Seams Sew Easy

. . . . not to staple the packaging to the product!

I mostly use my Featherweight to sew 1/4″ seams, but last month I decided to use her for flip and sews. You know where you place a small square piece on a larger piece and sew corner to corner, commonly called “sno-balls” I thought a darling daisy shaped seam guide  might be worthy of such a splendid machine.

My thoughts were not shared with the packaging department, where the wicked stapler vicously weilded his weaponry through the bag and the seam guide, tearing it in several directions.

I’m a fixer. I fix things. I tried to snap the pieces together flat to no avail.

When I spend slave-like-a-dog-cash on an 80 year old machine, countless hours polishing her to a fine sheen, more time selecting and assembling fabric to make a  tote with matching scratch free bed cover to protect her from the elements, I will not unceremoniously place a jagged thingy of any sort on her bed!

 

Hopefully Connecting Threads will replace this item, so I can get on with my life. I have a lot of snoballs to make!

• Before I recieve suggestions on how to live without this seam guide, just know that:

1 I will not

2 I have other machines, and did in fact already use my Rocketeer to do some snoballing.

Update: They sent another one out quickly, and it was not stapled to the packaging. Yay!

Q: what is it?

A: This picture of my Rocketeer with “The Angler” seam guide was a test after I refurbished it.  Normally, I would have made tiny holes to screw it into the bed instead of the tape. Anyway there are 1/4 inch lines on BOTH sides of the needle, plus diagonal lines to sew corner to corner without having to mark the fabric. The daisy shaped one has different lines, but works much the same way.

 

#SeamsSewEasy #BeeinMyBonnet #BadStapler #Rocketeer

 

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Quarter Square Triangle from Layer Cake Alternative

Today, lets play with two 10 in squares sliced 4 times to get 8 Quarter Square Triangles, or QST’s.

I am a Jenny fan, and I do buy precuts, but many times I want to make additional blocks to make the quilt bigger, or I run into a piece in a pack that I don’t want to use for the quilt I am making.
This will require hitting my stash for co-ordinating fabric, and knowing what size that block is and how much fabric I need, would be helpful.
So if you want to know just what size block you get when you slice and dice a 10 inch square 4 times, like in Jenny’s  Checkered Lattice Quilt, here you go:

I grabbed some crappy scraps and sewed them right, or as I like to say “pretty” sides together with a 1/4″ seam on all 4 sides. In reality, I sewed these wrong sides together, but I didn’t rip the stiches out, because A: No side of this fabric was very pretty, and B: this was only an experiment.
PRETTY sides together folks!
I sliced my sandwich in half using Missouri Star’s wonderful 5×15 ruler in each direction.

Then I sliced the sandwich corner to corner in each direction, making 8 pieces.

Each piece will be a 2 color triangle measuring 4 3/4″ tall and about 9 1/2″ long.

The backside is shown here

It is important to note that you get 4 with blue on the left and 4 with blue on the right.

I sewed them together, matching up the opposite colors.

If you do this, you will get almost 6 1/2″ block.

If you trim sparingly, you will get 6 1/8 which is odd, so I recommend trimming to an even 6″ which I did not do here. It’s difficult to trim to 6 1/8, so I won’t do that again!

Make sure you get your corners better than I did below! See the top two? You’ll see them later in the finished block as cut off points!

#WhyWeExperimentWithCrappyFabric

and here’s our cut off points, right smack in the middle!

Sewing those four 6 1/8 blocks gets you one 11 3/4 block, but if you trim to 6″, count on getting 11 1/2″

Here’s the “pretty” side.  Ooops!

 

 Alternative for additional blocks or Stash busting instructions:
I measured the results of the 8 piece cutting method, and discovered you can get the same cut with two 5″ squares!
Can you say “Charm Pack Hack”?

 

Yes, two charms will make 2 of the same size QST’s as Jenny’s method above.
Note that these are not Half Square Triangles [HST’s] so you can’t sew them corner to corner.
You have 2 options.
1. Sew down opposite sides which will give you two of the same QSTs.
Cutting from the bottom left to the top right as shown, will give you two with the top color [blue] on the right, and the bottom neutral color on the left.
If you cut from the bottom right to the top left [not shown], you will get two pieces with your top color [blue] on the left.

However, once you turn one upside down to sew it to the other, they will line up perfectly for the checkered lattice quilt.
OR
2. sew down one side plus around the corner like an L shape. Cutting diagonally through the point where the stitch lines meet, will give you two opposite QST’s, one with blue on the right, and one with blue on the left. [shown with red number 3]

Now if you take these two opposites [red #3] and face them together, they won’t be opposite anymore. The two blues will be next to each other!  I only included this option  in case you need to replace a block or two. Misstakes happen!

Lets take example number 1 and play a bit . . .

When you cut it, go ahead and cut it corner to corner, and remove those few stitches.

You will get 2 of the same pieces which will line up as opposites.

Now lets sew them together, and here is our square again. See the pretty side up? I can learn!

Even though this block cries out for prettier fabric, I have 2 quilts going on right now, and  I’m not getting out more fabric, so here is the Checkered Lattice block made with 2 crappy charms. It trims to 7 1/2 inches.

That means one charm pack [of 40 pieces] will get you 20 blocks, which if placed 4 across and 5 down, will get you a 28×35 quilt before borders.

2 charm packs +4 extra pieces makes 42 blocks to get 6 across and 7 down for a 42×49 quilt before borders.

When trimming/squaring up this block, make sure you get the 3 3/4″ mark in the center, and your corners on the fabric color change for the best results when assembling.

 

There you have it. A charmpack Hack by Yours truly,

PrettyCurious, author of WhatWerks

 

#CheckeredLatticeQuilt #10inchSquaresSliced4Times #PrecutAlternative #LayerCakeHacks #CharmPackHack #TheydontCallMePrettyCuriousForNothing #MistakesHappen