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If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you probably are aware of my “seat of the pants” style of measuring. When other teachers are coming up with the perfect mathematical formulas for getting things to fit – I’m trying to come up with an easier way. Most times accurately cutting and measuring are the way to go, but occasionally quicky techniques work just as well… or better.

A few examples would be a post I did for “Turning a Block On-point” or another I entitled “Fitting Borders – Mathlessly” (simply click on each title to visit those posts).

This time I was inspired when my friend Mary emailed me asking:

“When you put a block on end,  can you tell me if there is a formula to know how big to cut the set in triangles? 

To add triangles in a row as in the image above, you simply need to cut squares the proper size and then cut these squares along one diagonal. Calculating the actual measurement for this is quite easy to do. When adding seam allowance to a square or rectangle quilters add 1/2″ (1/4″ seam allowance for each side). When cutting triangles there is an additional seam and, since it’s a diagonal one, 3/8″ needs to be added to the original 1/2″ (you don’t need to know the math – just trust me 😊).

So let’s assume the the blocks above were going to finish 6″. To cut a square that would yield two setting triangles, 7/8″ should be added to the finished size (1/2″ + 3/8″). Thus the square should be cut 6 7/8″. BUT WHO WANTS TO CUT 7/8″ INCREMENTS??? Instead we’ll add 1″, making it a 7″ square. This little bit of extra gives us some wiggle room and can easily be trimmed off when squaring up the row.

To make the “D” triangles above, you can cut 4 by adding 1 1/4″ to the finished size of your block and cutting this square on both diagonals.

Now… what if you want to cut setting triangles for a diagonal set quilt?

These triangles may be cut using the technique above so that they will fit precisely, but that leaves a bias edge around the entire quilt and I dislike the potential for stretching this creates. Also, I usually want the setting triangles around the outer edge of a quilt to be a little over-sized so the quilt blocks will “float”. This prevents the corners of the blocks from being cut off. Here are my “seat of the pants” measurements for quickly determining how to cut these triangles:

1. Lay the cut quilt blocks point-to-point, using a ruler to align them properly. As you can see, these blocks are finishing 5 1/2″ (6″ unfinished):

In order to have a straight of grain edge around the quilt we will cut an oversized square of fabric and then cut it on both diagonals, yielding 4 triangles. To do this lay the ruler from point to point:

My measurement for the 5 1/2″ finished blocks is 8 1/2″. I added 1 1/2″ to this measurement and cut a 10″ square (yes – 1 1/2″ no matter the size of the blocks – again, just trust me). This will yield a good sized float which allows plenty of excess to square up the quilt top without cutting off block corners:

Each triangle can be placed between a pair of blocks when laying out the quilt:

Once all the triangles are cut the quilt may be laid out (I’m showing only a portion of my quilt for demonstration purposes):

The triangles are placed at the ends of the diagonal “rows” and sewn on with the right angle corner of the triangle even with the block. Once all the “rows” are stitched they may be sewn to each other:

Even thought this is only a portion of the finished quilt, you can see that there is more than 1/4″ of black around each red corner.

Once the quilt top is all together the corner triangles can be made by adding 1 1/2″ to the finished size of your blocks and cutting two squares at this measurement. They may each be cut on one diagonal, yielding all four corners.

For those of you who are perfectly accurate when stitching – please use the precise measurements. For those of you who are off a little here and there, welcome to the club, and enjoy my hopefully helpful “seat of the pants” techniques.

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And just a short note about another Wonderful Retreat!

I just returned from yet another weekend away with some dear quilting friends. Laura is such a blessing to me in so many ways, and her organizing of quilt retreats is just one of them. This time 7 of us gathered at the Tall Pines Quilt Retreat in Mukwonago, WI (click here for more information). Our visit was definitely snowier than this photo!

Laure and Hans have done a wonderful job of making this sprawling home the perfect spot for quilters – five bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a very large sewing studio, made it a delightful place to stitch,

with wonderful friends,

good food,

and quite a bit of crazy fun!

Thank you ladies for a fantastic getaway!

I’m making great progress on the king sized quilt for our bed. I posted a few weeks ago about the process for making the string pieced blocks (click here for a link to that post). As soon as all 120 blocks were completed I couldn’t resist laying them out on the floor of my studio. After admiring them for a day I realized I wasn’t able to move in there, so I gathered them all up for the next step: paper removal!

This proved to be much easier than I expected, and I’d like to share the process I came up with. My first discovery was that the blocks I pieced on pages from an old phone book were the easiest foundations to remove. I highly recommend them. But the ones pieced on regular paper weren’t all that difficult either.

I quickly got into a rhythm. Here’s the process:

1. Begin at a corner and place your thumbnail along the seam at the edge of the paper to protect the stitches from pulling out. With your other hand rip the corner triangle back over the seam quickly.

2. Pull the next foundation piece away from the stitching at one end, place your thumb under it, and run it to the other end, releasing the paper from the seam.

