Monday, March 26, 2012

February Instructions - 1.5" Challenge Quilt

Challenge Quilt
(1.5 Inch Squares)
February
When working with tiny pieces like this, there are three important things:
Accurate cutling
Accurate seam allowances
Accurate pressing
If you are careful with these three things, the quilt will have matching seams and lie flat. If not, there will be trouble all the way.
If you don't have a 1/4" presser foot, measure carefully from the needle and put a piece of masking tape or moleskin at exactly 1/4".
Takethetimetosewafewpiecesandmeasure,justtobesureyou'rerightonthemark. Therearesomanyseamsinthis
quilt that just a tiny difference can make a huge difference in just a few seams.
This month we are going to be working with the lights.
Cut all the lights into 2" strips. If you're using fat quarters, cut them the longest way (about 22" long) for the most efficient use of
fabric. If you're using scraps from your stash, just cut them so your strips are fairly close to the same length as each other.
l. Begin sewing. There is lots of "mindless" sewing, so put a movie on or get some good music going. Sew all the white strips into
sets of 4. Mix your fabrics so you don't sew any to that are alike next to each other. Variety is good.
Your sets will look like this:
2. Press the seams all in the same direction. When pressing, it is usually best to press from the FRONT, so you don't get any inadveftent
little tucks at the seam line. Your pressed strips should measure 6.5" across.
3. Cut72 6.5" x 6.5" squares from the strip sets. If you are using fat quafters, you should get three squares from each strip set with
a little left over. You'll use the leftovers in the next step.
4. Cut 184 2" x 6.5" strips from the remaining strip sets and the leftover ends of the sets from step 3. Put these 2 x 6.5 strips into a
ziplock bag and save them for the border, which we'll construct later.
5. Make the white blocks by sewing 4
Then use these to make l8 sets of four like this:
Put the l8 squares into a ziplock and set them aside. They're ready for when we set the quilt together.
of the step 3 squares together. First make 36 sets of two like this:
=ITTI
H i l t l
That's it for this month. Next month we'll start working with the darks.


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