Drunkard's path -- help please

Ok, it depends on how exact you want the block to end up. If you do it your way, you don't account for the seam allowance at the sides, and you won't end up with a circle shape when you join 4 blocks together. You get close to a circle, tho. I've seen patterns that do it that way, so if that's the look you want, go right ahead. It's not wrong, just different.

If you want a more exact Drunkard's Path, you do need templates, because you do need seam allowance on both the 1/4 circle piece, and the background piece.

Yep - what she said.

If you sew half or full circles and cut them you don't have seam allowances and you finish up with blocks half way between a "true" Drunkard's Path and Curved Two-Patch.

But unless you really want exact circles when you put four blocks together it probably doesn't matter a whole lot.

I seem to recall a couple of recent books that espoused this as the "easy" way to do DP patterns - but I can't remember the names right now.

Sunny, I made my own template. Not at all hard.

If you want your blocks 6" square, cut a piece paper/cardboard 6" square Now you need to make a half circle on the square. Mark the 2 sides same distance from the corner......about 1/3 of the way up is about right (2" in this case). Grab a compass or a saucer to draw your quarter circle.

Now cut the 2 pieces apart.

Add 1/4" (for seam allowance) all the way around both pieces. That's your template. I use carboard for my templates, more sturdy for many uses.

Inside / outside curves are tricky so pin well. I folded the pieces to be sewn in half, then in half again. Give a good pinch to hold the fold until pinned. Folded one piece one way, the other the other, so the folds nestled against each other and pinned. Pin while you watch your fav tv show so it's not quite so boring. Then mass feed them at the sewing machine.

It's not all that bad once you get going and you'll be done before you know it. I have a couple DP quilts in my album if you want to have a peek.

Thanks to all who answered. Ann, those DP quilts (and all your quilts) are just marvelous. I am now more inspired than ever. And I'm heading straight to quilterscache.com.

Sunny

If you decide to do it that way, it's even easier if you machine applique a full circle on a background square and then cut it into fourths. I wonder.... is there a way to make some kinda oval-ish or elongated shape that would cut apart into 4 sections with the seam allowance already there??? Now that I've committed it to words, I kinda doubt it.

Pat on your hill- where are you? Is it possible???

Leslie & The Furbabies > Question: If I make a half circle and sew it to a background, can I

Check out

give three methods for making the basic "drunkard's path" unit as part of Solomon's Puzzle If you follow the "easier" instructions and applique a FULL circle then cut in QUARTERS, you will get a full circle when you sew the units back together, since both sides of each wedge lose the same amount.

Leslie, that would probably work if you make the oval wider at the top and longer sides. i'd try drawing the finished size oval. cut it into 4ths, lay them down adding seam allowance between and join up the lines again. this would be your cutting template. it would then be longer and have flatter ends than the finished design. cut our fabric oval from that template...with/without added outside seam allowance of course, depending on your method of applique. :) sew that to the background, cut into 4 again, then sew back together to get the final oval shape. just how i'd try it, not sure it would work but easy to check on paper. jeanne

Yeah it can be done - but I'm not sure it's worth the trouble. If you cut a circle template and cross cut it at right angles and insert 1/2" strips, that would be the shape you need. When you applique the "circle" just align the inserted strip positions to the centre of each side of the square background.

A full circle cut in four and pieced does not give an exact circle when joined, but the bigger the block the less noticeable the "points" will be. You can hardly see them even on 3" blocks - and would anyone want to measure the angles on 3" DP blocks anyway?

I think you all must be kidding. You really can cut a circle into fourths, join it back and it will still be a circle? Naaaah, I just can't see how that could work. The only real test I can think of would be with a pizza. Pepperoni, anyone? I have a nice new hunk of parmesan. We'll grate some and give this experiment serious testing. I can't compete with the geometry experts here but I make very fine pizza. We will eat our mistakes. Join me? Polly

oh ms Polly, how can you be so mean. :( i've been trying for 2 weeks to ignore the stuff that is making me bigger and bigger that dh brings home. so far, not perfect but not doing too bad. i've been doing my let/hip exercises 5 out of 7 days and when i miss a day i do double the next day. now you show up with home made pizza!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! its just not fair,waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. i loooooove homemade pizza the best of all. and pepperoni....got any mushrooms and black olives too? you are gonna be the death of me, i swear. yup, put me down for 2 small slices. you are one bad girl sometimes but i loooooooooove for it. :)) drooling in anticipation, jeanne

I'm only just up!! But, yes, it is possible. I was just reading to the end of the thread before saying anything. You do have to draft it yourself - I don't suppose for a moment that there are any existing templates!!

Take your paper - it doesn't have to be graph paper for this.