3. Hold the stitches secure with your thumbnail on the next seam and repeat step 1.

I continue removing strips until I reach the center diagonal seam, then I rotate the block and continue from the opposite corner until all the strips are removed.

Once all the blocks have been freed from their foundations, it’s time to sew them together. This quilt is really scrappy, so there’s no reason to overthink the layout – unless it matters to you. (I have friends who would agonize over this – and you know who you are 🤣).

I decided to begin by sewing them together into pairs in the shape of a “V”:

And continued until I had 60 pairs. I then sewed the pairs into rows of 4s, making sure that the ends of each strip remained Vs:

As I sewed these units of 4s into 8s I realized that if I kept sewing these units together in this fashion I wouldn’t get the results I wanted because my plan was to have 20 blocks across. Sewing two 8s into 16s was fine, but sewing two 16s would not give me 20! So I needed to set aside 10 of the above 4 block units before I stitched my 8s into 16s. The saved 4s would then give me the 20 block rows I required.

Notice how the pair of blocks on each end of the 8 block units are still Vs:

The 8s will be sewn into 16s (with Vs on the ends – this may be repetitive, but there’s a reason – read on 😊):

Once the 4 block units were added, it was time to press. As I made the blocks I consistently pressed the seam allowances in the same direction. If you zoom in to the rows below, you’ll notice all the vertical seam allowances are pressed to the right:

By pressing all the V rows alike I am able to flip every other row to create diamonds, and the seam allowances will butt (kiss and hug) when the rows are sewn together. Proper pressing does make the quilt lay flatter.

I am really enjoying this project and am confident I’ll have a new king sized quilt on my bed before year’s end. Stay tuned 😃!

PS In my last post about this quilt Shellie commented with the question “why bother with the paper when piecing these blocks”. Since you may have missed my reply – I thought I’d share it here:

“I’ve made a quilt where I pieced chunks and strips without a foundation, and then cut them into the proper sized squares. I discovered there was a lot of measuring and fussing to achieve the right size and shape. I found that frustrating. So when Lori told me of this technique I wanted to give it a try. I like the way the size and shape are obvious as I piece, and the angle is kept perfectly.”

A few weeks ago I posted about what I was stitching on during our time of isolation. One of the projects I shared was a twist on my Mariner’s Compass technique inspired by my friend Mary Ellen. I made three of these compass stars while on retreat in the beginning of March:

Then I made 3 more while I was “safer at home”:

The drafting is almost identical to the technique I use in my Compass Capers book (click here to purchase a copy).

I begin with a circle of paper, but this time I fold it into sixths instead of the traditional eighths. Then, as in the book, a few marks are made, and I connect the dots! Here’s an example:

By connecting the dots in different ways, many different stars can me made as is evidenced in the 6 compass stars above. I then cut them into wedges and paper piece them.

Once my compass stars were made I decided they would be beautiful in a tree skirt (our current skirt is 44 years old and has seen better days). To do this I taped together newsprint until it was a good size for a tree skirt. I folded this large piece into sixths, laid a compass star at the outer edge of the paper and drew an arc to fit. These 6 wedges were cut apart and I was ready to cut my background fabric, batting and backing.

I decided to use a “quilt-as-you-go” technique for putting the skirt together. This meant I could layer and quilt each wedge individually which made things much easier. And this is the finished tree skirt (I know it’s not a Christmas tree but, c’mon, it’s May 😄):

I used a number of different techniques while putting this project together and I’ve decided to do tutorials on them in the next few posts. Stay tuned 😊!

Last Fall I posted about a fun pattern by Mary Ellen Hopkins entitled Bricks and Mortar (click here to read that post). In it I made a quilt for my nephew and his wife and I promised a photo of them with their wedding quilt and here it is:

Around this same time my friend Debbie was looking for a pattern to make a quilt for her son. Tim is a fisherman for fun and a mason tender by trade. She found some wonderful fishing fabrics for his quilt and when she saw my Bricks and Mortar quilt – she knew she had the right pattern.

She used a panel for the center of the quilt, instead of the center square, and we figured out what size to make it so the bricks would fit. Then she took it to a whole new level because she felt he would notice that the mortar didn’t go all the way around the bricks. It isn’t completely realistic.

I knew that adding mortar around every “round of bricks” would throw off the measurements, so I recommended she grab some graph paper and see how it would work. She figured it out and I was impressed.

Here’s a close up of her bricks with the complete mortar:

It takes a bit more piecing, and the corner blocks have a unique shape, but I think I like it as much if not much if not more than the original pattern. And here’s the quilt top – with just one more border to be added:

I’m sure Tim will love this quilt! Great job Deb! Thanks for letting me share.

Last week I shared instructions on how to create a twisted ribbon quilt border using Seminole piecing (click here to read that post). Now that we’ve found a simplified way to make this beautiful border – how do we get it to fit the quilt? Even though I love geometry, piecing that corner square didn’t look like fun to me at all. If you’ve taken my classes you know I want my quilts to turn out well, but I’m only willing to drive myself crazy to a point – then I find an alternate plan that will make me happy. That’s what I did on this quilt… Adding corner squares worked for me.

