don't see those lines. The reason that many designs make them look slightly square is that what has actually been drawn is not a full circle, but 4 quarters linked with a straight line to make the 4 patch.
So now I know what to draw and have no problems drawing it on paper, I'd just prefer to draw it in EQ6 so I can play with colours, sizes etc. The idea in my head is to make a fairly small one, perhaps not small enough to count as a miniature, but smaller than the templates available for purchase and small enough that I think foundation piecing would win over templates as a construction method.
There are several wedding ring blocks in EQ 6 (I just did a search with the word wedding and got 40 options). Before drawing something you may want to see if any of those are close to what you had in mind.
If you mean the ones under "rings and pickles", I've tried them, they all have the same problem, that the rings don't turn out as true circles. From my own experiments with drawing the block in EQ6, I think this is because it's very hard to draw it correctly. When you draw a curve between two points, if they are oppposite corners of a square, it draws a quarter circle with the centre on one of the other corners and you can't control where the centre is, to make it work you need to be able to move that centre just outside of the square.
You can edit the arc. I have managed to get true circles/quarters with minor adjustments.
If you draw a straight line the length of the side and put it on a 45deg angle, align it in the corner, then use the end of the line to help create a true quarter circle from your arc. You only need one - then you can resize.
Do you have Microsoft Word? On the drawing toolbar -- you can draw a concentric circle (ring) -- adjusting the overall size as well as the size of the "ring". I would think that might be a good way to start.... then just draw your lines... and your seam allowance.
I think I see what you are getting at, I may try it at some point, but I came up with another way to do it myself last night. I took a ruler to one drawn out in a book to get a reasonable value for the proportions of the thickness of the ring to how much it overlapped and what not. Then it took several bits of non basic tools to get there.
Obviously a problem with EQ6 is you can't have anything but a straight sided quilt, but it's enough for me to do my playing with colours and now I have the block I can print it whatever size I choose.
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