~draw a horizontal pair of lines half an inch apart and a bit longer than twice the size of the square you want your Drunkard's Path to end up at (so if you want a finished 4", draw lines about 10" long ~in the centre of this pair, draw two vertical parallel lines, half an inch apart and the same length ~so you have a cross of two pairs of parallel lines half an inch apart; this cross represents your inner seam allowances ~take a compass with radius of 4" (or any plate etc with a diameter of

8" - though that will be difficult to position), and draw 4" quadrants in each of the four corners of the cross (it should be pretty obvious what you're doing by that time!!)

Sorry - this is more difficult to explain than to do. But, it is most definitely possible. Hope that helps. As Leslie said, it's easy to do four at a time.

If you want to do two - as your original question said - do it the same way as the above, just don't extend the vertical lines below the horizontal lines and you're there. . In message , Leslie & The Furbabies in MO. writes

Can we try it with cookies instead? I'm not really a pizza sort of girl. Although if you make the pizza and I don't have to cook........well, that's the sort of situation that could turn me into a pizza-eater. :)

Seriously, where do all of you get your mathknowledge? I know I took geometry in high school -- 30-some years ago. I remember very little about it now except that we did a lot of things with angles and circles and I wasn't very good at it. I really appreciate the accumulated knowledge and experience here. Thank you very much. I'm going to experiment later today and see what happens. If it's good, I'm going to cut out a very serious pattern intended for Asian prints of a r omantic sort. But I'm using brights that have big colorful frogs and balloons and such. I have nobody to give it to. My neice already has too much stuff from me and they wouldn't know where to put another quilt. But my inner child saw that frog fabric and just whined until I gave in and bought it. I'm working on too much right now and have some deadlines coming, but this is the quilty equivalent of caramel popcorn: irrisistible.

Sunny

polly esther wrote:

Julia in MN

Hi Sunny -- here's a link that might be helpful:

Nancy in NS

I'm going to cringe very loudly.....

Please, try to do this without all the pins. One or 2 is all it takes, honest. I just taught a class on Sun. that was this block. And everyone made many blocks with virtually perfect curved seams with one pin. (Granted these were 6-7 inch blocks but the same principle applies. )

Remember, the curved edges are bias. The most important thing about bias is to handle it as little as possible. the more pins you use the more you are handling the edges and the more likely to stretch somewhere.

Hints for doing this more easily:

1. Add an extra quarter inch to all straight edges. This gives you a half inch of straight seam before starting to curve, and after finishing the curve. It also means that you have plenty of space to trim the block to the correct size which takes some of the pressure off.

1. Cut accurately. Then you know the seam line of both pieces are the same length. The cut edges are not. The "pie" piece has a longer cut edge than the "background" or "L" piece.

leading to....

1. Sew with the pie piece/ longer edge on the bottom. The "L" piece is the one that has to be manipulated to match the "pie". you will be slightly stretching the edge, not the seam line, of that piece and it will be forming folds in doing so. You want to be able to see those folds and make sure you don't sew through any of them to form pleats in the final seam.

1. Pinning.... fold both pieces with right sides out, to find the center of the seam. While folded, place them together so the center fold lines up. Hold the "middle" 2 layers of this sandwich together at the center, open up and place one pin there. This makes it easy to see that the seam lines are "equally" curved away from each other. Match up the end of the seam, with the pie on the bottom, (pin if you have to to hold them in place by pinning parallel to the seam about a half inch from the cut edge.) Place under the pressure foot and sew about 3-4 stitches. This is a straight seam. Stop with needle down in the fabric. Hold where you have pinned in the center, and gently "scootch" the top fabric over to meet the bottom fabric at the edge. Honest, it will just gently curve right to it. If you need to reach underneath and gently almost tug the bottom fabric into place. Sew up to the pin. Stop with needle down. Take out the pin, put it at the end of the seam as in the beginning if you need to. Adjust the fabrics as you just did, and finish sewing the seam.

Another reason for not using a lot of pins is that every time you stop to take out one of those pins it is a chance to "bump" the seam. This is how you get jagged, uneven seams. You do need to stop and adjust your hold on the fabrics once, maybe twice on a really large curved seam, but not any more. You will be amazed at how easy it is to do it this way. Try it a few times and see. please???

Pati, in Phx

Ann wrote:

Actually what you would want to do is make a "squared circle". Take a circle, cut it into quarters. Add 1/2" between the parts, all the way through the center. So you would have a circle with 1/2" flat spots equally spaced around it.

Pati, > Leslie,

I recently completed a drunkards path quilt but to my shame I tacked (4" blocks) and it worked for me so I suppose that's what counts. However, I have since bought but not tried a 'curvemaster' foot which according to the 'hype' avoids the use of pins on curves. All the demos I've seen have been on comparatively 'large' blocks which tend to be easier because the curve isn't so severe, therefore less 'puckering'

Has anyone used one of these and do they live up to the 'hype' without hours and hours of learning/practice?

About half a dozen of us have used them with pretty uniform success. As with most things there is a period of adjustment, but I got a perfect 4" DP block on my second try, and most after that worked OK - 1 or 2 failures, but no more than I would expect using any other method.