Getting the borders to fit the center of the quilt required some math, and THAT I was willing to do – by way of a slick trick I learned years ago: spacer borders!

Can you see I added an inner border in the rust colored background fabric around the original blocks in the photo above? This separated the center of the quilt top from the pieced border and gave me a great way to make the border fit (plus – it would have been very visually busy to have the pieced border snug against the pieced blocks).

The “spacer border” makes fitting the pieced border a breeze. To begin:

Measure your quilt top from side to side and subtract a 1/2″ to get the finished size. Mine was 20″:

Construct a border strip longer than the width of your quilt top. Measure this strip and subtract 1/2″ to get the finished size. Mine was 24″:

Subtract the center from the border. Mine was 4″. Divide this by half and add 1/2″ seam allowance back to this number. This is the width the spacer border needs to be cut. Mine was 2 1/2″. Sew these strips to the sides of your quilt.

If your quilt is square, use this measurement for the top and bottom also. If your quilt is a rectangle you’ll need to do this same process for the length of the quilt top to determine the width of the spacer borders to be added top and bottom.

Once the quilt top has the spacer borders attached, the twisted ribbon borders can be added top and bottom. To add the pieced side borders:

Cut 4 corner squares from the ribbon fabric at the same measurement as the width of your pieced border (mine was 3″). Sew these squares to the ends of the side border strips. Sew the side borders on.

Once the pieced borders were on, I added another border in the rust colored background fabric to complete the twisted ribbon effect, and framed it all with a larger border of the print fabric from which my original Spin Star blocks were made. It was a beautiful fabric for the final border, and I think it made lovely stars!

I love adding spacer borders because it allows me to make the pieced borders whatever size I like – then adjust the quilt size to fit the borders. It’s a helpful trick to have in your toolbox!

I taught my Seminole Sampler workshop a few weeks ago and after lunch Carmen showed me a photo of a recent quilt she’d made. It had a twisted ribbon border and she said it was such a pain to piece she only bordered it top and bottom.

I too attempted to use this border on a quilt years ago, and I gave up. But, as I looked at Carmen’s quilt, it occurred to me that I might be able to Seminole piece it. I was right! And it is much easier than it looks!

To begin, let me share what I call a simple Seminole border. It looks like a row of squares on point.

This may seem complicated, but the trick is strip piecing. Here’s the step-by-steps from my handout (with instructions in the caption):

Making the twisted ribbon border is fundamentally the same process, with one simple change. Here’s the quilt that resulted from this experiment:

And here’s how it’s done:

Choose 3 fabrics: a light background, a pretty ribbon fabric, and a fabric for the “back” of the ribbon. This border can be done many sizes, but to make a sample I used 2 1/2″ strips.

Cut: 2 light background strips, 1 ribbon strip and 1 back of ribbon strip.

Sew: a background strip to each side of the “back of ribbon” strip and press towards the dark.

Cross-cut pieces at 2 1/2″ (or whatever your original strip width was)

Measure these pieces (mine measured 2 1/2″ x 6 1/2″), and cross-cut as many pieces from the ribbon fabric strip at this measurement as you are able. Lay out the seminole border, alternating the pieced units with the “ribbon” rectangles:

I hope you can see that the layout is the same as for the simple Seminole above, the only difference is that every other unit is a full piece of the “ribbon” fabric.

So how do you know how far to jog the top strip down when you sew the pairs together without seams to match up? Simply offset the end of the “ribbon” unit by 1/4″:

Flip the “ribbon” unit on top of the pieced unit and stitch into pairs:

To line up the pairs for stitching offset the lower end of the “ribbon” unit by 1/4″:

Flip and sew once again. To make “foursies”:

Continue in this manner until all the pairs are connected into a border strip. Then trim off the triangles on each side of the strip, 1/4″ from both sides of the “back of ribbon” squares (mine are the black squares):

Make sure your strip is a consistent width when you trim the second side.

Also, be careful with these trimmed strips because the long edges are all bias. I find it best to sew them to the quilt right away. If that’s not an option, stay stitching the long edges would be wise.

To square off the strip, cut squares from the background fabric (mine were 3″), then cut them in half diagonally:

Sew one to the end of each border strip:

Next week I’ll share how to make these borders fit on your quilt!!!

Leaving you with a smile!

I try not to include pics of my grandkids too often, but this week I just couldn’t resist. For those of you not in southeastern Wisconsin – it’s been a very unusual Autumn here. We had a blizzard on Halloween! And less than a week later we got hit with another 4″ of snow! The kids loved it. Trey and I made a snowman after school last Wednesday (he’s in 4K) and there were plenty of leaves stuck in the snow:

Then we got the great idea to swap heads with the pumpkin he helped me carve:

He breaks me up!